October, 2011 - Public Works Group Blog

October 21, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 57

Day 57

Intersection Enhancements

We have an intersection in our city where many people cross from a local hotel to a banquet center. The crossing is at a state highway and is uncontrolled – no stop sign or signal. So the business is requesting that we look into enhancing it to better facilitate pedestrian crossings. Today we spent some time discussing ideas and solutions. And I arranged for a vendor I know to stop by next week to show us some of the solutions they have available. My supervisor and I also visited the site to see the condition and space we had to work with. This is the beginning of a potentially big and interesting project for us.

Pavement Treatment

We also met with the contractor who installed the pavement treatment system we were researching earlier in the year. They are going to spray the treatment on one of the roads in our city we paved last year. We wanted to go over the details at the meeting. Later in the day the project engineer and I handed out letters to residents to let them know about the work. We also needed to ask the residents to keep the cars and leaves off the road on Monday so we could spray.

Gate Access & Security

In the afternoon, we met with the installers for a new system that will open our gates and our doors at public works using a card reader. This will help increase security for our facility. We made plans on where to install the electric lines and the equipment.

Lots of miscellaneous work

Although today was busy with many meetings, I also had a lot of miscellaneous work to take care of:

Arranged to have GIS plot out displays for the council's strategic planning meeting
Arranged to have GIS collect the field locations of the new water lines in the community gardens with GPS
Met with another staff member for a performance review
Sent out a map for the bike committee to mark up with attractions for bikers

October 20, 2011October 20, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 56

Day 56

Water Main Project

This morning we finally found time to run out to look at the location of our proposed easement for the water main project I've been working on. Fortunately it looks like the location in the field where I had planned to take it through a local industry's property (if they are agreeable to this) matches well with the plans. The other location goes through a local park, and based on the field location, I think I will adjust it just a little to minimize some bends. Normally we would have had this surveyed at the start, but I was unable to get a survey done at the time so had to rely on the aerial for the initial placement. Now I can finalize the alignment, secure the easements (if the property owners agree), and send it to the IEPA for a permit!

Broken Field Tile?

Later in the morning, our community development director and I ran out to a large tract of land the city owns. The person who farms a portion of the land had reported some standing water so we wanted to investigate the area. It appears to us there could be a broken tile. But it also appears the broken tile might actually be on someone else's property. I still have to discuss this situation with the rest of the staff to determine what, if anything, we might need to do. I realize normally a farmer would repair the tile, but because the purpose of this land is to remain green space – not necessarily farm land, we didn't think this water was causing any issues at the moment.

Public Works Staff Meeting

Later we had our monthly public works staff meeting with all the managers. There was so much to talk about, our group barely had time to share updates on our engineering projects. One of the primary issues under discussion right now is the removal of the ash trees that have been damaged by the Emerald Ash Bore.

Stormwater Meeting

Finally, I represented the city at a regional meeting to discuss stormwater funding and regulations in our area. Our intern was here today so he came with me. Whenever we bring interns to our meetings like this, they come away surprised at how much time we spend on what appears to be non-technical issues. But in the end, I try to explain we need to understand and be part of the decisions regarding funding and regulations and laws in order to be able to properly plan, design, and build.

October 20, 2011October 20, 2011

Checking out West Coast Tech Talk

Part of the fun of blogging is the opportunity to connect with others who love what you do. In my case, that's anything public works related! One of the people I recently talked to online was @lahtnesorm. He's a civil engineering technology student on Vancouver Island who blogs about CAD. His site has helpful information about CAD in general, and lately he has been blogging about his experiences in learning Autodesk's Civil 3D. You can check it out here: http://www.wctechtalk.com/category/civil-3d-13-weeks-of-learning/

I like reading his posts about Civil 3D because although I am proficient with Map 3D, I have yet to jump into Civil 3D. So his posts are helping me better understand the commitment and effort required to learn that software. And the articles share the benefits he is finding from using the software.

October 19, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 54 & 55

Day 54

I waited until today to post about yesterday (Tuesday) because I ended up not spending the whole day at work. I started the day preparing for a meeting with the city admininstrator and other directors in the city. Normally my supervisor, the director of public works, goes to these meetings. But since he was out, I was going to attend for public works. So, I had talked to the other superintendents to get updates on all the work and projects going on in their divisions. Fortunately I wrote it all down because about 8:30 I got a call that my 16-year old kid in high school had a fever, and they asked I come pick him up. Because I knew I would have to stay home with him (he has Down Syndrome so I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone with a fever), I was able to give my notes to the street superintendent so he could attend in my place.

