Construction - Public Works Group Blog

April 1, 2023April 1, 2023

April is National Safe Digging Month

Yes construction can and does take place all year long. But in the Midwest where frost can get down to about three to five feet, activity tends to drop off as winter sets in. We typically use this time indoors to plan for next year’s projects, and as the robins show up and warmer breezes blow in, we start setting up project schedules for the year. But as we kick things into gear, we want to remember the importance of calling for utility locates before we sink any shovels into the jobsite. To help promote this important step in the construction process, the Common Ground Alliance launched its annual support of National Safe Digging Month.

You can check out their website for resources and graphics that you may be able to use for your operations. And if you are a community, you may be able to use some of the graphics to promote calling before digging with your residents. It’s surprising how easy it can be to hit utilities sometimes doing things you wouldn’t even think would cause a problem. I was on a jobsite once where the contractor was securing the site at the end of the day. One of the workers was pounding in metal fence posts to hold up the orange construction fencing around the site. He pounded one right through a communication cable. Some of the crew ended up having to stay until the utility could repair the cable. The worst part of it was after he broke it, he noticed the line had been marked – he had pounded the pole right into the orange line. He most likely didn’t think pounding a metal fence post could break it like digging could. It was a good lesson to me that before you do anything in an area of a locate where you are putting something in the ground, you need to locate that utility first or move away from it if possible.

May 1, 2022May 1, 2022

Building Safety Month Kick-off

Well it’s here! Building Safety Month – a month to promote pretty much what it says: BUILDING SAFETY. And because all of us need to spend time in buildings or some sort of shelter, Building Safety Month is really for everyone. This year, the International Code Council (ICC) which sponsors the campaign has established four themes for each of the following four weeks:

Week 1, May 1 to May 8: Energy and Innovation

Week 2, May 9 to May 15: Building Safety Careers

Week 3, May 16 to 22: Disaster Preparedness

Week 4, May 23 to 31, Water Safety

Whether you are in the building industry or a related field or not, I hope to offer information and resources throughout the month for all of us. And if you are in the field, you can stop by the ICC Building Safety Month website to download toolkits, proclamations, and other materials to promote the month in your communities.

May 29, 2019May 27, 2019

Noncompliant ADA Facilities – Playground Access – How would you fix it?

The other day I was visiting a community in Illinois for the day and met a local personÂ who was very excited about the new playground equipment being installed in his neighborhood. He encouraged me to check it out since he said it was the first time the community had upgraded the site since his children, who are now adults, had been little. So I took a walk to the park only to find unfortunately we are still not constructing ADA compliant facilities decades after laws and guidance have been in place to assist us in these efforts.

I’ve included the photos I took of the site showing the designer seems to have intended to install two accessible points off the shared use pathÂ running adjacent to the playground (the skidsteer is parked on the path). As you can see in the photos, one ramp, in the photo directly above and below, has side slopes down to the ramp which are not compliant with the 10:1 slope. The other is a ramp, shown in the very first photo, which has side slopes leading down from the ramp at an angle which are much steeper than the 10:1 ratio. This ramp also seems to have a much steeper running slope than 12:1 slope at the very end for the last 6 to 12 inches. Each ramp as constructed has areas where a wheelchair could tip due to the steep slope.

I first thought perhaps the designer was worried putting in the required 10:1 slopes (see image below showing standard) could cause the ramp to be moved over and conflict with a swingset. So I asked myself, how would I have designed it, and how would I fix this now? I like asking this when I see something I think is noncompliant because sometimes achieving compliance can be a real challenge – sometimes there is not always an easy solution. Understanding how others have approached design challenges helps me become a better designer.

Curb ramp side slopes from ADA Standard 2010 — Curb ramp side slopes from 2010 ADA Standards

However, at this particular site, I believe there is a much better design that would be a lot safer and provide even more accessibility. Once I realized this, I wondered why the original designer had not just done it that way in the first place since it seemed a more obvious solution than what had been chosen. And while some of the completed work would have to rebuilt to incorporate my redesign, it wouldÂ definitely be worth fixing it now before the project is finished if this will be in place for another 20+ years.

I was going to describe what I came up with, but rather than explain what I would have designed, I was curious, what would be your fix?

February 5, 2017

Mapping the Accessible Path

Access map screenshot showing sidewalk steepness at 0.5%

The Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) team, a group out of the University of Washington, has been involved in an effort to improve mapping of the pedestrian way. By making use of the work from the OpenSidewalks project, they created AccessMap – a trip planning tool for people with limited mobility. With this tool, people can find the most accessible path through a network of sidewalks connected by curb ramps and street crossings.

