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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. On a day when we now know the final rules for Manhattan's congestion pricing tolls. Did you hear that? We'll do a segment on that later in the show, and we're going to ask, how is this actually going to change your behavior? We'll find out if any of you do plan to change your behavior because of the congestion pricing tolls.

It's also a day when we now know the New York State budget will apparently not be passed by the start of the new fiscal year on Monday. We will talk to New York City Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer about how the city is still pushing Albany in the negotiations end game to give New Yorkers something meaningful on affordable housing and a big new rezoning proposal for the city that's going to affect a lot of neighborhoods if it goes through that the Adams administration just proposed this morning.

It's also a day when we'll ask if it's safe to be a child actor. We'll talk about a new docuseries-- have you seen it on Max, that exposes what it was like in the heyday of Nickelodeon. Let's just say for now, it wasn't all the sweet and wacky fun that you saw on your screen as a kid, but we start here. We'll talk now about the Francis Scott Key Bridge tragedy in Baltimore, but pull out the lens for a New York, New Jersey, and national view. How did this actually happen? Was it a fluke or does it reveal some kind of national systemic risk given today's ships and bridges?

We'll use the opportunity to just explain how some of our maritime infrastructure works. We take this for granted when we drive or take trains over the many bridges in our lives, or when we buy products that arrive on giant ships or when we go on ships and boats ourselves. With us now are Brian Buckman, a structural engineer and CEO of Buckman Engineering based in Brooklyn, they do Bridge and Maritime engineering, and Peter Ford, founder of SkyRock Advisors, they do port and maritime infrastructure management and are based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.

He's originally from New York, though I understand, and went to school around here, went to the United States Merchant Marine Academy for college. Brian and Peter, thank you both for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Brian Buckman: Thank you.

Peter Ford: Thanks very much for the invitation.

Brian Lehrer: Can I ask you each to start by just talking a little bit about your companies and the kinds of work they do? These are not the kinds of businesses, as you well know, that make it into the news very much until something goes wrong, like happened in Baltimore. Brian Buckman, would you start? What does Buckman Engineering based in Brooklyn do? What kinds of projects or any other way you want to describe your company?

Brian Buckman: Well, sure. I'm a structural engineer and I focus in work related to bridges and maritime structures. I'll do anything from bridge pier protection to traditional piers to ferry terminals. Usually the interaction between structures and vessels once they come into contact with the structure. Lately, I've been busy with some new construction and some rehabilitation work.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Peter Ford, same question for SkyRock Advisors. In the context of infrastructure management, do you manage the kinds of things that Brian's company designs and builds?

Peter Ford: Thanks, Brian. I'm actually an advisor as opposed to a manager. We advise infrastructure funds, port authorities, terminal owners in the port maritime space. We help them identify business challenges and opportunities for improvements both in infrastructure as well as operations, and we advise on mergers and acquisition transactions. We have an overall mandate in and around the space as it involves operations and infrastructure including the construction specifications, not from an engineering perspective, but from a commercial and use requirement.

Unfortunately, as you rightly mentioned, the last couple of years, we've been talking an awful lot about supply chain ports and whatnot. There's been a lot of people interested in what I do lately.

Brian Lehrer: I also see you're a member of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy Advisory Board. They teach this stuff at Cornell?

Peter Ford: They teach the infrastructure policy at Cornell and how to get infrastructure built, what's the best methodology for putting out contracts and bids in regulatory environment. I, of course, provide some insight and help on what does it look like from a maritime perspective and a port requirement perspective, which sometimes has a little bit of a different take than bridges and tolls and roads and so on and so forth.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get into some regulatory and policy questions as we go, and whether the accident in Baltimore implies any need for regulatory change. Brian, let me go back to you and just ask you, basically with your expertise in this field as a structural engineer, what happened in Baltimore? For the untrained eye watching on television, it was shocking to see that bridge, that big, long, major piece of infrastructure appear to crumble like a child's toy. What physically happened there to cause that collapse?

Brian Buckman: Well, I'll say firstly that I don't have a tremendous background in the actual structural details of the bridge. As a concept, the vessel lost steerage and when it rammed into the pier, it was a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. You have a massive vessel and it's going several miles an hour, I think I've heard figures of between six and eight knots. That's a decent speed. That amount of kinetic-

Brian Lehrer: That's about nine miles an hour as I understand it, for people who don't know knots, right?

