The Georgia Engineer - Dec 2011 / Jan 2012

Volume 18, Issue 6 December | January 2012TRANSPORTATION

GeorgiaEngineerthe

2011TRANSPORTATIONSUMMITSee story on page 6

2 THE GEORGIA ENGINEER

DECEMBER | JANUARY 2012 3

Publisher: A4 Inc.1154 Lower Birmingham Road

Canton, Georgia 30115Tel.: 770-521-8877 • Fax: 770-521-0406

E-mail: [email protected]

Managing Editor: Roland Petersen-FreyArt Direction/Design: Pamela Petersen-Frey

Georgia Engineering Alliance233 Peachtree Street • Harris Tower, #700

Atlanta, Georgia 30303Tel.: 404.521.2324 • Fax: 404.521.0283

Georgia Engineering AllianceGwen Brandon, CAE, Executive Director

Thomas C. Leslie, PE, Director of External AffairsCarolyn M. Jones, Outreach Services Manager

Georgia Engineering Alliance Editorial BoardJeff Dingle, PE, Chairman

GSPE RepresentativesSam L. Fleming, PE

Tim Glover, PEJimmy St. John, PE

ACEC/G RepresentativesRobin Overstreet

Carley Humphreys

ASCE/G RepresentativesDaniel Agramonte, PERebecca Shelton, PE

GMCEA RepresentativeBirdel F. Jackson, III, PE

ITE RepresentativesDaniel B. Dobry Jr., PE, PTOE

John Karnowski

ITS/G RepresentativesBill Wells

Shaun Green, PE

WTS RepresentativeAngela Snyder

ASHE RepresentativeEd Culican, PE

SEAOG RepresentativeKurt Swensson, PE

GeorgiaEngineerthe

The Georgia Engineer is published bi-monthly by A4 Inc. for the Georgia Engineering Allianceand sent to members of ACEC, ASCE, ASHE, GMCEA, GEF, GSPE, ITE, SEAOG, WTS;local, state, and Federal government officials and agencies; businesses and institutions. Opinionsexpressed by the authors are not necessarily those of the Alliance or publisher nor do they ac-cept responsibility for errors of content or omission and, as a matter of policy, neither do theyendorse products or advertisements appearing herein. Parts of this periodical may be repro-duced with the written consent from the Alliance and publisher. Correspondence regarding ad-dress changes should be sent to the Alliance at the address above. Correspondence regardingadvertising and editorial material should be sent to A4 Inc. at the address listed above.


ADVERT ISEMENTSAECOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15AEI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Atkins/PBS&J . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Atlanta Beltline [Job Opportunity] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Ayres Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Burns & McDonnell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Brown & Caldwell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37CDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Columbia Engineering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Cardno TBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31CROM Prestressed Concrete Tanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Cummins Power South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Edwards Pitman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Engineered Restorations Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Foley Arch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27G. Ben Turnipseed Engineers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40GCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Georgia Concrete Paving Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Georgia Power Company. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21, 33Geohydro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Geosyntec Consultants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Golder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25GRL Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Hayward Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back CoverHazen and Sawyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4HDR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Heath & Lineback Engineers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24HNTB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45JAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Middleton-House & Company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24MidSouth Machine & Service Co.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28O’Brien & Gere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9PBS&J. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Photo Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Pond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Power Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Prime Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3RHD Utility Locating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Rosser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15RS&H. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Savannah Technical College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Schnabel Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Silt-Saver Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Back CoverS&ME. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Southern Civil Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Southern Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Stantec. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Stevenson & Palmer Engineering Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24TBE Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13T. Wayne Owens & Associates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Terrell Hundley Carroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36United Consulting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Front CoverWilburn Engineering LLC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26, 45Willmer Engineering Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Wolverton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5DECEMBER | JANUARY 2012

THE GEORGIA ENGINEER DECEMBER 2011 | JANUARY 2012

GSPE40

ASCE

ITE42

ACEC39

ITS44

ASHE

SEAOG

GMCEAGEA

GEF WTS46

6 2011 Transportation Summit

8 The PELS Board of Registration Coalition

10 Transportation Investment Act 2010

16 Round and Round We Go…

18 Transportation for the Future of Georgia

22 High-accuracy Mapping

25 New Considerations for Joint Venture Agreements

26 Applying Risk Management to Project Performance

29 What’s in the News

34 Transportation Summit 2011 GPTQ Preconstruction Design Awards

37 What Are We Waiting For? Let it Fly!

41 In Memorian ~ Danny Elkins Stanley

GEORGIAENGINEERBLOG.

2011 Transportation SummitThe citizens of Georgia have an oppor-tunity to influence the largest trans-portation program for the state whenthey go to the polls in July 2012 (unlesschanged by the 2012 legislature) tovote regionally for a one-cent sales taxto fund the improvements.

See story on page 6.

and advocacy activities that will occur to ‘translate’ the informationvoters need to make an informed decision. Direct insight to theinner workings was provided by panel member Bucky Johnson,Mayor of Norcross, who served as the Atlanta Regional Transporta-tion Roundtable Chair.

This was the third year that the program’s luncheon was dedi-cated to recognizing the GPTQ awards winners for design. Prior toacknowledging the award winners, a very enlightening presentation

on logistics and operations was givenby Page Siplon, Executive Director ofGeorgia’s Department of EconomicDevelopment’s Center of Innovationfor Logistics. There were a number ofquality design winners with the topaward being given to CherokeeCounty and W. K. Dickinson for theexpansion and improvements at theCherokee Airport.

The added bonus for those atten-dees who are registered professionalswas to obtain professional develop-ment hours (PDHs) by participating,particularly during the breakout ses-sions during the afternoon. Therewere three different general topics(Program Delivery, Planning/Envi-ronmental, and Design) that each of-

fered three different sessions. Continued enhancements of Georgia’stransportation network are truly multi-modal. Consequently, a sam-pling of the sessions presented included the Multi-modal PassengerTerminal, Innovative Interchanges (DDI), the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport Master Plan, Statewide Freight Programs, Round-abouts, and High Speed Rail. GDOT continues to implementprograms to bring improvement projects to fruition in a more effi-cient and timely manner. To inform the attendees on those evolv-ing programs, there were presentations on Design Build Updates,Concept Reports, the Highway Safety Manual, and Alternative BidPavements.

No question it was an activity packed day but it’s events likethe Transportation Summit that support the transportation com-munity in having the most current tools and information to work to-wards an enhanced transportation system making Georgia a leaderin the country. v


2011 Transportation SummitBy Daniel B. Dobry Jr., P.E., PTOE

ransportation is one of the many components that con-tribute to Georgia being a destination for businesses andjobs. These production, employment, and consumptionactivities promote economic development for a vital andgrowing state. Cost effective access to their markets plussafe and reliable commutes for their employees are factorsevaluated when companies are searching for locations to set

up shop. As the Atlanta metropolitan re-

gion and the rest of the state hasgrown, providing a safe, cost effec-tive, and an efficient multi-modaltransportation system has becomemore and more of a challenge. To af-ford the transportation professionalcommunity the chance to learn thestatus of current efforts to addressthese challenges, the Georgia Engi-neering Alliance hosted their 12thTransportation Summit at the Geor-gia World Congress Center on No-vember 9, 2011. As an indication ofthe essential role transportationplays, attendance was capped at 400attendees, and those late to registerwere not able to participate.

