ARC Project – Trans-Hudson Passenger Rail Tunnel
US$7.6 billion
The project entails the construction of a new two-track tunnel and an expansion of Penn Station New York—currently using a century-old rail system—to accommodate the region’s growing number of commuters. The commuter rail tunnel would more than double its capacity. US$110 million is being invested in this project through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The project is currently in the environmental review and preliminary engineering phase and is scheduled for completion in 2017.

Empire State Building ?Green Initiative
US$100 million
About 75 per cent of the buildings in the United States are more than 20 years old and require energy retrofits—including the 78-year-old Empire State Building. This green renovation is sponsored by Puerto W&M Construction, with the Clinton Climate Initiative acting as an advisor. Along with Johnson Controls, the Rocky Mountain Institute and Jones Lang LaSalle, a plan was developed to reduce the building’s energy consumption by 38 per cent—that represents a savings of approximately US$4 million a year in energy costs.

San Diego Floating Airport
US$20 billion
This proposed project is a floating airport ten miles off the coast of San Diego. According to Ocean Works CEO Adam Englund, this is the best and one of the few options available for the city. San Diego’s only airport, Lindbergh Field, is the busiest single-runway airport in North America. An offshore airport wouldn’t encroach on any other airports, there would be no noise complaints from residents, and pilots would not have to navigate around numerous large buildings. And are they building a tunnel to get there? Not exactly. Travellers would use high speed watercraft to be transported to the airport (take note, Toronto). There’s also talk of a deep-water port for ships. Renewable energy would be used to power the complex—during the presentation it was iterated several times that nothing like this exists in the world. But there are a lot of obstacles to overcome before it exists, including a skeptical public and variables such as fog, large waves, shifting tides and the corrosive properties of seawater. What’s most interesting here, though, is the idea. “Bluefield development,” as Englund calls it, could become standard operating procedure for coastal cities around the world in the next 50 years or so. It may be the only reasonable response to the near impossibility of building mega-projects today in most of North America and Europe.