Brian Buckman: Yes. That's a tremendous amount of energy and it doesn't just stop when it hits the bridge. There's going to be a balance of where does that energy go. I think in this case, the bridge wasn't enough to stop all of that energy. It's a very rare condition, a very rare accident. You don't see it very often. Once that one pier goes the structure really doesn't have a chance of staying up with when you lose one out of the two main supports.

Brian Lehrer: Just one vocabulary word, when you say the ship hit the pier, that's not like a pier that you fish off, that pier, as you use that word, is part of the bridge, right?

Brian Buckman: Yes, in the context that I'm speaking right now, the pier is the main support. That would go from the underside of the spanning part all the way down to the foundation. That would be the substructure of the bridge.

Brian Lehrer: I'll stay with you for one more question in this set before we go to Peter on some things about the ship. You said this is rare, and obviously, if it was less rare, we'd hear about these things in the news more, but how much of a fluke does that appear to you to have been, and how much of something that could happen to lots of bridges from lots of ships and lots of places?

Brian Buckman: I think it's difficult to answer just because every bridge over a navigable channel has their own nuances. I think for the most part, the standard procedure when the ship is performing properly and the captains are always doing their best to be in control of the ship, it's very rare. Usually, there is some sort of a fluke happening like a rare case that the ship loses power or loses control or the operator has a medical emergency at a critical juncture. I think it's exceedingly rare that this sort of accident happens.

Brian Lehrer: Just for some context that I looked up the associated press says from 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions with a total of 342 people killed, citing a 2018 report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure. That says 18 of those collapses happened in the United States, and among them were a 2002 incident in which a barge struck the Interstate 40 bridge over the Arkansas River at Webbers Falls, Oklahoma sending vehicles plunging into the water. 14 people died and 11 were injured.

Just a little background on the number of incidents over a 55 year period worldwide, and at least that one previously in the United States. Peter, let's talk about the cargo ship. I read that it's almost 1,000 feet long, so that's like three football fields or about four city blocks long. Is that unusually large for a ship?

Peter Ford: Not unusually large for a ship anymore. In fact, not the largest ship out there, which is typically now around 400 meters long. Those are the largest vessels, but it is the growth of container ships in particular has accelerated since the '90s. Back when this particular bridge was built, the largest vessel is somewhere in the 2,500 TEU range. it was significantly smaller. TEU is being 20-foot equivalent units or 20-foot containers. Probably somewhere along the lines of about 200 meters, give or take, so about 30% longer nowadays-

Brian Lehrer: Right. This is 300 meters compared to the 200 meters that was more common. Sorry, go ahead.

Peter Ford: Then of course, also the older vessels were much narrower. They were only about 20 meters wide versus today, this ship, in particular, the Dali was 48 meters wide. We see a significant growth. Then the largest out there today as I said, 60 meters wide and 400 meters long. Much, much larger, and those don't call Baltimore just yet.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your questions about how shipping, ports, and bridges work, and if the tragedy in Baltimore suggest any more systemic protections that need to be put in place, 212-433-WNYC, call or text. We can take questions just out of your curiosity or anyone else who works in or has some expertise in these fields, you're welcome to chime in too and add to what our guests are saying. Our guests, Brian Buckman from Buckman Engineering and Peter Ford from SkyRock Management, which manages maritime infrastructure. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Peter, the reporting I've seen says the ship sent a mayday call reporting it lost power, but that it continued toward the bridge at a high rate of speed anyway, for a vessel like that, about nine miles an hour, as you said. Do you know enough to explain why if it lost power, it wouldn't have slowed to a stop?

Peter Ford: Absolutely, yes. I think it's important to remember in exactly what Brian just talked about, this kinetic energy, momentum plays a major role, and of course, ships don't have brakes. If the power propulsion and steerage all went out, then there's no ability to put the vessel astern to put it in reverse, and so it would just continue on only being affected by the current. As we saw, actually in this case, the current did push the vessel out of the track, out of the channel, pushing the bow, the front of the vessel to starboard or pointing south a little bit, which then caused it to hit that southern pier as Brian called it.