At this time, the tool has only been implemented in Seattle, but the group plans to expand to other locations. The data used for the project is a compilation of the following elements with sources noted:

Base map – OpenStreetMap (OSM)
Sidewalks and curb ramps – Seattle Department of Transportation
Street crossings – DSSG Team
Elevations – National Elevation Dataset, USGS

When a user clicks a sidewalk segment, the steepness or grade is displayed. The screenshot of the map above shows a sidewalk segment along 1st Avenue between Madison and Spring streets at a 0.5% grade. Sidewalk segments are also colored coded to indicate the grade with red exceeding the required 5%, yellow just below the requirement, and green meeting the requirement. Clicking a street crossing or crosswalk displays the steepness or running grade along with a "Yes" or "No" to indicate whether or not curb ramps are at the corners.

To plan a route using the map, the user types in their origin and destination in a manner similar to how other mapping programs work. The difference is that Accessmap has a drop down tool for the user to designate a limit for maximum uphill and downhill grade and the need to avoid construction and require curb ramps. Different mobility assisted devices such as wheelchairs or canes can also be designated. Below is an example of a planned route.

October 4, 2016October 4, 2016

Gamifying and Crowdsourcing ADA Inspections

The Makeability Lab at the University of Maryland is on a mission to "collect street-level accessibility information from every street in the world and enable design and development of a novel set of location-based technologies for accessibility." In order to achieve this goal, they set up an interactive website where people can inspect, identify, and label accessibility issues along sidewalks and at curb ramps.

The accessibility issues generated by this site are fairly basic, but would still be very helpful to cities interested in quickly and easily identifying issues. Currently the site is focused on auditing infrastructure in the Washington, D.C. area.

The group also plans to use the inspection data collected to "create new types of map-based accessibility tools, such as AccessScore, an interactive map of a city's accessibility, and RouteAssist, personalized routing algorithms based on a user's reported mobility level."

In addition, they are using the labels people assign to issues to develop algorithms to allow the computer to automatically find accessibility issues in the future.

So far 218 people have inspected almost 400 miles or 37% of Washington, D.C. If you are interested in volunteering your efforts, you can visit their website at http://sidewalk.umiacs.umd.edu and click on the "Participate" button.

Before beginning, you'll be offered a quick tutorial. You can also create an account to track your contributions. Here are a few screenshots taken while I inspected about a half mile of sidewalk in the Bellevue neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The first shows a section of heaved and cracked sidewalk I labeled as a surface problem. You can see I was able to choose this option from the group of issue icons located above the street-view image.

When you place an icon on the image, a box pops up as shown in the screenshot below to allow you to choose the severity of the problem. The site gives some guidance on this, but there is still a lot of judgment in assigning a rating. Initially I wasn't going to give this specific problem the worst rating, but then decided the slope looks severe enough I don't think a wheelchair would safely navigate across the heaved section. Below the rating, there is a space for a more detailed description of the problem.

The screen also shows which neighborhood I am in, where I am at on the street, how many miles I have audited and labels I have placed. As you complete assigned sections, the site summarizes your progress as shown below:

Finally, you can view your dashboard to see your overall contribution to the site. Below is my current status after only working on it for a short time:

As you can see on my dashboard, the locations of the problems I found are displayed on a map. A zoomed in view of this is shown below. I was not sure if there was a way to see everyone's contributions, but if so, this would be very helpful to a city engineering or public works department in managing their sidewalk or street repair program. It would also be helpful if the data could be extracted from a given area so it could be overlaid in a city's GIS with other data such as land use, destinations such as schools and hospitals, and locations of capital improvements and developments.

Because the site is so easy to use, cities could also partner with schools and ask students to participate in inspections. This would help to engage students in their community and build awareness of the needs for and barriers to accessibility.

From what I can tell, the group also has the code for the site over on GitHub. Their license grants permission to make use of the software according the terms specified, and instructions for setting up your own development site are provided in a README file.

You can follow the group's progress through their Twitter feed: @umd_sidewalk.

July 26, 2015July 31, 2015

Celebrating 25 Years of ADA

Today marks the 25th anniversay of the signing of the ADA legislation. This milestone is a good time to look around your community and see just how much your governmental agency has accomplished in removing barriers for those who have disabilities.

Do you have a transition plan for identifying and removing barriers?
When was the last time you inventoried barriers and updated your transition plan?
What percentage of barriers in your built environment have been brought into compliance?
Is your governmental agency website compliant?
Are your public meetings and publications compliant?
Have you incorporated accessibility and needs of those who have disabilities into your emergency response plan?

For many of us, even after 25 years, we still have a long way to go to achieve compliance. This is particularly true for those of us addressing facilities within the right of way. As most are aware, much of the reason for this is due to the lack of clear guidance and direction specifically addressing the right of way. Fortunately the Access Board is working on finalizing Proposed Guidelines for Pedestrian Facilities in the Public Right-of-Way or PROWAG, and when it is finally approved, much of the confusion over requirements will be settled.

In addition to reviewing your community's progress in achieving compliance, you can also check out the following resources created to provide additional ADA-related education and, in some cases, assistance in removing barriers:

Timeline of the ADA

ADA Legacy Project: Preserving the history of the disability rights movement

Smithsonian Online Exhibit: EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America

Google Impact Challenge: Google has launched a call for ideas for leveraging technology to improve accessibility