Infrastructure

Local government should center its decisions on people’s needs, the city’s newly arrived CIO said. This means hearing from residents and staff alike, and doing more with the information at hand.

The Freestate Middle Mile Network ultimately will deploy 682 miles of fiber with funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. A goal is for Kansas to be among the top 10 states for broadband access by 2030.

A project to connect Union Station in Los Angeles to Dodger Stadium via a mile-long gondola run aims to be done for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. A similar aerial initiative is moving forward in neighboring Orange County.

In Florida, Tampa and Orlando are exploring new water treatment methods. The cities aim to uncover more effective ways to manage pollutants, improve water quality and significantly cut treatment costs.

Technology continues changing our travel. Officials at Boston Logan International Airport are testing artificial intelligence to help travelers sort trash, and they’re eyeing remote terminals, with off-site security checks.

Studies show the United States is not keeping up with electric demand, as electric vehicles and data centers continue to ramp up their burden on the grid. A slowdown in federal funding has not seemed to impact this.

The company plans to reactivate a battery energy storage system at the Moss Landing power complex. A second facility there, a portion of which caught fire in January, remains shuttered and an investigation continues.

Modernizing the state system will require more than just new technology. The undertaking will include a careful “change management” process to receive input and feedback from Hawaii staffers.

The city has improved customer service and billing for its water and sewer customers, in part through new customer service software and a policy alerting residents to issues with bills.

Plus, new broadband legislation has been introduced, the BEAD program remains on hold amid pressure to expedite its review, Philadelphia has launched a laptop distribution initiative, and more.

Public- and private-sector officials gathered this week at the CoMotion Miami conference to air new visions for mobility, and how to get there. Reimagining requests for proposals was one idea considered.

The $7 billion project now being planned would be one of the largest such investments in Indiana history and create more than 1,200 construction jobs. But officials wonder whether power can ultimately be supplied fast enough.

A sprawling 70-year-old high school in Silicon Valley swapped its complex network for a NaaS subscription. The school’s tech director said the service saves his team time while boosting performance and cybersecurity.

An exec at Duquesne Light Co., which provides electricity to the city, cautioned state public utility commissioners that data centers’ “extreme energy demands” could cost other customers.

Officials in the city of about 129,000 residents are probing a server outage detected Friday. They’re working with cybersecurity experts and have disconnected “affected and critical assets to secure our systems.”

At the annual Curbivore conference in Los Angeles, city transit and tech leaders discussed how to keep moving forward in a new environment of shifting political priorities coming from Washington.

The Pennsylvania city has recently launched two new interactive devices, a dashboard and a free Wi-Fi locator. They’re intended to help expand awareness of the free Internet service available to residents.

The $11 billion data center campus going up outside of Northwest Indiana will have a 2,250-megawatt capacity. It will be able to use as much electricity as 1.5 million households, or up to half the households in the state.