Just for technicalities, the vessel maneuverability guidelines typically look for, on a ship this size, even if you put the vessel full astern, put it fully in reverse 100%, it would take 15 times the length of the ship to stop. That's about 2.8 miles if we think about that. That's at full speed of course. The vessel was not at full speed. It was just slightly half speed, if you will, at the eight and a half knots or nine knots. We could reduce that, but by the time the vessel lost power and everybody understood what was happening, it was less than a nautical mile. It was less than a mile from the bridge itself.

I would say that the efforts that the pilot made to call and stop traffic, drop the anchor, call for tug assistance despite the fact that there was no ability to get there in time. They did everything that they possibly could other than having the power restored itself.

Brian Lehrer: Right. With the loss of power, the captain couldn't steer it away from the bridge. That's one of the things that the power enables him or her to do, right?

Peter Ford: Correct. The power to the steers, the rudders are massive. Again, these ships are incredibly large and so the rudder would probably be itself about 10 or 15, 10 meters high. It requires hydraulic motors to drive the arms and move it starboard and port or left and right. Without that power, there would be very little chance of being able to move that rudder.

There is a manual station typically and for an emergency, but it's usually for emergencies at sea, they send somebody way down to the bottom of the ship and then there's a manual crank, if you will, to start to push this but that's a very long process and usually only used, as I said, out at sea to help the ship continue to maneuver as opposed to in tight spaces like we saw here. It would not have been successful, especially since rudders typically only work well when the water is moving through them from the propeller itself.

Brian Lehrer: Roger, in Westchester has a question about the bridge and bridges in general by implication. Roger, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Roger: Good day, gentlemen. My comment is, if you just look at the design of the bridge, it's built to have the most vertical and horizontal clearance, meaning the fewest supporting peers it can get away with. It's not built to have backup support if one fails. That's my comment.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, I guess that would be in your bucket. Any thought?

Brian Buckman: Yes. I totally agree. I think when you're getting into spanning structures, it's a very tall order to imagine that you could lose one of your main supports and still keep the bridge up. Yes, you really can't design backup capacity for that. Yes, I totally agree.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I understand that between Staten Island and New Jersey, the Bayonne Bridge, they raised that. When and why was that, and did that have anything to do with the fact that cargo ships are getting bigger, Brian?

Brian Buckman: Yes. That's a project that it's been very widely reported in the civil engineering community. Yes, the bridge was built in an area where the ships weren't as large and to allow the larger vessels to come in to use the ports in Bayonne and Newark, there was a vertical clearance problem. The solution that was selected was to raise the roadway to give a little more vertical clearance. It was just to keep up with the increasing size of vessels.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another question, Christine on-- well, actually, let me ask you a follow-up question that you just made me think of. Do other bridges in the New York area need that kind of renovation given the size of cargo ships these days?

Brian Buckman: In terms of vertical clearance? I'm not aware of it. I think you look at where are the ports and the cargo destinations. I think that the main path or the toll clearance path would be under Verrazzano and then if need be, under Bayonne. I think those two are at very similar vertical clearance levels.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Brian Buckman: If there are lower bridges, they don't really feed some of the larger ports. Some of that is by design. If you are planning a port, you're going to put it where you can get the ships and you don't have the vertical clearance issues.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Peter, is there anywhere in the New York, New Jersey area for you working with a company that does maritime infrastructure management where an accident like this could hypothetically happen around here where the shipping lane would come close enough to a bridge if the ship lost power in the same way as in Baltimore?

Peter Ford: I think we're significantly less risk in the New York, New Jersey Harbor. Most New Yorkers know all about the bridges that connect to and from Manhattan. Of course, no extremely large container vessels at least pass through those up the East River or up on the West Side of Manhattan. As Brian rightly said, the container traffic and these extremely large vessels that now are in the 18,000 TEU vessels call New York Harbor and can call New York Harbor. That's the 400-meter-long vessels. The very large vessels can call there and they can go underneath the Verrazzano and the Bayonne. Those are the two bridges that they would need to pass by.

