Infrastructure: Facts

Facts on topics related to Infrastructure

10,000 people were employed in the 1830s simply to build canals by the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act?
listed buildings in Minshull Vernon, Cheshire, include five canal bridges, two aqueducts and a former privy?
Delaware Canal State Park in Pennsylvania contains the only intact 19th century towpath canal in the United States?
Dismal Swamp Canal which runs along the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States?
Project Aqua was a proposed hydroelectric scheme for the lower Waitaki River in New Zealand that would have diverted up to 77% of the river's flow into a separate canal?
Sankey Valley Park, Warrington (pictured) follows the course of the historical Sankey Canal, England's first canal?
turret deck ships incurred lower canal tolls because tonnage measurements used to calculate those tolls did not account for the vessels' unique shape?
King Dhatusena, who ruled Sri Lanka from 455 to 473, constructed 18 irrigation tanks, an irrigation canal, and the Avukana Buddha Statue?
although Lehigh Gorge State Park in Pennsylvania is now known for whitewater rafting on the Lehigh River, in the 19th century it was the site of a canal built to bypass those same rapids?
notable former residents of Zwanenburgwal (pictured), a canal and street in the centre of Amsterdam, include Dutch painter Rembrandt and philosopher Baruch Spinoza?

civil engineer Robert Wynne-Edwards was the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers to be elected while still working as a contractor?
Derek Gardner became a leading British painter of marine subjects after retiring from a civil engineering career due to deafness?
Reginald H. Thomson, the civil engineer responsible for "virtually all of Seattle's infrastructure", had a Ph.D. in philosophy?
William Rich Hutton accompanied Edward Ord on an expedition to the Pueblo of Los Angeles in 1849 before returning east to work as a civil engineer on projects including the Washington Bridge?
after a massive expansion program in the 1980s, Lavalin's corporate bankers forced it to merge with the rival SNC Group, forming one of the largest civil engineering firms in the world?
although he has composed music for over 20 video games and conducts the Video Games Live concert series, Jack Wall has a degree in civil engineering?
despite losing his right arm and having no formal civil engineering education, Henry Perrine Baldwin (pictured) oversaw a pioneering sugarcane irrigation system on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 1876?

Ani, a medieval city once rivaling Constantinople, was ransacked by Mongols and now stands in ruin?
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, the national library of Québec, and the public library of the city of Montréal, will share a facility beginning in 2005?
Fort Dallas, a military post used during the Seminole Wars, became the site of the new city of Miami, Florida in 1895?
geographical renaming can take place to change the name of a city or country for many reasons, including as part of a sponsorship deal?

California's four-lane Bayshore Highway, now a freeway, was built to high standards in the 1920s and '30s, but was called "Bloody Bayshore" because of the number of crashes?
Interstate 10 in Texas is the longest continuous untolled freeway under a single authority in North America?
Summerlin Parkway, a freeway in Las Vegas, was initially constructed by the Summerlin homeowners' association?
Wurzbach Parkway, an unnumbered freeway in San Antonio, Texas, does not connect directly to the city's other freeways?
in the history of transportation in Los Angeles, the first California freeway "traffic jam" occurred on January 1, 1940?
the passing lanes of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, were paved in a different color to encourage drivers to stay in their lanes?
the Bradley Airport Connector, a freeway in the U.S. state of Connecticut, was renamed the "82nd Airborne Memorial Highway" in 1999 to honor the 82nd Airborne Division?
the city of West Sacramento, California is converting the former State Route 275 freeway into a surface road by replacing interchanges with at-grade intersections?