After spending most of the day yesterday in meetings, getting home late, then having to run out to attend a band concert, I decided just to wait until today and post both yesterday and today in one article. So here it is!

Tuesday:

IDOT audit of ARRA project

IDOT was scheduled to be in this morning to audit my paperwork for the last ARRA project the city completed in 2010. They, along with the FHWA, have already looked everything over several times and have always been very helpful. They were scheduled to be here at 9 so I had made plans to be out of the office the rest of the day after 11 thinking two hours would be enough time, but they ended up not being able to get here until after 10:30. So I couldn't be here while they were going through everything. And because I am still waiting for the last authorization to be approved, I couldn't really finish all the paperwork, so they will have to come back anyway one more time. I guess at least this way, I can be here next time so in case they can't find the information they need in my records, I can find it for them.

APWA – Detention Pond Design

The rest of the day was spent attending a talk by the APWA about detention areas. Someone from a suburb in the Chicago area shared their experiences with building natural ponds. They said in the early 1990s a lot of mistakes were made in building these facilities, and now there's a lot of maintenance and performance issues. Many have just turned into a huge pile of weeds needing a lot of work. Their community has been systematically renovating the ponds to improve their functions. And she said they are working now to avoid any problems with new ponds that are proposed by developers.

She brought up a lot of interesting and helpful tips about pond design. One included making sure an ecologist checks the seed list. She said they have seed lists submitted that contain weeds and seeds for plants that do not grow well by seed.

APWA – Communications

The other meeting I had was with our chapter communication committee. We were set up at the last executive committee meeting to look into the communications of our chapter. This was our kick-off meeting where we looked at the big picture of what we were trying to accomplish and who we were targeting as an audience. Then we decided what methods and tools we were going to research. I have been creating a workbook for us to use in this effort. So when we are done, I will post a copy of the workbook on the site so anyone else can use it for similar efforts.

Wednesday

Lighting of our Parking Lot

We are still having issues with finding lights that meet the photometric requirements for our parking lot. The last vendor I was working with could not find a light, and like our consultant, did not want to alter our parking lot configuration to make it work. So I contacted one last vendor and asked if he could find a lighting scheme that worked even if it meant changing our parking layout. Hopefully he will be able to come up with something. If not, I don't think we'll be able to meet the lighting requirements for spill over.

Staff meeting

We also had our staff meeting today. Like we do at most, we discussed all our projects. And at the end we tried something new where we held a pre-design project meeting. At this meeting we discussed next year's road project and how we wanted to approach the plan development. We also set some tentative milestones and dates.

Subdivision meeting

Later in the afternoon we met with representatives of a subdivision that is going through a possible change in ownership. The subdivision was never completed, and we are trying to work to get the public improvements done.

Miscellaneous

There were a few other miscellaneous projects I worked on such as helping a resident complete documents to vacate a portion of the city alley. And I am still waiting to get that bid tab from PACE. It has been such a busy week, and tomorrow is also looking like its another full day!

Bus Rapid Transit

Today a few of our staff attended a meeting at Sherman Hospital in Elgin. The county arranged for the meeting to discuss bus rapid transit (BRT) along the Randall road corridor. It was a well attended discussion that lasted for most of the morning. A representative began the presentations by highlighting information about the new hospital. They have a 15-acre geothermal lake for heating/cooling that has saved them $1 million in operating costs annually. (You can read more cool facts about the lake here http://www.shermanhealth.com/geothermal_lake.php)

Next Kane county board chairman Karen McConnaughay summarized the county's work and vision for Randall road. Then Josh Ellis from the Metropolitan Planning Council  shared with us his organization's work with studying bus rapid transit in Chicago. Earlier this year they released the report:  Bus Rapid Transit: Chicago's New Route to Opportunity . His explanation of how they identified potential corridors was interesting and made sense. 