All states rely on funding fromthe federal government to construct major transportation projects. Anunfortunate reality is that the federal transportation bill has not beenreauthorized, and Congress has acted only by voting for extensions ofthe existing bill. To offer insight into the implications of the federal in-action, presentations were made by John Horsley, Executive Directorof AASHTO, and Art Guzzetti, Vice President of APTA.

The citizens of Georgia have an opportunity to influence thelargest transportation program for the state when they go to the pollsin July 2012 (unless changed by the 2012 legislature) to vote re-gionally for a one-cent sales tax to fund the improvements. TheGeorgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Director of Plan-ning Todd Long presented the status of the myriad of activities for theTransportation Investment Act (TIA) of 2010 that resulted in all re-gional roundtables approving the financially constrained list of proj-ects by October 15, 2011. After Mr. Long’s presentation, a panel ofarea experts then discussed and answered questions on the education

T

The citizens of Georgia have an opportunity to influence thelargest transportation program for the state when they go tothe polls in July 2012 (unless changed by the 2012 legisla-ture) to vote regionally for a one-cent sales tax to fund the im-provements.



Role of the Board of RegistrationThe State Board of Registration for Profes-sional Engineers and Land Surveyors holds acentral place in the professional life of designprofessionals. It is the gateway for youngerengineers and surveyors and is the guardianof public health, safety, and welfare for pro-fessional practice. But the actions of thePELS Board are not always sweetness andlight. The PELS Board must determine whois qualified, and who is not qualified, to be-come a Professional Engineer or RegisteredLand Surveyor. If a PE or RLS is accused ofrunning afoul of the Code of ProfessionalConduct, the PELS Board becomes the tryerof fact and can impose penalties.

Formation of the Board of RegistrationCoalitionIn November 2003, GSPE, ACEC, andASCE, with the concurrence of SAMSOG,recommended that the PELS Board conducta self-evaluation into three broad areas: en-forcement of current licensing law, educa-tional outreach to registrants and the public,and internal performance metrics. The en-gineer and surveyor societies basically wanteda higher performance level by the PELSBoard regarding processing of complaintsand applications which would staunch theproliferation of specialty certifications, andenhance the professional standing of PEs andRLSs by public sector, third-party reviewersof their work.

The Board appointed a committee toconsider these matters, which reported itsfindings in December 2004. In response, acoalition of engineer and surveying associa-tions was formed to think deeply about theneeds of the PELS Board and the commu-nity of registrants proper response to it.

Board of Registration Coalition MemberAssociationsGeorgia Society of Professional EngineersAmerican Council of Engineering

Companies of GeorgiaSurveying and Mapping Society of GeorgiaAmerican Society of Civil Engineers

American Society of Highway EngineersGeorgia Minority Consulting

Engineers Association Institute of Transportation EngineersStructural Engineers Association of Georgia

It was agreed that the Coalition memberswould work to enhance the performance ofthe PELS Board for the mutual benefit of allregistrants.

Legislation to Restructure the BoardWhat quickly evolved was legislation to re-structure the PELS Board. This approachwould have created an independent PELSBoard (but it would remain a unit of stategovernment) based on the structures inFlorida and North Carolina. A new Secre-tary of State was elected, who professed tohave a plan to study and enhance the effec-tiveness of the approximately three dozenregistration boards under her jurisdiction. Itwas not until 2007 that the coalition realizedthat little change was forthcoming.

By 2009, the Coalition was re-energizedand perfecting legislation to make the PELSBoard a separate line item in the state budget(a budget unit) rather than one of threedozen boards in the same budget unit. Thislegislation failed to pass in the 2010 GeneralAssembly.

Meetings with the new Secretary of StateThe Coalition visited with the new Secretaryof State, and the PELS Board in 2010 and2011 reassessed its strategy. The hard facts in2010/11 were that the Great Recession hadseverely depressed state revenues. Any no-tion of enhanced performance impliedgreater costs and seemed to be dismissed out-of-hand by elected officials (even though, theCoalition supported increasing the currentregistration renewal fee of $50/two years topay for enhanced services).

The Secretary of State provided infor-mation regarding the PELS Board in mid-2011 to help assess the PELS Board’s work.The Coalition was clear that the origin of itsconcern was not the hard work and good in-tent of the Secretary of State and individual

PELS Board members, rather it was inade-quate resources available to it.

Date Scan for PELS BoardThe Professional Licensing Boards Division(PLB Division) is the ‘budget unit’ within theSecretary of State’s office that houses all 36 li-censing boards assigned to that office. TheGeneral Assembly appropriates money as alump sum to the PLB Division. The Divisionallocates money administratively for eachboard. These boards are also a source of rev-enue to the state in the form of fees chargedregistrants as well as fines assessed by theboards in disciplinary actions. All revenueflows to the general fund of the state of Geor-gia, not to a licensing board that produced therevenue. Only the General Assembly may au-thorize expenditures and that occurs by itsadoption of a budget each year. The PLB Di-vision calculates an allocation of expenses for,and revenue flowing from actions of, eachboard. The expense allocations include directand indirect costs, apportioned overhead, andlegal fees (the Attorney General’s office).Since license renewal fees cover two years, ex-penses for both years are combined to prop-erly allocate costs and revenues.

For FY 2009 and 2010, the total ex-penses for the PLB Division (i.e., all boards)was $21.26/licensee and the total revenuewas $41.92/licensee. For both years, thismeans that 50.7 percent of revenue was de-voted to the expenses of the 36 boards, and49.3 percent was diverted to the general fundto help fund other parts of state government.For the PELS Board, the numbers are$17.48/licensee in expenses and $19.77/li-censee in revenue, which means 88.4 percentof revenue is devoted to Board expenses andonly 11.6 percent is diverted to the GeneralFund. An examination of all allocated ex-penses and revenue demonstrates that thePELS Board is getting a very good ‘deal’compared to other boards—33 boards pro-vide a higher ‘pay-out’ to the state’s generalfund, and only two boards get a better ‘pay-back’ from fees they impose. A special case isthe Athlete Agents licensing board, which

The PELS Board of Registration CoalitionBy Thomas C. Leslie

has 73 licensees, expenses of $25.03/licenseein expenses and $190.72/licensee in revenue.The PELS Board has the third largest num-ber of licensees (35,121), and the cost perregistrant is relatively low (only registerednurses and cosmetologists have more regis-trants—111,149 and 76,416, respectively.)

The Secretary of State also provided FY2011 data regarding licensing examinations.One of the major concerns of many licensedprofessionals is the effectiveness of theprocess to discipline engineers and surveyorsthat violate the Code of Professional Con-duct. Part of the concern may stem from thefact that disciplinary actions occur behindthe curtain of confidentiality. Disciplinaryactions can only become an open record afterthe case is closed and all appeals exhausted.During the early journey of the PELS BoardCoalition, there was a notion that many caseswere not being actively prosecuted and thatthe backlog was large. In the past couple ofyears, however, it seems that cases have been‘cleared’ more rapidly and the backlog is

much diminished. This sense comes fromconversations with members of the Boardwho confirm that cases are being moved toconclusion more rapidly. A more analyticalassessment is not possible based on availabledata, but the Coalition believes substantialprogress has been made. The Secretary ofState’s office has provided information rela-tive to the status of disciplinary actions.

