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High Friction Surface treatments include a two-part application of an epoxy binder followed with placement of rough, hard, and durable aggregates on an existing roadway surface. These treatments reduce roadway departure accidents by increasing surface friction. Promoted by PennDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, Allegheny County has used this treatment for the past few years and found it is a cost-effective safety treatment for strategic locations on roadways where friction needs to be maximized (such as steep grades or sharp horizontal curves). It provides texture to existing concrete or asphalt surfaces without sacrificing uniformity or rideability. Other public works agencies may find this treatment has value for their own assets.
Read MoreWhether proposing infrastructure project budgets, relaying critical construction information to stakeholders, or sharing emergency updates to residents, gaining community support and communicating to that community is a key component of a successful public works department. In this session, our presenters will discuss how thought-out and innovative communication plans are vital to the perception of public works departments and community support. Reviewing two case studies, the speakers will discuss outreach and branding strategies used for the City of Gloucester’s Department of Public Works and the Town of Lexington’s Downtown Revitalization Project, sharing how consistent branding and messaging has not only streamlined communication to the public but how these efforts have positively impacted the perception of public works professionals and the imperative work they do.
Read MoreCulture is often used to describe creating a positive work environment. But how is a good culture developed? Is employee engagement and appreciation enough? A leader has to take risks and apply creative ways to focus on morale, retention, and attraction of employees. Engaging employees to help management develop the foundation of a positive culture through a team-building exercise provides instant buy-in. Simply, the employees defined a culture they would like for management, and the speaker guided them to create the foundation. The benefit of the foundation exercise is that participants will leave with ideas that will spark creative thinking, employee engagement, and workforce development.
Read MoreAre you frustrated with your current performance at work? How about your boss? Are you judging someone on your team because you don’t believe they are motivated to get the job done? How about your team? Is it just not functioning the way you would like it to function? When it comes to work, we all have our gifts and natural talents that give us energy. The Working Genius model helps to identify those gifts and natural abilities that help us to maximize our satisfaction and success at work. Don’t think of this as a personality model but more of a ”productivity model” that consists of six necessary ingredients for success. The goal is to see where you and your teammates fit into the model to maximize everyone’s satisfaction and success in the work they do every day.
Read MoreIntelligent transportation systems (ITS) infrastructure impacts on operations and maintenance are on several levels, including the maintenance and operation demand, staffing required, and the cost to ensure the new systems continue to operate. Traffic engineering staff are being asked to do more than ever as fiber communications, cameras, sensors, and cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) are being deployed. Even traditional maintenance has taken on an increased urgency when sensors’ operational uptime is being pushed to 100%. New skills and expertise are needed to maintain and operate new communications, networks, and audio-visual assets. Traditional traffic engineering tasks like signal timing are more complex. Budgeting considerations to keep up with the new systems and ensuring the latest technologies can be accommodated are being challenged as well. Jurisdictions should focus on the operation and maintenance of both new and legacy systems to ensure efficient and cost-effective results for the public.
Read MoreGeorgetown County (GC), a predominantly rural community with limited funding, recently undertook an asset management system (AMS) implementation through its Department of Public Services (DPS) that resulted from a need to replace a 15-year-old work order system. Before AMS, County asset data were a seemingly disparate cache of spreadsheets, systems, and geographic information systems (GIS) maintained within different departments. This presentation will focus on how GC galvanized around a desire to unify AMS data and the process to achieve this result. The assets discussed will include roads, drainage, fleet, facilities, solid waste management, and how County policies were converted to digital workflows. The speaker will also discuss how the County leveraged cloud architecture, which helped them endure a five-month ransomware ordeal. Highlighted will be lessons learned, discerning perception versus reality, and ultimately arriving at the foundation of a strong AMS affording data and financially-driven planning and decision making.
Read MoreThe Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) was constructed in 1936 to treat wastewater from the Twin Cities area. To direct flow to the new facility in St. Paul, large-diameter interceptors were constructed, using combined sewer overflow (CSO) regulator structures to capture dry-weather flow for treatment. Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (MCES) hired Brown and Caldwell to modernize and reconfigure Emergency Relief Structure ERS04 and rehabilitate approximately 800 feet of the downstream sewer tunnel(s). The tunnels and two badly corroded drop shafts required rehabilitation design based on scant inspection data. Minnehaha Falls Park, immortalized in Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” and visited by U.S. presidents, is a jewel to the City of Minneapolis and the site of this complex project. Disruptions to about 850,000 annual park visitors, nearby residents, and groundwater that feeds a legally protected spring, were prohibited. Public involvement and an innovative design approach led to successful implementation with minimal disruption.
Read MoreAs per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) discoveries make news—and cause public panics—all over the country, water utilities, industry organizations, state regulators, and the EPA struggle with how to properly publicly communicate findings in drinking water, wastewater discharges, and biosolids. WaterPIO serves as an independent source of PFAS public information, helping multiple utilities, elected officials, activists, the news media, and customers understand why and how these chemicals ended up in our water and wastewater. From 2017 through today, they have served on several utility PFAS teams and are called in to help state water and wastewater organizations with their PFAS responses when public panic occurs. This presentation will cover two such waves of panic, one in North Carolina and one in Georgia.
Read MoreHave you ever wondered what designers and builders think about their clients or why it matters? David Skuodas works as a project manager in the owner role in the public works industry. He spent years asking vendors in the construction industry, “Why does it matter to be a good client?” Skuodas interviewed over 50 consultants, contractors, and client project managers. He asked them what differentiates a good client from a bad client and how the client affects the cost, schedule, and quality of a project. He also asked them what conditions allow them to do their best work, and conversely, what makes it difficult for them to do their jobs effectively? This presentation lets you peek behind the curtain and find out how designers and builders differentiate between good and bad clients. You will learn how client behavior affects the price and quality of the work and how designers and builders choose their clients.
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Each community seems to have that one spot that always has crashes when winter weather arrives, or bridge that behaves differently than all the others at night. Why is that?…
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