Next up was the consultant who has been studying the implementation of bus rapid transit along Randall road – a long transportation corridor that links many of the larger communities in Kane County. It's interesting to me as someone who just moved back into the area a few years ago to listen to these studies and recommendations, remember what the corridor used to look like 30 years ago, then hear the background story of how Randall road developed. Many, many years ago when I lived and worked for the city of Aurora, I used to occasionally drive along Randall road to visit parks and the fairground. So I remember the rural character of the road that existed before development broke loose out here. Having left the area about 1985, I never saw how the road expanded to a four-lane urban section with major big-box stores replicated along it from Aurora to Elgin. But I've been told there was great effort put into making sure the corridor was streamlined for the movement of cars to the point of designing out pedestrian access. These past efforts seemed to have worked – the road moves a tremendous number of cars on a daily basis. However, it most definitely is not conducive to moving peds/bikes. And unfortunately, all those stores and amenities are huge attractions for the large population living on the other side – particularly teens who can't drive (I know from personal experience with my own children). Over the last few years, attempts have been made to bring the pedestrian back into the mix by adding sidewalks and a bus route with stops. But the pedestrian infrastructure has a long way to go, and that doesn't help with navigating the long distances between shopping centers. So, to summarize, the current trend is to "undo" the "success" of initial, car-centric development efforts in the corridor.

After hearing from the county's consultant, we broke into groups to further discuss the feasibility of implementing BRT in the corridor. Everyone seemed to conclude that yes, it could work, but… I think the "but" shows the success of BRT will be dependent on the market, the understanding and acceptance by the city governments and the public, the funding, and the specific characteristics of each area along the corridor. One key change that will have to occur is for the corridor to change from a sprawling retail center to an area of high density, mixed-use developments. This is because BRTs are dependent on the presence of a large population in need of transit. So the question is, do people want this part of their community to transition to a densely populated area with a mix of other uses in order to improve movement of pedestrians along the corridor? It's hard to say.

Finally, the morning ended with planners from PACE demonstrating the current challenges of navigating the current bus system along Randall road. The problems include a lack of shelters, sidewalks, and navigation aids. Fortunately there are plans to install shelters and sidewalks next year so this will greatly improve the experience.

Overall, readers of my blog can probably figure out what was on my mind the whole time – PRTs! or personal rapid transit. With the cost of BRTs at $2.5 to $24 million per mile, it definitely should be cost effective to instead implement a PRT system, and it would be less intrusive to the corridor. There are other benefits over a BRT such as not having to wait for a bus or learn a schedule and not having to tolerate a packed bus with no where to sit or place bags, and I am not so sure a PRT would require the change to high density. But of course, this is what is so frustrating about being in the US – most people here want to hang onto old technology while other countries are already implementing newer and better solutions that we refuse to even acknowledge. What makes it even more frustrating in this situation is that we were not talking about putting in a BRT system today – this is our county's vision for 2040! By that time, every other country in the world will have a PRT system, and we'll just be cutting the ribbon on a new BRT system. Oh well, I embedded a video showing the new PRT system at Heathrow. Maybe by 2040, I'll be retired and can move to a place like England!

Downtown Plan

After lunch we had another meeting to finish reviewing our downtown plan. There are a lot of changes we've made to the draft so the consultant will have a lot of work to revise it. Of course, the focus of our department is more on the transportation sections, but it's still interesting to listen and learn about the zoning and economic development side of it all.

APWA Meeting

At the end of the day I met with a few members of our local chapter of APWA. We have all volunteered to help out at a workshop that APWA will host on November 10th to teach team building and problem solving skills. It was a good and fun discussion, and everyone came up with great ideas to integrate into the day. If you are in the Chicago area and are interested in attending, the link to the information is here: Team Building and Problem Solving Skills

One side discussion that came up at our meeting was the lack of engineers in the US compared to other countries. Although we didn’t get into a lot of theories of why this is, I have to wonder if it does have something to do with what I mentioned in the BRT paragraphs above – the US is behind other countries in investigating and implementing new technology. I realize this is not in every industry, and from what I can tell, our military is impressively cutting edge. But these pockets of innovation don’t get transferred to the lives of the general public.

