A hearty thanks to the civilengineeringschools.org site for listing our blog as one of the top 50 civil engineering blogs and granting us a Blog Frog award. We proudly display our award below and encourage everyone to check out the other Blog Frog award winners at: http://www.civilengineeringschools.org/best-civil-engineering-blogs CivilEngineeringSchools.org
Category: Civil Engineering
Geneva’s Great Land Adventure
Several months ago, I read some blog posts about frustration with Gov 2.0 not doing enough and a few other posts with offers from people interested in working for free for experience. The two seemingly unrelated topics got me wondering: How could our city use Gov 2.0 to offer job opportunities to people just looking…
Enhancing GIS with Augmented Reality
The other day at work we visited with our police records office to learn more about their reporting software. One of the issues that came up in our discussion was inputting the “address” of incidents. The software they use relies on either point addresses or address ranges along a centerline – both common methods of…
CCDD Update – Get the Scoop on CCDD & Let IEPA Know What You Think
If you’re involved in construction in Illinois, you are probably well aware of new CCDD law passed last year and made effective immediately by our state legislators and governor. Many of us have been struggling to understand this new law because it was created with little guidance but severe penalties for noncompliance. Fortunately the Chicago…
Delivering Public Works Content Through Video
Over the last few years, there have been an increasing number of public works departments, vendors, and organizations taking advantage of video sharing sites. This has been made possible by newer video cameras that now fit into a pocket and websites like YouTube. These new tools and technologies allow anyone to easily capture videos and…
What It’s Really Like to Work for Government
This week I came to the realization that the majority of people have a totally wrong view of what it’s like to work for government. I guess having worked in government for so long now, I take for granted all the rules, regulations, oversight, and general culture in the workplace. And I assumed with all…
A CCDD Update – February 2011
Background information for those just wandering into this legislative disaster: Last year, some of our Illinois legislators passed a law to regulate and impose a fee on anyone trying to dump dirt in a hole. At least that's the way it started out. As you will see from this update, the IEPA has worked to…
Standardizing our GIS Data
Years ago when I first started building a GIS for my last employer, the city of LaSalle, it was difficult to locate guidance for standardization of data structures. Fortunately since then several groups, countries, and organizations have been working to develop and publish standards for the industry. ESRI has offered resources on their Website for…
100-year-old Experiment in Concrete
Today I noticed this Tweet by @PCA_NECSA pointing to an article about a 100-year study about concrete started in 1910 by Owen Withey. This research took place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a school well-known for its engineering programs. And while there are concrete-related studies going on at universities all over the world, what is…
Stearns Road Corridor – An Out of this World Project
Today I had the privilege of attending our APWA Chapter meeting and then touring the Stearns Road Corridor Construction Project. Tours are offered a few times a year as a regular feature of APWA meetings and always provide great information. This particular tour offered a unique opportunity to visit the construction site of a $165…