ConclusionThe PELS Board Coalition has concludedthat the Board has much improved its effi-ciency and effectiveness. Board memberswork hard and attend to their duties withdiligence and integrity. The improvement isnot due to increasing resources, because thestate has continued to diminish funding tothe PLB Division and, consequently to thePELS Board. The Board and the Secretary ofState have streamlined the application reviewprocess and improved internal communica-tions by implementing new computer sys-tems. The economic recession has been

especially damaging to engineers and sur-veyors, and this trend may have reducedworkload and backlog for the PELS Board.It seems clear that the good work of boardmembers can account for a portion of the en-hanced position of the Board.

It is essential that licensees have confi-dence in the Board, file complaints wherethey observe breeches in the Code of Pro-fessional Conduct, and continue to demandhigh ethical standards of licensees, and highperformance of those appointed to thePELS Board. The Coalition plans to con-tinue to meet once or twice per year to re-view the affairs of our professional licensingboard and offer our support for their workand when appropriate, our critique of issuesthat arise. v


Thomas C. Leslie

Total PELS Applications and Examinations

License Applications Licenses Exam Passed FailedType Received Issued Takers Exam Exam

PE 1425 934 484 383 101FE 1410 549 932 726 206LS 119 43 34 22 12FS 68 31 56 45 11

Total 3022 1557 1506 1176 330

FY 2011 PELS Complaint StatisticsNumber of Complaints opened in FY 2011 64Number of those complaints closed 35Consent Orders Accepted 9Cease and Desist Orders Accepted 2Closed with letter of concern 7Closed with no action 16Resolved 1Fines Assessed $73,000*Fines Collected $12,500*Total PELS Complaint Statistics: 5 from FY08

4 from FY099 from FY 1029 from FY11

*Fines assessed may not be collected until appeals are exhausted, or the disciplined licensee may have moved out of state, or died, or become bankrupt.


On August 15, 2011, all of the RegionalCommissions submitted their constrainedimprovement project lists to the GDOT inpreparation for the regional tax referendum.This article traces the steps and organiza-tional issues for the Atlanta Region and theeleven other regions. The discussion of theAtlanta Region separately from all of theother regions is due to the differences in thetransportation issues between the regions.The article is divided into several parts: (1)an Organizational Overview, which is com-mon to all regions; (2) the Adopted Selec-tion Criteria, which is generally similarbetween regions except for the Atlanta Re-gion; (3) the Public Involvement Process; (4)Opportunities for Engineers; (5) RegionalDifferences, and finally (6) Challenges forPublic Support.

Organizational OverviewBy now, most of us should know about theTransportation Improvement Act of 2010(TIA 2010), which provides for a ten-yearreferendum for a one-cent regional sales taxfor transportation improvements in each oftwelve ‘transportation regions’ in Georgia.There has been extensive coverage in the At-lanta Journal Constitution of the projectsand program in the ten county metropolitanarea. The purpose of this article is to chron-icle the events in the regions in Georgia andto highlight the opportunities for the engi-neering community in Georgia.

First, some operational details. TheseTransportation Region boundaries are coter-minous with the Regional Commissionboundaries in Georgia established in 2009.This article will discuss the type of trans-

portation improvements selected for inclu-sion in the tax referendum for the ‘outereleven’ transportation districts or regions.

Regional Roundtables ~ TIA 2010 pro-vided for a ‘Regional Roundtable’ for eachof the regions. This article will review thefunction of the Regional Roundtables andthe elements of the selection of the specificprojects within the region. One function ofthe Roundtables was the development of cri-teria for the inclusion of specific projects.Several steps in the process included: the de-velopment of an unconstrained project list-ing, a constrained project listing, based onthe estimated tax money available, and a‘final project listing.’

Regional Sales Tax ~ TIA 2010 created spe-cial tax districts (now referred to as trans-portation districts) and a referendum on asales tax on goods and services for the pur-pose of financing transportation improve-ments. The referendum, if approved, wouldprovide a one-cent sales tax for ten years forimprovements within each transportationdistrict.

Adopted Selection CriteriaOne of the most important parts of theprocess of developing a list of projects for thereferendum is the development of project se-lection criteria. The Georgia DOT provideddraft criteria for project selection to theTransportation Districts in October 2010.The criteria included general economic goalsand objectives, mobility, and safety. In ad-dition, the criteria included a suggested ap-portionment of funds for each mode of

transportation. The Regional Roundtableswere required to approve and/or modify theapportionment for their own district basedupon perceived local needs and wishes. Therecommended investment by mode is in-cluded in Table 1.

Origin of Plans and Project Estimates ~The projects that were considered came fromexisting plans and cost estimates that wereavailable, studies in the GDOT Work pro-gram, MPO long range plans, short rangetransportation programs and county trans-portation studies. Preference was given toprojects that could be initiated within theten-year sales tax period.

Table 1 on the next page shows the recom-mended target allocations by program type.In general, seven of the transportation dis-tricts accepted the DOT recommended allo-cations as presented, and three acceptedmost of the allocations. ARC, Middle Geor-gia, Heart of Georgia Altamaha and ThreeRivers made substantial revisions or simplycombined several of the programs into oneor two. In the case of Atlanta, transit is amajor consideration, and in the case of Heartof Georgia Altamaha the road and bridgemaintenance over river crossings is of majorconcern.

Selection Process ~ The initial financiallyunconstrained project list included im-provements developed by the GDOT Direc-tor of Planning. The director developed thelist by seeking projects from local govern-ments and MPOs and within GDOT’s workprogram. The initial list was first an ‘uncon-

Transportation InvestmentAct 2010

By John D. Edwards, P.E. | Honorary Member, ITE


Ga 365, Hall County Georgia


RoadwayCapital 50-70% 50-70% 20-50% 40-70% 50-80% 50-70% 50-90%

Roadway, Bridge

Maintenance0-10% 0-10% 0-10% 40-50% 50-80% 0-10% 50-90%

Safety, Traffic Ops. 15-50% 15-50% 5-15% 10-50% 15-50% 5-15% 50-90%

Freight,Logistics 2-10% 2-10% 0-5% 2-10% 5-20% 0-5% 0-5%

Aviation 0-5% 0-5% 0-5% 5-15% 5-20% 0-5% 0-5%

Bicycle,Pedestrians 1-5% 1-5% 1-5% 0-1% 0-5% 1-5% 0-10%

TransitCapital 0-10% 0-10% 10-40% 0-5% 5-20% 1-5% 0-10%

TransitOperations,Maintenance

0-10% 0-10% 5-20% 0-5% 5-20% 0-10% 0-10%

Table 1 – Program Areas and Modal Targets Source: Georgia DOT Web site, www.IT3.ga.gov

strained draft’ wish list without regard tofunding. This ‘unconstrained’ list was pro-vided to the Roundtables for consideration.Specifically, a sub-committee of the Round-table, called the Executive Committee, usedthe list as a starting point. This first list wasproduced by a mandated June 1 deadline. Afiscally constrained investment list of proj-ects, using the funding estimate by the stateeconomist from the sales tax for ten years,was used to produce the draft constrained listby a mandated August 15 deadline. The listwas then submitted to the Regional Round-tables for final revision and approval. Table 2illustrates the required reductions from the‘unconstrained list’ to the ‘constrained list.’This table gives one an idea of the amountof unmet needs for transportation improve-ments in each of the regions in the state thatexist even with the passage of the regionalsales tax referendum.

The total requested funding for all theRegional Commissions is $45,658,000, 000over the next ten years, and the total TIAFunding that will be available is estimated at$12,662,600,000. Thus, only about 27.7 per-cent of the perceived transportation needs willbe funded by the sales tax.