In this case, the difference between Baltimore and New York is that New York requires the tugs to come and hook up to and escort the vessels in just off of Staten Island, between Staten Island and Fort Hamilton and the Stapleton Anchorage. There is a pass through the Verrazzano unescorted but then going through the Bayonne Bridge, they have tug [unintelligible 00:20:00]. Bayonne Bridge, of course, has much lower risk because of that. Of course, anything can happen in theory. All tugs and the vessel could all lose power at the same time, highly unlikely but possible, in which case, you could have a ship veer off course and out of the channel. That's a billion-to-one scenario one would imagine. The Verrazzano has a slightly higher risk at this point in time that I would imagine that New York, just like all ports are re-evaluating their processes, their risks and taking a look at how to alleviate and mitigate those in the future.

Brian Lehrer: You may have just answered this, but here's Christine on Staten Island, who we were starting to go to before who has a tugboat question. Christine, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Christine: Hi. Good morning, Brian, and thank you, gentlemen. That actually was my question. I live on the North Shore of Staten Island, not far from the Kill Van Kull. My daughter and her family likewise live a little further away, but also along the Kill Van Kull. We traverse Richmond Terrace all the time. We're watching the working waterfront that we have here, and we're seeing our tugboats, and we have our favorite tugboats and such.

When I saw my daughter and son-in-law last night, my son-in-law said, "Why didn't they have tugs there?" Nothing like that would've happened in our harbor because the tugs take over and keep everybody safe from things like this.

Why are the rules which the gentleman just spoke about that exist in New York Harbor don't exist in Baltimore? Tugs, it seems, would've made all the difference.

Peter Ford: It's a fair question, Brian, if I can answer a little bit and provide a bit of context in that. The approach to the two and from the ports in Baltimore to the terminals and to and from in New York are very different. As you rightly said, the Kill and the turn up to Newark Bay, that's quite a tight maneuvering area. The requirement to have tugs between Staten Island and Fort Hamilton in through and out of that channel are really appropriate. In general, other than emergencies like this, the Baltimore Harbor is a straight shot, come off the pier, make a U-turn, and go straight out underneath the bridge and the tugs leave after they help it get into the channel and it's on track.

In which case, the Dali was very clearly in the channel and on its way appropriately. As I said earlier, I think now all pilot associations, tug companies, and port authorities will likely be reexamining their processes and taking into account maybe greater black swan events to alleviate and mitigate those risks.

Brian Lehrer: Hey, Christine, before you go, did you say you have favorite tugboats?

Christine: Yes. Well, when you have an 8-year-old granddaughter who's been watching the tugs, and so the Moran ships have a big M so they're of course for the mommy. She's named them all by the lettering that's on them and the coloration. We'll have running conversations if we're pulled over and we're watching the Kill, see what's going on. She'll identify stories about that.

To your point before about the engineering marvel of raising the Bayonne Bridge that the Panamax ships can go on, and we'll be going down like a road that runs perpendicular to the Kill, and all you'll see is this massive, colorful containers seemingly moving along effortlessly until you get closer to the water and you see that you're on a large barge, which is being pushed or pulled by one of our favorite tugs. Tugs just seem to be the way to save the day in this case if that ship lost power and was unable to control itself, it just seems that a tug would've made an enormous difference.

Brian Lehrer: I guess have an 8-year-old grandkid and you're going to have favorite tugboats in your life. Christine, thank you very much for your call, that was wonderful. Hey, do you nuts and bolts infrastructure guys have a sense of wonder about New York as a city of water or any other city like this for that matter, and what it takes in the big picture sense to keep everything connected with all these islands that people around here live and work on? I love going up to the observation deck of the World Trade Center.

I did it with the Old Trade Center. I did it with the New Trade Center where you can really see the geography of the waterborne metro area of 15, 20 million people and bridges and ships from that thousand-foot vantage point. Besides working on the nuts and bolts, does it amaze you just what the earth is and looks like around here, Brian, and that it's been so developed to the degree that it has?

Brian Buckman: Absolutely. It's really astounding some of the civil engineering marvels that we have here. I think another vantage point that I take is some of the boat tours like the Circle Line where you can circle the Island of Manhattan and pass under all of the bridges that connect Manhattan and Brooklyn and Manhattan and Queens and up through the Harlem River and just all of the network that we have just to be able to cross the rivers for car traffic. It's really, really amazing all of the work that they've done over the last 150 years to connect it.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, you too?