One suggestion I had made at the BRT meeting was to take the discussion into the schools – after all if they are talking about something for the year 2040, it’s the people in school now who may well be weighing in on the fate of Randall road. Better to have them aware of it and thinking about it now. And maybe it might get some interested in pursuing a career in transportation. But few seem interested in doing this or in seeing the benefits of involving schools in what we do. So we end up with kids in school who see adults implementing the same old solutions, avoiding innovation, and leaving them out of the discussion. Why in the world would they be interested in engineering! However, I realize there’s also the chance that places like China have more engineers because they are making kids study engineering. My co-worker is from there, and she said she had no choice what to study or where to work – that was all decided for her by the government.

On a lighter note, I did discover one of the other volunteers also plays World of Warcraft which also started a whole other side conversation!

Days 34 through 36

Day 34 was spent attending the APWA conference in Denver. You can read a short summary of my day on the post before this one: 2011 APWA  Conference – Day 2. There are a couple extra items I probably should have added to this post, but they really deserve a post by themselves so will write something up later this week.

Day 35 was also spent at the APWA conference – I also need to summarize this day on a separate blog post. 

Day 36 was spent traveling back from Denver. Before leaving, I tried to take a lot of photos around the Capitol building. You can look through my photostream on Flickr here: Denver Colorado Photostream. There are quite a few photos illustrating streetscape elements, construction, and other design elements.

Day 37

Of course, my first day back at work after the conference was spent mostly catching up. I went though emails and met with my staff to discuss the status of certain projects. I also worked on preparing a status update for an STP project we have scheduled for FY2013.

Day 38

Finally on Friday, another engineer and I attended a "lunch and learn" about natural area management. It was presented by Karen Kase who works for Hampton, Lenzini, and Renwick. I've mentioned her before on this blog – Karen is part of a team at HLR managed by Erica Spolar that focuses on design and management of natural areas including wetlands, stormwater basins, etc. The information they shared with the group is important because our area has constructed these natural areas everywhere, but it appears that when they were put in, a management plan was not always created. So many of us are now working to address this component. And until now, there was little formal guidance on how to handle this aspect of these natural areas. 

Our office also had scheduled the carpets to be cleaned over the weekend so all of us had to clear out our offices. You don't realize how much stuff you have on the floor until you have to move it. Today I told another co-worker, I was starting to think maybe they did this to encourage us to minimize what we put on the floors!

This year's International Public Works Conference & Exposition is being held in Denver, Colorado. The event opened yesterday morning with a welcome by the outgoing president, George Crombie, and a transfer of leadership to the new president, Diane M. Linderman.

First General Session – Michael Hayden

The first general session followed with keynote speaker, Michael Hayden, retired U.S. Air Force Four Star General and former director of the CIA and NSA. General Hayden shared stories of his time as director of each agency and offered his insight into leadership.

One interesting remark he made was that we advance in our careers by doing things right, but eventually we reach a level where we only advance by doing the right thing. To me, I see within this remark one of the biggest challenges we face as we advance in local government to an appointed position. Many probably did get there by doing something the right way. But once in this upper-level position, decisions are not only made by analyzing technical information, but also understanding and weighing political factors. Even so, as a public works professional it is imperative in the end we do the right thing which can often be a balance of technical and political considerations. But this can become difficult when an elected official wants to do something for purely political reasons like getting more votes. How many of us have seen others in our field let go or blamed for problems due to refusing to go along with a decision that was made to advance a political career?

The risk of being put in this situation is one of the main reasons I hear cited for why someone left local government for the private sector or why someone would not take an appointed position. Fortunately not every elected official or even local government operates this way or demands their appointed staff do whatever they say regardless of what is "right." But it is unfortunate that this seems to be enough to scare off some people who would have made great managers. 