Regional DifferencesThe project selection process is unique to eachTransportation District based on the characterand goals of local development, the types ofexisting transportation facilities, the Round-table adopted criteria, the level of traffic con-gestion, and other factors in each region.

Rural/Urban Variations ~ One would ex-pect that there would be differences in theperceived needs of transportation improve-ments based on the development character-istics of the Regions. This is apparent whenone examines the Constrained Project Lists.For example, in the Heart of Georgia Al-tamaha Region, many major projects are forroadway and bridge maintenance, while inthe Middle Georgia Region the emphasis ison economic development and safety withthe Fall Line Freeway and improvements tothe interchange operations such as the I-16/I-75 interchange in Macon. In the At-lanta Region, the major emphasis is oncapital transit investments and transit oper-ational improvements

In the River Valley District, a variety ofprojects in Columbus, including the exten-

sion of the Riverwalk, the Intercity Bus andRide Facility, and the South Lumpkin Multi-use Facility (pedestrian, bike trail), attest tothe multi-modal character of the TIA 2010.

In the Coastal Region, major improve-ments for widening, improved, and new in-terchanges are related to I-95 and I-16. Theseprojects will improve freight movement andaccess to and from the ports and will benefitmost of the counties in the region. Anotherdistinction is in the urban/rural transit proj-ects. One would expect that the Savannahand Brunswick urban areas would have sub-stantial allocations to transit improvementsbut one finds that Liberty County, an urbanexpansion area for Savannah, has a substan-tial allocation for a transit system as well.

Highway/Transit Differences ~ As pointedout in the previous section, many of the re-gion’s elected officials have the major em-phasis of transportation improvements onhighway facilities. In fact, except in the At-lanta Metropolitan Region with 52 percentof the investment in transit, the most moneyis in highway improvements. The AtlantaRegion’s proposed investment in transit con-


RegionalCommission

Total TIA FundingRequested (millions)

Total TIA FundingAvailable (millions) % Required to be Cut

NW Georgia $2,148.3 $905.9 55.7%

Georgia Mountains 3,512.2 803.1 77.1%

ARC 22,900.0 6,140.2 73.2%

Three Rivers 1,665.5 604.6 63.7%

NE Georgia 2,234.9 630.4 71.8%

Middle Georgia 2,478.8 561.6 77.3%

Central Savannah 2,448.0 538.9 77.9%

River Valley 1,253.9 380.8 69.6%

Heart of Georgia 1,233.7 255.5 79.3%

Southwest Georgia 785.5 340.0 56.7%

Southern 2,092.4 429.6 79.5%

Coastal 2,905.4 1,027.0 64.7%

Table 2 – TIA Funding and Project Requests Source: Transportation Investment Act 2011, Georgia DOT, August 2011

sists of a variety of components. For in-stance, operating funds are proposed for bussystems: Clayton County ($100 million),Gwinnett County ($40 million), and theGeorgia Regional Transportation Authorityfor service in several other metro counties($128 million). For MARTA, $600 millionis proposed for maintenance to attain a ‘stateof good repair’ in the existing system, and$700 million is proposed for a new heavy railline to the Emory University/CDC develop-ment cluster. A detailed study would befunded to lay the groundwork for intercitypassenger rail from Atlanta to Griffin. ‘Pre-mium’ transit would be provided from thecurrent MARTA station toward GwinnettCounty ($95 million), service in SouthDeKalb County ($225 million), and fromthe current Marta station toward CobbCounty ($695 million). Also included isfunding for a major portion of the Beltlinetrolley in Atlanta ($602 million).

Those regions where there is an existingtransit operation (Athens, Augusta,Brunswick, Columbus, Macon, Rome, andSavannah) have allocations in the range of1.26 percent to 11.61 percent of the total re-gional investment budget.

Public InvolvementIt is recognized that the most difficult part

of ‘selling’ the regional sales tax is making thepublic aware of the program and its benefits.It is always a challenge to convince the gen-eral public to increase tax on themselves, andin these economic times, it is doubly diffi-cult. Recognizing this, the authors of the leg-islative act provided for a process for theeducation of the public. The enabling legis-lation for the referenda mandated full dis-

closure of the project list to the publicthrough a series of public meetings and via aWeb site.

Process ~ The legislation for the programspecified a minimum number of two publicmeetings and two ‘official’ meetings of theRegional Roundtables. Most of the RegionalRoundtables exceeded the requirements with

some holding five or even more public meet-ings and up to eight or ten meetings of theRoundtables. A survey of the Regional Com-missions by the author indicated most com-missions held at least six meetings to secureproject requests. Another element of theprocess was publicity of the programthrough local newspapers, presentations atcivic club meetings, and TV. !e AtlantaJournal Constitution has published a series ofarticles on the program especially for themetropolitan area, and several RegionalCommissions reported that extensive localcoverage was provided through the newsmedia. In the eleven other regions, localnewspapers such as the Athens Banner Her-ald, Gainesville Daily Times, AugustaChronicle, Macon Telegraph, ColumbusLedger Enquirer, and Newnan Times- Her-ald and many others carried articles on themeetings of the Regional Roundtables.

Status ~ Currently, efforts are underwaythrough the newly created Georgia Trans-portation Alliance by the Georgia Chamberof Commerce to educate the citizens on allaspects of the referenda and to advocate forpassage in the eleven non-Atlanta regions.For the Atlanta Region, two groups havebeen organized: Citizens for TransportationMobility (CTM), an advocacy organization,and Metropolitan Atlanta Voter EducationNetwork (MAVEN), an education organiza-tion. These groups have hired staff and cam-paign consultants and they are raising moneyto support their efforts.

Opportunities for EngineersThe Transportation Investment Act 2010(TIA 2010) could provide the funding formajor transportation improvements whichare required if the state of Georgia is to com-pete successfully for job growth with otherstates. As indicated in the 2009 McKinseyand Company Study, “Meeting Georgia Mo-bility Challenge,” the state is far behind infunding of these important infrastructure el-ements. Not only does the TIA 2010 providefunding for much needed transportation fa-

cilities but it provides benefits to the generaleconomy through jobs and income. Esti-mates of unemployment for engineers in theAtlanta area have been as high as 24 percent.For engineers, the TIA will provide jobs formany unemployed engineers and techni-cians.

Program Management ~ According to of-ficials at GDOT, the approval of the sales taxwill almost double the available funds fortransportation investments in Georgia (as-suming all twelve regions pass the tax). Withsuch a large program, how will project man-agement be handled? The current thought isthat several consulting firms with experiencein project management could be hired. Forindividual projects, it is expected that con-sulting firms will be hired by GDOT to pre-pare plans for traffic operations, roadways,rights-of-way acquisition, and bridges. Theseplans will be produced under the directionof the management consultants in a timelymanner and to acceptable standards. Forcapital transit and transit operations plansand programs in the Atlanta Region, theGeorgia Regional Transportation Authority(GRTA) will hire the consultants. GRTAplans to work with the local sponsor of thetransit project for delivery. The developmentof plans and the management of the programwill be under the authority of GRTA.

Individual Project Plans ~ For individualprojects, both roadway and transit, someplans are already available due to the issuance

of past consulting contracts. It is anticipatedthat most of these design and planning doc-uments may need some updating due tochanging conditions. Updating plans andnew plans will be done by DOT and GRTAstaff with the assistance of individual con-sulting firms. Regardless of how the respon-sibility of the work is allocated, there couldbe a significant amount of work for consult-ing firms.