Peter Ford: Absolutely. As a human, I'm marvel at it and I think it's amazing how infrastructure connects us all, bridges, tunnels, but also ports, and airports and it's phenomenal. I've stood in the same spot that you've talked about and marveled at the same thing. At the same time as a maritime infrastructure advisor, when I look at it all I see are bottlenecks and restrictions and things that make it sometimes less efficient to do what needs to be done now going into the future. It's a thought that I hold in both sides of my brain at the same time.

Brian Lehrer: I'll refrain from asking you about congestion pricing, we'll do that later in the show with other people, but we'll continue on city of water infrastructure after the tragedy in Baltimore. We have a board full of calls. People have so many questions and a few stories to tell and interesting questions coming in on texts too. We'll continue with Brian Buckman from Buckman Engineering and Peter Ford who does maritime infrastructure management with his company, stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we talk about the tragedy in Baltimore and the implications for New York and New Jersey waterways and really all around the country and potentially around the world with Brian Buckman, a structural engineer and CEO of Buckman engineering based in Brooklyn. They do bridge and maritime engineering. Peter Ford, founder of SkyRock Advisors, they do port and maritime infrastructure management based in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, but previously from New York. He's an intermodal transportation expert who went to college at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. Chaz in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Chaz?

Chaz: Good morning. I'm a frequent user of the New York City Ferry from Wall Street or actually North of Wall Street down to Rockaway. All those bridges are suspension bridges except for the Gil Hodges Bridge in Rockaway. That bridge has the bumpers around it because I also fish in the area and we fish near the bumpers. Why didn't that bridge have bumpers? Obviously, suspension bridges are much safer. By the way, large container ships are always going up underneath the Verrazzano Bridge, which we can see. Thanks, I'll wait for-

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much and I'm glad you mentioned the Gil Hodges Bridge because any mention of Gil Hodges on opening day of the baseball season is absolutely welcome. Brian, I think that one's for you.

Brian Buckman: Specifically, why didn't the Key Bridge have bumpers? Truly, I don't know. I'm sure that was some of the management decisions and risk assessments that they were performing. Honestly, I don't have the background, so I really wouldn't want to speculate, but the bumpers that you're talking about are one of the strategies that you could use to protect a pier.

There's the large caissons or dolphins that really look like a massive tin can that's pressed into the river and then filled with sand and gravel and usually has a really heavy concrete lid to it. That's really there essentially to be hit. When the vessel strikes your caisson on, it's hitting a massive object that's going to slow it down and it may end up pushing it over or dragging it or even damaging the hull and that's a technique that's used frequently to protect bridges for larger vessels. I've seen some of the older older caissons have like a 45-foot diameter. We're seeing 60 feet and then even even 80-feet diameter caissons that are coming up really just to just to be in the way of the ship, almost like an offensive lineman trying to stop a defensive lineman from getting to the quarterback. That's the best analogy for that type of bridge protection.

Brian Lehrer: Just talk a little bit more about the way you use the word dolphin. That's obviously not a fish or a mammal.

Brian Buckman: Yes, dolphin and caisson I'm using interchangeably, and dolphin is really just a freestanding structure that's in the water. Caisson is usually a vocabulary that I'll flip to when we're getting into some of the massive structures, but yes, they both have a similar function, but usually the caisson is significantly larger.

Brian Lehrer: Before we take another listener question, this happened at 1:30 in the morning. The six people killed were construction workers repairing potholes on the bridge. I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the whole field of these, to use the term that we've been using since the start of the pandemic, essential workers. Invisible to most other people, but if we drive, we see the signs, road maintenance, 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM expect delays, but those are real human beings out there fixing potholes and doing other maintenance in the middle of the night just to make a living.

Peter, can I get you on this? Do you employ those workers or would they be public sector employees or anything you want to say about the folks out there in the middle of the night fixing potholes like those six people who lost their lives in this were?

