EPA Finds New Life for Old Building Materials
Nearly 77,000 tons of concrete will be recycled during the construction of Shops at White Oak Village, a hotel and retail complex in Henrico County, Va. Contractors of the former manufacturing site near Richmond plan to crush the concrete on-site and use it for foundations, sidewalks, and structural support.

In addition to the concrete, the project is expected to also recycle almost 7,500 tons of aluminum, steel, iron, copper, assorted ferrous and non-ferrous metals and electronic equipment from the old building.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been working with the Forest City Commercial Group to incorporate recycling and sustainable design into the project. Demolition of the former Viasystems building began about seven weeks ago following an environmental investigation and selection of a remediation plan according to EPA guidelines.

Bohan to be Named ACI Fellow
Richard P. Bohan, PCA's director of construction and manufacturing technology, will be elevated to the rank of Fellow of the American Concrete Institute at its spring convention, scheduled for April 22-25 in Atlanta, Ga.

Bohan is a member of ACI Committees E 701, Materials for Concrete Construction; E 802, Teaching Methods and Educational Materials; and the ACI Convention Committee. He has also served on a number of certification committees. He joined PCA in 1994.

Results from Last Week:
Transit Fares Well
Should more cities follow the lead of Phoenix and turn to light rail transit as an alternative to expanding the capacity of streets and expressways?

• Yes (95.77%)
• No (4.23%)

Notable Comments:
"Rail is nice but usually empty. There is not a mass transit system on this planet that breaks even or makes money. All it does is sucks funds from the transportation system and does not pay into the system."

"We must also assure that sufficient roadway capacity exists to efficiently allow commerce to move. Freight mobility is critical to global competition as well as clean air."

"Cities should be designed having quality of life in mind instead of just cars and traffic. Remember that the U.S. is the fattest country in the world. We should encourage people to walk, not drive."

"Nobody is going to ride this stupid train. It goes too slow, makes a lot of stops, and will be a traffic burden. It will be faster to sit in street traffic than to take that route."

"Increasing capacity for more automobiles and trucks just encourages wasteful energy consumption and doesn't provide any long term improvements."

"Construction cost of the system would probably be cheaper than the cost of land purchases for street rights-of-way, imminent domain processes, easements, etc. Also the problems of traffic congestion would only be deferred, not solved, and air pollution from exhaust fumes would only increase. The only reservation I have about it is whether the public would utilize it once it is in place."

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