Expo

After the general session, everyone went to the exposition hall to eat and visit the exhibits. Usually I like to take time to talk with different vendors, take photos to share with co-workers or with readers of this blog, or even record videos of the demonstrations. But this year, I noticed in the brochure that photos and videos were not allowed in the expo hall. I went to the press room to register as press to see if this would allow me to take photos or record videos, but they said no. This is really unfortunate because I think as someone working in the industry every day, like most of you, I probably will ask vendors many of the same questions you would ask. How many times have you watched a demo and thought, "well that all sounds good, but what about this?" So by recording the demo given to me, readers who maybe could not attend the show can still get the benefit of the demo and have typical questions answered. And the vendors get the benefit of having their demo reach a much wider audience. 

In a way, this refusal to allow sharing of information is somewhat contradictory to the increased integration of social media into the conference. This year, APWA is more actively tweeting the show with events and give-a-ways announced regularly throughout the day. Vendors have even been sending out tweets offering prizes for those showing up with passwords for mentioning the tweet. I was given a cute little dump truck by CH2MHill yesterday for seeing their tweet, showing up at their booth, and mentioning the tweet. Anyone at the show can see the stream by following the hashtag #APWAEXPO. The other great consequence of following the hashtag is that I was able to find new people in public works to follow. And at the end of the day, one of the more active people tweeting, mpbaldauf, even stopped by and introduced herself so I got to meet her in person.

The other great addition to this year's conference is the ability to watch and participate from a distance. If you couldn't make it to Denver, but still want to check out the events, make sure you register here: APWA Live!

FHWA Update by Victor Mendez

I was impressed that the director of FHWA, Victor Mendez, took time to attend the conference and present at a session. He talked about the President's proposed jobs bill. The President is asking for Congress to fund $50 billion of infrastructure improvements, $27 billion of which is targeted for roads and bridges. Funds will also be available for improvements to water and energy systems and schools. Most in our field would probably not have been surprised to hear there is up to 30% unemployment in the construction industry in some regions. And the idea is this bill will significantly help put many of those unemployed back to work.

On top of this, Mendez said the President has proposed to set aside another $10 billion as seed money to establish an infrastructure bank. According to him, project funding decisions will be based upon "how bad is the project needed, and how much good will it do for the economy?" 

Mendez shared an example of why this investment in our infrastructure is so critical. About a week or so ago, the Sherman Mitten bridge connecting Kentucky and Indiana was closed due to cracks in structural members found by inspectors. The closure of this bridge has resulted in major disruption and cost for commuters and companies moving goods through this corridor. (You can read more about the bridge closure here: Midwest Jammed by Bridge Closing.)

He also discussed transportation funding and the extension of the highway bill. And then he went on to discuss the Every Day Counts program. This initiative is focused on shortening project delivery and promoting the use of innovative construction and design techniques. Mendez said, "EDC is part of larger effort to speed up recovery and create jobs and win the future." But he also explained he was trying to create something that will not just be another short-term program, but an idea that will "infuse the industry with a culture of innovation" and be in place long after he is no longer director. His vision includes the creation of "councils in each state that include people from all levels of government and private sector that will meet on a regular basis." These councils will be tasked with deciding which components of EDC work best in that state and will oversee efforts to shorten project delivery.

Finally, he concluded by talking about the safety programs promoted by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. These include distracted driving legislation and implementation of safety edge. Mendez also encouraged us to "become safety ambassadors for all of us."

Social Media as a Public Works Asset

For me, the final session of the day was one in which I participated as a co-presenter with Robert Lewis. We introduced social media tools that agencies are using and discussed how others were leveraging these tools as assets for their organization. Then we suggested there are two alternatives for each agency to choose – either to ignore or ban the use of social media or to use it and engage. We emphasized the need to create a policy and provide guidance to staff no matter which alternative is chosen. And of course, we advised agencies to consider legal issues and concerns as they make their decisions and implement their policies.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in a Peer Exchange workshop on Project Delivery as a representative for APWA. The meeting was one of four regional meetings organized and hosted by AASHTO to facilitate dialogue between federal, state, and local agencies. By encouraging discussion and building partnerships, they are hoping to provide guidance for streamlining project delivery.