Peter Ford: Yes, of course, it's an absolute tragedy and our hearts go out to the families of those who lost their lives. Also, I just want to highlight too that [unintelligible 00:32:16] goes out to the pilots involved too, who despite their every effort, are likely replaying those key moments over and over again. These types of workers, an essential absolutely to maintain our infrastructure and keep the world running around us as we go about our every day. They play such a key role and should never really be overlooked.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, you want to chime in on that?

Brian Buckman: Yes, it's the tragedy is striking. The guys that were working they probably were only granted access to the bridge at night. In a way, it probably protected more of the traveling public from having the accident. That that's one of the risks when a bridge collapsed like this is the unsuspecting motorist that would be driving and not know the bridge is out and drive off the edge. The fact that these guys were able to alert traffic and alert the folks and try to keep traffic off the bridge was really helpful. Obviously the lack of traffic on the bridge in general at 1:00 AM was fortuitous.

Brian Lehrer: One text from the listener says, "I have favorite tugboats too, and I'm not six years old." We thank you for that.

Peter Ford: I do too, Brian. There's a Vane tugboat called the Kings Point. Of course, that one has to be my favorite.

Brian Lehrer: We did a segment earlier in the week on the safety problems at Boeing. A listener writes, "Please tie it all together. This is related to the same reasons Boeing is having issues too. Capitalism is to blame. Deregulation and the need to squeeze as much profit out of shops as possible." Maybe they meant to write ships. "Size, less crew, as well as bridges, fewer safeties, structures to block wayward ships, etc, have made everyone less safe." Now, you guys both own or manage businesses. I don't know that you're going to be in a position to do a structural critique of capitalism. As you listen to that, Brian, does the caller does the writer have a point?

Brian Buckman: I think for current structures and things that are being built today and in recent years, the codes are so safety focused and many of the clients, if not all the clients, are very safety focused. A whole multitude of loading conditions and threats are considered. I think when you have some of the older structures that weren't designed for it, I think then you're in a retrofit situation. That's just ongoing work. I think it's a game where you're always behind the ships get larger and all of your previous vessel collision studies are out of date. It's a constant updating. In the same way that trucks are getting heavier, that we understand some of the more natural phenomenon. Yes, I think it's-- I don't suspect that there's corners being cut. I think it's just how well can you keep up with the changing understanding and development of loads.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, are there politics involved with keeping our infrastructure up to date to accommodate technology that develops to make companies more money and give consumers more convenience with these larger ships you were describing before, for example? Maybe your job at that company is to help fend off new regulation. I don't know. Does regulation need to keep up with shipping technology and does it, in your opinion?

Peter Ford: I think here's where we're going to see a little bit of a Venn diagram, an overlap between infrastructure creation and regulation and policy around shipping and maritime activities. I think on one hand, on the policy around shipping and maritime activities, no. We have the SOLAS or Safety of Life at Sea conventions agreed to by all the major shipping entities around the world, including the United States, including Singapore, which is a Singapore flag vessel. There are regulations and guidelines everybody is supposed to live up to. The Coast Guard is out there regularly enforcing them.

They do an amazing job all over the country making sure that the waterways are safe. I don't think deregulation on that side is to blame for anything. I think innovation in increasing size is certainly from the initial containerization founding to today with the increased vessel sizes reduced the cost of shipping tremendously allowing us to live the way that we do.

Then, so here where I do think that there is some improvement is the reaction, the public reaction to the private innovations that Brian was talking about, and that when private innovation comes out with something great and new and better, and that requires an adjustment by public authorities, whether it be guidelines, infrastructure, upgrading or otherwise, that's when we do see politics playing a role and we see that the process required to get something funded, designed and built is far longer in many places where the state governments, federal governments get involved than when private sector does it.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it with Brian Buckman, a structural engineer and CEO of Buckman Engineering based in Brooklyn, they do bridge and maritime engineering, and Peter Ford, who is founder of SkyRock Advisors, a port and maritime infrastructure advisor. I think I mistakenly used the word manager before, but for whatever that difference is, a port and maritime infrastructure advisor, that company, and he is a member of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy Advisory Board. Thank you both so much for sharing your expertise. I really, really appreciate it, and I know our listeners do too.

Peter Ford: My pleasure.

Brian Buckman: Thank you.

 

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