Where We Go From Here?Surveys of the Regional Transportation Dis-tricts by the author indicate that there is lit-tle knowledge by the general public of theTIA or the benefits of the proposed tax inproviding improved mobility and economicimpacts. We, as an engineering society, needto become involved in an education and pro-motions program to make the general publicaware of the benefits of the passage of the2010 TIA referendum

The public’s involvement statewide iswhat makes this project different than manyprevious transportation projects. Knowl-edgeable local officials and citizens draftedand refined the lists of needed projects. Fur-thermore, the money raised within each re-gion will be spent within that region. Thefirst 75 percent will fund the regional proj-ects on the list. The other 25 percent will begiven to each region’s towns and counties tospend on hometown transportation im-provements of their own choosing. In the At-lanta Region, there are more ‘regional’projects, and the enabling legislation stipu-

14

I-285 at the Evening Peak Hour


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lates that 15 percent of revenues be allocatedto local governments for transportation im-provements. So, local decision makers whodetermined transportation needs will receive100 percent of the revenues flowing from thereferenda tax. But regions have to vote forthe investment. Those regions that approvethe referendum can use the money for theirown local and regional improvements. Thosethat turn down the opportunity will miss outon the countless dollars that could be put to

work on their behalf. “We know that every $1 billion we

spend on transportation improvements sup-ports 28,000 jobs and generates more than$2.5 billion in economic activity throughoutthe state,” says Heath Garrett, with ConnectGeorgia, the advocacy campaign of theGeorgia Transportation Alliance. These arelocal projects, selected by local citizens thatwill bring local jobs. That makes it a smartinvestment.”

Authors NoteJohn D. Edwards is an Honorary memberand a Past President of the Institute of Trans-portation Engineers, a 20,000 member or-ganization of professional transportationengineers and transportation planners. Thisarticle is the product of several persons:Cindy Miller at Atlanta Communications,www.cindymilleratl.com and Todd Long atthe GDOT, [email protected]. v


Round and Round We Go...

“I guess what we do is just drive around thiscircle here, should be the second left exit,there}s the hotel—Hey! Look kids! There’sBig Ben and there’s Parliament! I can’t seemto get over to the left honey, I’ll try againnext time... sorry, we’ll get out of this jam ina minute.”

Clark Griswold sets the tone for Amer-ica’s perception of the roundabout by driv-ing in the same circle for hours as the familyfalls asleep in National Lampoon’s EuropeanVacation. Fortunately, the modern round-about is much better than what is portrayedin the movie. A modern roundabout is help-ful and safer than the traditional intersectionto which we are accustomed. A roundaboutcontrols traffic, keeps it flowing, and makesus safer by reducing traffic speed and thelikelihood of T-bone or head-on collisions.

According to the Insurance Institute forHighway Safety, roundabouts reduce alltypes of collisions by 30 percent, reduce in-jury by 76 percent, and reduce fatal and in-capacitating accidents by 89 percent.Pedestrians are 50 percent less likely to bestruck at a roundabout crosswalk than a tra-ditional signalized intersection. A typical in-tersection has 20 to 30 critical points where

vehicles could collide, a roundabout haseight.

Don’t mistake a roundabout for a trafficcircle. The differences are in the design asroundabouts require traffic entering the cir-cle to yield to traffic that is already movinginside. Many traffic circles do not follow thisrule. Roundabouts are smaller than trafficcircles. The smaller size makes them safer,slower, and more efficient. Roundabouts arelauded for the aesthetic benefits they provideto an intersection. Roundabouts have provento be a very effective way to improve trafficoperations and enhance safety in difficult in-tersections. Mark Pickering, P.E., Vice Pres-ident/Transportation Department Directorfor Thomas & Hutton stated, “Although rel-atively new to the United States, round-abouts have been used with great successabroad for quite a while. Unfortunately thereare some examples of poorly functioningtraffic circles in the U.S. that often createconfusion about the functionality and bene-fits of roundabouts. Consequently, over-coming public apprehension aboutroundabouts is one of our greatest chal-lenges. Education of the public about round-abouts probably requires as much attention

from the project team as do the design de-tails when planning and implementing anew roundabout. Our experience has beenthat when properly designed and con-structed, roundabouts quickly become verypopular with the motoring public.”

“Georgia has 16 roundabouts and itsDepartment of Transportation has identifiedabout 100 more intersections where theywould work,” says State Traffic EngineerKathy Zahul. “People are generally opposedto it until they get one, and then they say,“Oh, this is great,” she said.

Doyle Kelley, Jr., PE with Thomas &Hutton states, “Thomas & Hutton hasbeen designing roundabouts in our privatedevelopments for over 25 years. They wereinstalled for their aesthetic value but endedup working well handling traffic at majorentry points. FHWA and state DOT haverediscovered the roundabout in the last fewyears and are requiring its evaluation at po-tential signalized intersections. Round-about rediscovery is providing the travelingpublic with more efficient, safer intersec-tions.”

The ACEC award winning Frederica-Demere Roundabout provides an excellent

By Thomas & Hutton Inc.


example of how well a roundabout can func-tion. This was the first multi-lane round-about in Glynn County, Georgia. Theexisting lighted intersection was the busieston St. Simons Island. Frederica and DemereRoads function as primary arterial roadwayson St. Simons Island and were often plaguedby long traffic queues and travel delays wherethey intersected. Average daily traffic vol-umes through this intersection exceeded25,000 vehicles per day with additionalgrowth anticipated. “Many residents whowere not familiar with the concept of theroundabout were opposed to the idea ofchanging the intersection. They were fearfulthat no one would know how to maneuverthrough it,” said Commissioner Uli Keller.“But those who were accustomed to traveland had been to other cities and countriesthat use roundabouts knew this wouldwork.”

The resulting facility improved opera-tion of the intersection from a Level of Serv-ice F to Level of Service B, significantlyreducing wait times for motorists. “Afterusing roundabouts on St. Simons for a pe-riod of time, I would like to say that they are

an excellent way to move—the old ineffi-cient red light system seemed antiquated. Weshould replace more red lights with theroundabout system,” said Phillip S. Allen, St.

Simons Island resident in a letter to the edi-tor of The Brunswick News.

“There’s definitely a learning curve formotorists,” says Jana Tidwell of AAA Mid-Atlantic. “It’s different than the already-trained red-light green-light scenario,” shesays. “Once you experience it a few times,you become more comfortable.” The moreAmericans use roundabouts and experiencethe convenience and safety, the more widelyaccepted they will become. v

About Thomas & HuttonFounded in 1946, Thomas & Hutton pro-vides quality services and project support topublic and private clients. Technical compe-tencies include civil, environmental, struc-tural, and marine engineering; landsurveying; land planning; landscape archi-tecture; Geographic Information Systems(GIS), and construction administration.Thomas & Hutton has more than 150 em-ployees in five office locations: Savannah andBrunswick, Georgia; Charleston and MyrtleBeach, South Carolina; and Wilmington,North Carolina.

www.thomasandhutton.comwww.facebook.com/THEngineers

Diagram Courtesy of Alaska Roundabouts

Conflict Points~ conventional intersection (left) v. modern roundabout (right)


ithout a blueprint of the fu-

ture, we cannotbuild it. Looking

backward only tells uswhere we have been.