I’m not sure if anything like this has been done before in our industry where all levels of government meet to work out the process of getting a job done. The workshop was exciting and yet, as you can imagine, frustrating at times as I wondered if federal and state agencies could really understand the local perspective. However, the end result was a great meeting where all of us had the chance to share the view from our level and hear and understand the experiences and ideas from other agencies. I’m not sure if it was because we had such a great facilitator or there was just a great group of people focused on making things better, but everyone showed passion and dedication to moving this initiative forward.

It’s unfortunate that more people could not have taken part so I was hoping to share my observations below and encourage anyone interested to visit the Every Day Counts (EDC) website.

The day started out with a welcome from Peter Plumeau, the facilitator, and representatives from the partnering agencies: NACE, APWA, and AASHTO. Everyone introduced themselves and shared some thoughts about what they hoped to accomplish. Then Victoria Peters, special assistant to the deputy administrator of FHWA, explained the EDC program.

Every Day Counts Program

I won’t go into the details of this session because you can read all about it at the EDC website. The basic idea is that EDC was launched in November 2009 to identify and deploy readily available innovation and operational changes that would enable us to become faster, better, and smarter. Peters emphasized that the program was intended to work within existing laws. She quickly went through the program’s sixteen initiatives including ten that would shorten project deliver and six that are categorized as technical innovations. She explained how state implementation teams established at the state DOTs have developed final action plans to carry out these initiatives. And she mentioned there will be 2011 discretionary grant programs highlighting EDC initiatives. Peters also encouraged people to visit the EDC site and submit more ideas in their “innovation box.”

Federal Programs and Project Delivery Initiatives

The next panel presented several programs already in place that can be used to shorten project delivery. These included programmatic agreements, Construction Manager/General Contractor or CM/GC, and flexibility in utility accommodation and relocation.

The Wisconsin Factor

Over lunch Daniel Fedderly, executive director of the Wisconsin County Highway Association, shared with the group some of the ideas Wisconsin has used to shorten project delivery. Wisconsin seems unique in that the counties in that state take care of all the county and state roads. (One county engineer told me later in the day his county has its own hot mix plant!) So perhaps it’s this extensive history of cooperation between local 

and state government that provided the impetus for Wisconsin agencies to begin this type of effort many years ago. Fedderly explained how they pre-scope projects to help discover any red-flags or additional or alternate funding sources early in the process. He also discussed the use of project exclusions and project tiering – a method of recognizing an overlay does not require the same level of scrutiny that a new bridge construction project might require.

Barriers and Obstacles

After lunch we broke into four groups that included members from each agency or organization. First we identified major barriers or obstacles to achieving our goal of shortening project delivery. Although there were many identified, most fell into the following basic categories or issues:

• The perception of high risk when there isn’t any
• The failure to focus on what matters
• The failure to be consistent
• The lack of federal flexibility
• The number and control of regulations
• The lack of education of people at all levels – those reviewing at the state and federal level and those working at the local level
• Lack of trust between agencies and an “us vs. them” attitude

Recommendations

After we highlighted the issues or problems present in the current system, we moved on to think of recommendations or solutions. Below are the highlights of our findings.

• Form partnerships – form early and reinforce often
• Move beyond us and them and focus on a win/win perspective
• Pre-scope but understand changes will need to be accommodated if necessary
• Ask questions and manage up through all levels of government
• Educate – Educate – Educate!
• Scale the process to the needs – adopt a risk-based approach
• Build on EDC – provide groundwork for structural changes
• Keep the momentum going
• Enhance and use existing resources like LTAP to promote and deliver these solutions
• Develop a forum and other communication opportunities on the EDC website
• Host state, regional, and national dialogues between all partners
• Make use of a Federal Fund Exchange Program similar to that offered by the Kansas DOT

Summary of the Day

Overall, my final impression was that we are on the right track. We learned that many states have already been working in this direction and using these initiatives for some time. At our sessions representatives from these states were able to share positive outcomes and success stories. Now, it just seems to be a matter of working with the other states and locals to incorporate these ideas and recommendations within their own process. Plumeau said there will be two more regional workshops held over the next month or so then his group will summarize the results of all meetings and send out a report.