The rest of the day was spent home with my son. I did get the chance to watch a couple presentations online – one of which was given by a friend of mine, Paulette Robinson, who works for the National Defense University. The link to the event is http://about.extension.org/2011/10/05/nevc2011-outstanding-professional-development-free-avoid-travel-hassles/. Even though it is now over, I think they will have all the talks available for viewing sometime in the near future. If you are interested in social media or the use of 3D immersive technology, you might be interested in checking them out.

Day 55

Today at work was very busy! Of course being off yesterday didn't help. Throughout the day I met with a few of my staff to conduct performance evaluations. I also had a meeting with other staff members to review a draft of our Downtown Plan. This meeting lasted through lunch and into the afternoon. We had to finally "adjourn" the meeting until another day because we still have so much to discuss. After I left that meeting, I ran over to the field meeting we had set up for our culvert project. The project engineer was there with our technician and the contractor. It looks like they are probably going to start work next week.

SUPER DUPER CONTRACTOR RATING!

I did get something in the mail today that was somewhat interesting to me so I figured I would share it on this blog. Every now and then a contractor sends us a letter introducing themselves and asking to be placed on a bidder's list. We don't really have a bidder's list so I just file the letter. In this case, I was a little surprised to get a letter from this particular contractor because they were around about 30 years ago when I used to work for the city of Aurora. So I figure they are fairly well known in the area. Anyway, they included a Certificate of Eligibility from IDOT to show they are prequalified to do any work we would be bidding out. What was amusing was that they have a "SUPER UNLIMITED" rating! Just what does that mean? How can you get any more unlimited than "Unlimited?!"

October 17, 2011October 17, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 53

Day 53

Checking Construction

We started out our Monday by visiting a couple jobsites to make sure everything was going as planned. First we stopped by a development where they had placed curb last week along the edges of a driveway. The problem was that the sidewalk was supposed to carry through the drive, and they neglected to break the curb for the sidewalk. So they had to cut out the area where the sidewalk would cross the curb and form and pour the sidewalk. We wanted to check the slopes before they poured today to make sure they met the ADA requirements. Fortunately everything was ok. Then we went to our alley project to correct a mistake the contractor had made last Friday. He had unfortunately marked quite a few driveways as going back in as asphalt. Well, you can imagine how worried the residents were over the weekend – they had been told they were getting concrete driveways and instead saw them marked for asphalt. So when the project engineer got in today he had many calls and emails asking about this. We went out right away to get rid of the asphalt mark and instead mark them as concrete.

Preconstruction Meeting for Culvert Project

Later in the morning we held a preconstruction meeting for our culvert lining project. There really wasn't anything too different about the meeting. We normally cover all the city's rules so the contractor understands he can only work between certain hours, his workers need to clean up after themselves, they need to wear shirts, etc. They expect to start as soon as the liner is delivered.

Signal Invoices

Although we have many traffic signals in the city, we don't maintain any of them ourselves. Instead we pay other agencies for the portion for which we are responsible. So when we get these invoices, we check them and then pay them. This quarter, I found some minor mistake on the invoice so the agency had sent us a new invoice. And today I turned them over to the superintendent who pays them out of his account.

Flower Bed in Geneva

GIS Maps

We finalized two maps today – one is a map showing all the planting areas and what volunteer group takes care of a certain area. We have almost 50 areas throughout the downtown. The other map is an aerial of the whole city. We are trying to print out a new one every year to hang in our conference rooms. We also place a strip along the bottom that lists city statistics such as miles of road, number of hydrants, population, etc.

Council Meeting

I did end up attending the council meeting tonight just to make sure there were no questions about the bids for our culvert project. Nothing was asked so the council ended up approving it. Now we can arrange to have the contracts signed, and the contractor can start when the liner is delivered.

October 14, 2011October 14, 2011

A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 52

Day 52

Although I worked in the office for a few hours today mainly on correspondence and checking with our inspector and engineers to find out the status of some projects, most of my day was spent at our APWA Public Works Camp. This event is our second unconference session that we've hosted, and both have been a great success! Next year another branch is going to host one, and there's been some discussions of expanding it out. We had about 24 people attend and offer some great information and knowledge about many different aspects of public works. I tried to capture the highlights of the discussion using the Cover It Live tool. So if you want to read over the log, pop on over to the Public Works Camp Site!