These are trite sayings, but actually very true.We have arrived at our present transporta-tion system by not adjusting to the changesbrought about by technology and populationshifts. The planners have been trying toforce people to make choices they don’t wantto make. Think these are somewhat radicalstatements? I will try to prove these state-ments to be true. Let’s take a look at a littlehistory and see if we can find out how we gotto our present state of traffic congestion.

Before interstates, all roads went fromtown square to town square. You circled thesquare to find the next highway route num-ber to head out of town. There were manystop signs and signal lights in these townsand cities, and the average travel speed forautomobiles or trucks on a cross country tripwas very low. Think of automobiles andtrucks on one travel lane on hills and curves,and you will understand what it was like inthe early ‘50s. Don’t forget bias tires and fre-quent flats, which was why there were sparetires in the trunk. Also understand the townswere only 20 or 30 miles apart because ofhow far mules could pull wagons. Speedlimits were usually 25 mph inside city limitsand 55 outside. Passing skills were requiredand it meant driving about 15 seconds in theopposing lane, quite a distance and not toosafe. The cafes, filling stations, and hotelswere all located near the square or at the edgeof the city limits. The cities derived much oftheir income from these travelers. Trainswere the main source for cross country pas-senger and bulk transportation. Of course,this type of ground travel made air travel thedesired method for business people.

President Eisenhower had experiencedthe abilities of the Autobahn and approvedthe building of the interstate system becauseit could move large volumes of troops andsupplies across the U.S. quickly. The inter-

state was mainly to be a straight line of travelbetween large cities, avoiding smaller townsand cities. It was to give a high speed limitand try to keep all traffic moving cross coun-try at the higher speeds. It limited access andexits to avoid having to reduce the speed. Itwas successful beyond our dreams and designconcepts. The interstate highway systemchanged the infrastructure of the country inways never imaged by its designers. We didnot understand the vast infrastructurechanges that would take place because of thegreat new highway. We did not envision thevolume of traffic that would take advantageof the new system. This shows we have to becareful how we design the next great system.

Over time the infrastructure shifted tomeet the needs of the interstate system trav-elers. Travel support services moved to in-terstate exits and small towns dried up.Trucks could average 500 miles per day andcould outperform the railroads in haulingbulk goods over longer distances. We nowknow too many interstates went throughmajor cities, and over time, when the popu-lation of vehicles grew, we developed majortraffic jams around and through our cities,but not because of interstate travelers, butbecause of people who found they could livein the country, 15, 20 or 40 miles away fromtown, and get to their jobs in town quicklyusing the interstate. More lanes, more en-trances, and too few exits into the cities werethe answer to the increased traffic volume.The next response was the heavy rail, fre-quent stop, high terminal cost, mass trans-portation system like they use in New Yorkand Chicago. But they have very high den-sity populations, and the great majority oflarge cities do not. It seems to work in placeslike the Northeast and Chicago. But recentreports tell us even Chicago is choked withdrivers wanting to bring their automobiles totown. In the South, the population movedto the country and used the interstate.

Presently, the planners seem to havetaken the attitude that the solution to trans-portation problems is to use economic pres-sure to force people to use mass

transportation systems or restricted interstatelanes.They are not producing any plans tosupport the commuters by providing themwith a fast, flexible, economical commute totown. They are instead using the commutertransportation problem to promote masstransportation. The big push is on for the useof bicycles and walking to work and play.They want people to live, work, and play inor near the city or mass transportation ter-minals. They justify it by saying it saves lives,and reduces energy use, pollution, smog, andhealth problems.And they are right that itpossibly will. Maybe future generationswould rather live close together for this typelifestyle. But what about those who wanttheir children to grow up in small towns orin the country, but need to work in the city?Should this lifestyle be destroyed just becausesomeone thinks it is better for everyone tolive in close packed cities and use mass trans-portation? If the choice of an alternative lifestyle in the country is to be preserved, a bet-ter commuter transportation system needs tobe designed.

Suppose we were to support the com-muters’ desire to live outside the city in morespacious surroundings and give their chil-dren more opportunity to attend schools ina more rural setting. Having bedroom com-munities has not been a bad thing. What wereally need to look at is what the future trans-portation system should be like in terms ofservice to the public that presently exists, andwork by zoning and long-term planning todevelop dream living styles for the future.Let’s list the things that people of todaywould like in a dream travel system:1. Fast and even travel without stress or

worry.

2. No congestion, and not herded togetherlike cattle.

3. Flexibility, where the individual or partycould go and come, wherever andwhenever they pleased.

4. Safe, where the possibility of a collision

Transportation for the Future of GeorgiaBy Luther O. Cox, Jr., PE

W


is almost eliminated. A tremendous sav-ings would be the result through injuryand death reductions.

5. Economical, where the cost of travel iseither reduced or the journey conditionsimproved.

6. Environmentally improved where thebreathing problems are reduced becauseof fewer emissions. Health costs wouldgo down and absence from the job re-duced.

7. Vehicles not powered by foreign oil.Eliminate the dependence on foreign oiland politics.

8. Short commuter times in metro areas,say less than 40 minutes.

9. Short travel times between cities, at sayan average speed of 85 mph.

Can such a system be built? The answer isyes! All the technology needed to build sucha system is already in existence. We just needto iron out the design details and get busybuilding it.

Fast does not have to mean 100 mph.A constant speed of 70 mph can put anyonewithin a 70-mile radius of a city to be therein an hour, a thirty five mile radius in a halfhour. Present commuters would considerthese fast commute times. In fact, at a con-stant speed of 85 mph, Macon, Columbus,and Chattanooga residents would have rea-son to drive on this commuter system to getto Hartsfield- Jackson International as wellas Atlanta. The secret word is constant. Thepresent transportation systems have stops,and this reduces their average speed signifi-cantly. If they could eliminate the stops, theircommute time could be drastically reduced.The future system must be without stops forthe commuter.

Without any doubt, the automobile isstill the best, most flexible method of trans-porting people to where they want to gowhen they need to go. But we cannot affordthe high cost of expanding the present typeof interstate system. The costs of additionallanes and bridges are prohibitive. The aver-

age speed on the interstate now is compara-ble to the street speeds we used to experiencein the ’80s. This drives the fuel costs up andcuts productivity. The present mode of in-terstate travel involves waiting several lightsto get on. Then drivers enter the interstatelanes at low speeds and build up their speedwhile traffic already on the system changeslanes, slowing traffic in adjacent lanes until itall comes to a halt. Nearing a major inter-state interchange, or exit, traffic traveling fastin the fast lanes comes charging into the al-ready stop-and-go traffic exiting the inter-state, making it dangerous, and the crash anddelay costs are well known.

The solution to handling large volumesof traffic is to have a pipeline of vehicles al-most bumper to bumper and traveling at aconstant fast speed of say 70 mph. This pipeline would have a capacity at full volume ofabout 265 vehicles per mile and dischargeabout five vehicles per second or 256 vehi-cles per minute. This is considerably moreefficient than the present lane capacity andaverage speed on the interstate. But this typeof system would require computer control ofthe vehicle to make it safe and to assure theconstant speed.