Plumeau also pointed out near the end of the day that almost all of the issues we identified and solutions we came up with could be applied to just about any industry or situation. Based on his observation, I have to think it’s obviously not just a transportation issue – it’s more of a people issue. And this seems to emphasize our need to continue building the partnerships and dialogue that has been started with these summits.

These meetings are part of the Every Day Counts (EDC) initiative. EDC is "FHWA's effort to provide National leadership in the quest to meet the transportation demands of the 21^st Century." Three objectives make up the foundation of EDC: Shortening Project Delivery,  Accelerating Technology and Innovation Deployment, and an internal effort to make FHWA a greener Agency and reduce our carbon footprint. Of these objectives, streamlining project delivery and embracing innovation seem to be dominating most transportation-related discussions coming out of Washington. Rep. Mica, Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently presented the Transportation Reauthorization Proposal embeded below. In it, his committee also stressed the need to work on improving project delivery and implementing innovative changes.

A New Direction – Transportation Reauthorization Proposal

While checking out the products on the floor show, I was also able to video tape a few interviews with vendors. Willie Urish with Tower Sign and Signal had contacted me prior to the show to discuss his product. So we made some time to meet so I could see his product in person. He also allowed me to video tape his product demonstration. His company, based in Illinois, manufactures and sells portable traffic signals for construction jobs.

Many years ago, our city, like most, had meter readers who would travel from home to home or business to business reading the water meters. The meter reads were entered into a book; then office staff would transcribe these reads from the book into the computer. From there, water bills would be generated and sent out to users.

Eventually, the water industry began to offer products designed to automate this meter reading process. Through a long and involved journey, our city arrived, poised to implement a major change in our system involving water meter replacements and installation of an automatic meter reading system. The company offering our city the package quoted a price tag close to $2,000,000. Unfortunately, I was concerned that our city would not be able to afford this, and we would have to cut back and eliminate the portion of the package involving a fixed network system and instead choose a drive-by read system that the company quoted at $1,500,000.

During the time period in which our city was considering this company’s proposal, I attended a workshop hosted by the American Public Works Association (APWA) to learn about their accreditation program. One of the side benefits of these workshops is the chance to meet and talk with others involved in public works. So at the morning break, I had the chance to meet and visit with the person sitting next to me, Kevin Weaver, from Oakwood, Ohio. Oakwood was a city similar in size to LaSalle, and Kevin was their city engineer. We discussed the projects going on in our communities, and Kevin told me how his city was going through a water meter replacement project involving the installation of a fixed network. I told him how I wanted to implement something similar in our city, but told him I didn’t think we could afford the $2,000,000 cost. Well, imagine my surprise when Kevin told me his community was only paying about $900,000.

Kevin went on to explain how he had approached the bidding and implementation of his project. But with two cities of almost exactly the same size and number of meters, I still could not understand why our quoted price was so much more. Fortunately Kevin followed up after the workshop by sending me the bidding information so that I could try to figure out where the cost difference was.

At that point I shared this information with our council, and they approved allowing the project to be split into three contracts: one for supplying meters, one for supplying the fixed network components, and one for installation. Then, after getting cost proposals for each, we arrived at a project expense very close to that of Oakwood’s, about $1,000,000.

My cost to attend the workshop and conference that immediately followed was about $2,000. So for $2,000, not only was I able to gain experience and training, but because of meeting Kevin, I was able to find a way to implement the project we wanted at half the cost, saving $1,000,000.