Let’s look at the changes in automobiledesign that are available that could make thisconcept of pipeline delivery of commuterspossible. On Star and other communicationsystems are already being installed on a largenumber of automobiles, and have been foryears. They can control the engine, throttle,and brakes. Google is testing robotic cars andreportedly has over 140,000 kilometers ofstreet experience. Others have been designingand testing completely robotic cars for years.The testing has been aimed for everyday streetuse; that is to drive in traffic where other ve-hicles are using humans to control them. Ifthe robot controlled vehicles were in a singleline and separated from the other vehicle traf-fic, the control problem would be greatly sim-plified. Computer controlled vehicles iscertainly the way to go to reduce crashes andachieve high volumes of vehicles traffic.

Electricity is the way to eliminate ourdependence on foreign countries and theiroil. The electric automobile is here and isthe way of the future. But it has its limita-tions at the present time due to the battery

problem. However, if our pipeline had powerstations or solar panel electricity available togive the electric vehicle power en route, thebattery problem is solved. The battery isready to go at the end of the commute, andthe electric vehicle range is extended to ac-commodate intercity travel for the com-muter. So the computer controlled electricvehicle traveling in a special pipeline at 70mph within a few feet of each other with allthe benefits desired is already a feasible wayto travel. And we haven’t looked to futuretechnology since this is all proven presentday technology. Notice that the vehicle andthe computer system controlling it are all


bought and paid for by the owner of the ve-hicle, and the costs are bound to go down asmore and more commuters see the benefits.

The cost of constructing the pipeline isthe next problem to address since there arelimited funds to build it. This is the part thepublic has to buy and pay taxes for. As every-one knows, the cost of manufacturing meth-ods makes costs go way down. Suppose thepipeline was a two beam track supportingthe left and right sides of the electric vehiclerather than a full lane width of concrete.This is possible for most of the track becausethe vehicles are not passing and changinglanes. The track design can be simplified andconstructed in a manufacturing like methodand assembled on site like blocks. Much ofthe track design would have uniform load-ing requirements since the weight of the ve-hicles can be uniform. This would make thecost of the pipeline very much less than thepresent construction costs. The power com-panies can install the power lines.

There is one more problem to be ad-dressed by the recipient of all this traffic, thecity. The city would need to design a parkingsystem to accommodate the influx of vehi-cles. The present system would not handleit. But there are new designs in parking fa-cilities in Europe, and these designs are verygreen oriented and efficient at receiving anddischarging commuters. Properly locatedand priced parking facilities to receive thecommuters should more than justify thecosts of building them.

If you want the commuters to keepmoving to their destination, the city streetswill have to give priority and separation tothe robotic vehicles all the way to their park-ing spot or to an entrance to the other vehi-cle traffic. Designs are already available formaking the bike and pedestrian traffic en-joyable and safe, so there is nothing new intechnology there.

In the short term, we might afford thecost of developing a buffer system that makesit easy to get on and off the present interstatesystem. There is technology already in exis-tence and being manufactured in vehiclestoday that can control the speed and distancebetween cars. We should begin today to planon how to integrate that technology into theuse of our interstate and thereby raise the av-

erage speed of travel. Fix these two problemsand the interstate can handle the present traf-fic more efficiently and effectively. It is in-teresting to note we have had no newhighway design since the advent of the in-terstate system, even though the vehicle de-sign has changed, computers are in the handsof kids and doing all kinds of tasks, and thecurrent traffic system is overloaded beyondthe ability of the current generation of driv-ers to control. I don’t think more lanes ofconcrete pavement are the answer. Even ifthe above concept is flawed in some areas, weneed to look up from what has been to whatcan be and embrace the current and newtechnology that is available to make our livesmore comfortable and affordable. Let’s de-sign a transportation system for the future,not the past or even the present.

If we want to increase the number oflanes on our interstates to increase traffic vol-ume, the concept presented here would be agiant step toward the future of transporta-tion. It could be the model for travel be-tween cities since the electric vehicle batterywould not be a problem. We would want tobump the speed up to about 85mph for thismode of travel. My experience is that pas-sengers traveling between cities, althoughthey may like the thought of instant trans-port, are willing to take some time to doother things, like see the passing scenery orread a book or do business. The computercontrol relieves the driver of having to payattention to the vehicle control.

This design would be a minimum in-

trusion on the environment and could evenbe used by Marta to penetrate areas not eas-ily accessed by heavy rail. The electric car isquiet. This system as a network around At-lanta would greatly reduce the pressures onthe interstate until such time as we getcaught up on a better design for the futureof interstates. In other words, if Marta wereto claim the system for Metro Atlanta and letthe smaller cities and urban areas work to-ward the longer commuter system, the sys-tem could expand Atlanta’s commuter baseto areas out to about 90 miles. Even seventymiles per hour translates to better than a milea minute of commuter time. That would bequite a boon to Atlanta’s growth. It couldprovide a straight shot into Hartsville-Jack-son International Airport.

Providing a new and easy way to travelproduces major changes in the way we liveand make our choices of how to live. Theblue print I have described should ignite newideas on how to transport people beginningnow. People could go farther and faster intheir automobiles than we ever imagined.Even lay people see the need for this change.While I don’t claim to be original, I do hopethat the transportation engineering and cityplanning community will look at new con-cepts and see if they can come up with bet-ter solutions to solve the transportationproblems of our metro area and the state.We need to give the people of Georgia some-thing they can believe in, that the congestionproblem can be solved if they vote for thetaxes they will have to pay. v



High-accuracy Mapping

ngineering professionals often require high-accuracy mapping to effectively plan and de-sign transportation projects. Thanks totechnological innovation, mapping and sur-veying professionals have an impressive arrayof tools that can provide this detailed, highlyaccurate mapping. With terrestrial scanning,mobile mapping, and low-altitude pho-togrammetry solutions capable of providingthe accuracy needed, the critical question is:

Which solution is right for my project?The answer comes from a careful considera-tion of a number of factors, including safety,cost, surveying control considerations, tim-ing, accuracy, maintenance of traffic, and de-rivative product considerations. For manyprojects, the answer hinges on the groundcontrol requirements that are needed to sup-

port the solution. These requirements, inturn, have a major influence on safety andmaintenance of traffic considerations.

How do we establish the required con-trol? Where will we need to place the con-trol? How can we ensure the safety of thoseestablishing the control along the roadway?How can we minimize the impact on road-way users? What approach will provide themost information per unit cost along with arapid turnaround?

Mobile mapping provides a great tech-nology solution. But it also requires consid-erable ground control targets located neareach driving path to adequately control theacquisition. This typically requires controlplacement on the outside shoulders and inthe median. For freeways with more thantwo lanes in each direction, control in thedriving lanes might even be required. Yetcontrol requirements within the driving lanesor in the median often pose enough imped-iments to require an alternate approach. Tri-pod-mounted scanners can provide the detail

and accuracy required, but production andcost often prevent their application on all butthe smallest of project sites. Safety can alsobe a significant concern with this approach.The advantages of a low-altitude, high-accu-racy photogrammetric approach are numer-ous. It represents a true remote-sensingapplication and allows for detailed plani-metric and topographic data collection fromthe acquired imagery. The required controlcan be confined to the outside shoulders of aroadway, or in the case of a freeway, it can beplaced on safer, less-traveled streets that arewithin close proximity. This approach alsoallows for the creation of high-resolution or-thophotos that can be extremely useful dur-ing the planning or design phases.

Aerial AcquisitionMost conventional mapping takes place fromimagery acquired at heights ranging from2,400 to 9,600 feet above ground. Becausethe acquisition height is a significant factorin determining the error budget for a proj-

The real advantage to a photogrammetricapproach is the flexibility in the placement

of control.

Mobile mapping, terrestrial scanners, and low-altitudephotogrammetry have applications for high-accuracy mapping.

Photogrammetric solutions often use control points that are out of the traveled way. Safety and maintenance of traffic considerations are critical to a project’s success.

By Mark Meade | Photo Science

ect, a high-accuracy approach requires sig-nificantly reduced flying heights. In general,fixed-wing (airplane) acquisition will be lim-ited to flights of 1,000 feet above ground indeveloped areas for safety considerations.This altitude produces a photo scale of 1”=167’ in the imagery and places a limit on thevertical accuracy achievable to about 0.10feet (measured in terms of a root meansquare error, or RMSE).

Photo Science performed one of the na-tion’s first high-accuracy mapping projects in1998 for the Kentucky Transportation Cab-inet (KYTC). This project included fixed-wing imagery acquisition at 1,000 feet aboveground in Louisville for Interstates 64, 65,and 71. This project won a national awardfrom the American Council of EngineeringCompanies (ACEC) for its innovation andcontribution to the engineering profession.

However, many projects require evenhigher vertical accuracies on hard surfaces. Ifso, the image acquisition will be confined toa rotary-wing (helicopter) platform. Heli-copters can operate at considerably lower al-titudes and acquisition speeds, resulting insignificantly better vertical accuracy from themapping. We have completed projects at al-titudes to 300 feet above ground, which pro-vide vertical accuracies of 0.05 feet or better.The table above lists the characteristics of im-agery at multiple acquisition heights.

The forward gain in the table above rep-resents the distance between successive pho-tos within a flight line. For example, at aflying height of 500 feet above ground and aforward overlap of 60 percent, the distancebetween successive photos is 300 feet alongthe flight line resulting in 17.6 photos perlinear mile (5,280/300). The width of cov-erage within the neat model at this altitude is525 feet. Finally, each inch of coverage in thephoto represents 83 feet on the ground.Control Requirements

The real advantage to a photogrammetric ap-proach is the flexibility in the placement ofcontrol. The control requirements here aresignificant, but generally, the control can beplaced in areas that provide safety for fieldcrews while minimizing the disruption oftraffic. The control will need to be targetedbefore flight, and the targets must be placedonly on asphalt or concrete surfaces. The tar-gets can be relatively small in size given theultrahigh resolution of the imagery. Controlshould be located every two to three modelsalong the project area and should be placednear the limits of the neat model on bothsides of the photos to maximize the accuracyof the imagery orientation.

Precision level runs will be required toestablish the accurate elevations for the targetpositions. Often, real time kinematic (RTK)observations can provide the necessary accu-racy for the horizontal position of the targets.Moreover, to minimize the disruption ontraffic, it is possible to sequence all controlactivities in a single pass of the surveyingcrew. In the case of a major freeway with out-

side shoulders, the level runs can extendalong these shoulders without the need tocross active travel lanes. An efficient way todo this in a single pass is to construct thecontrol point locations just ahead of the lev-eling crew as the crew moves along the shoul-der. The level run can then turn through thispoint thereby establishing the accurate ele-vation needed as they go.

RTK GPS observations are then per-formed on the same point. Ideally, these ob-servations should make use of dual basestations to provide additional confidence inthe observation. Also, after completing thefirst observation, it is a very good idea to im-mediately conduct a second, independentobservation on the same point. While this isnot as desirable as waiting four or five hoursfor the second observation to ensure theavailability of significantly different satellitegeometry, it has the advantage of avoiding asecond pass through all of the points by thesurveying crew in high-traffic areas.

Finally, after completing the RTK ob-servations and level runs for the point, a pre-cut template can be placed over the pointand a small target painted. At this stage, thecrew is free to move forward to the next con-trol location and begin the control activitiesagain for the new point.

It should be noted that it is criticallyimportant for the field surveying operationsto be designed for the appropriate accuracyfor the project. The control points shouldbe established at an accuracy level three


Flying Height Photo Scale Forward Gain Forward Gain Neat Model

(AMT) 60% overlap 80% overlap Width

300’ 1”=50’ 180’ 90’ 315’

500’ 1”=83’ 300’ 150’ 525’

800’ 1”=133’ 480’ 240’ 840’

1,000’ 1”=167’ 600’ 300’ 1,050’

times the requirement for the project over-all. For example, for a high-accuracy projectwith expectations for a vertical accuracy of0.06 feet, the control should be establishedat an accuracy of 0.02 feet. Anything lessaccurate will jeopardize the overall accuracyof the project.

AerotriangulationJust as the control placement and surveyingmethods are critical to a project’s success, sotoo is the aerotriangulation process that ex-tends control and orientation information toevery photograph. The final mapping solu-tion is only as accurate as the weakest link.Careful planning and extreme care duringthe aerotriangulation process must be pres-ent to achieve the desired results.

This process starts with the planning ofthe exposure points of each image, continueswith the location of individual control pointsfor the entire project area, and culminateswith the measurement and adjustment forthe entire project area. These decisions canvary significantly from project to project.Some projects may require parallel lines forfull coverage, and if so, then an importantdecision must be made regarding the sideoverlap. Often, it is desirable to increase theside overlap from the conventional require-ment of 30 percent up to 50 percent ormore. Also, the highest accuracy projectsmight require 80 percent forward overlap inlieu of the more conventional 60 percentoverlap. These are all decisions that will con-tribute to the success of the project whenmade in the right way—or they can result in

failure if not.

Mapping and OrthophotographyCareful consideration must also be given tothe appropriate platform for carrying out themapping. Not all analytical stereoplottersand softcopy systems provide the right envi-ronment for maximizing the accuracy of thecompilation, particularly in terms of extract-ing elevation data. But by choosing the rightcompilation environment, extremely accu-rate planimetric and topographic informa-tion can be generated from this high-resolution aerial imagery.

Gaining high-resolution orthophotog-raphy can be a significant advantage to thisapproach. Resolutions in the orthophotog-raphy of an inch or better are easily attain-able from this imagery. Just be careful tofully discuss these options with your map-ping provider as the file size of individualimage tiles can be challenging at these reso-

lutions. Make sure to maximize the useful-ness of the imagery in terms of both in-creased resolution and the manageability ofthe size of the imagery.

For more information about high-ac-curacy mapping applications and projectdesign, contact Mark at [email protected]. v




y now, many in the con-struction industry are prob-ably aware of the threepercent withholding man-date on government con-tracts, which becomes

effective January 1, 2012. While Section 511of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconcil-iation Act (TIPRA) was enacted in 2005,contractors who perform work for federal,state or local governments should begin con-sidering and preparing for the overall effectthat the withholding mandate will have,since the effective date now looms at the endof this year.

If you are unfamiliar with the with-holding requirement, most trade organiza-tions for industries that regularly providegoods and services to governmental agencieshave detailed information about the with-holding mandate available on their Websites. Generally, the law requires that federal,state and local governments with expendi-tures of more than $100 million withhold asfederal taxes three percent of payments forproducts and services worth more than$10,000.

There are lobbying efforts underway toattempt to have the withholding require-ment repealed, but so far Congress has yet topass any legislation that removes Section 511from TIPRA. A recent report by the Treas-ury Inspector General for Tax Administra-tion seems to have made the efforts to repealthe withholding mandate more difficult. Thereport found that more than ten percent ofcontractors performing work for the InternalRevenue Service had delinquent federal taxaccounts totaling $10.6 million.

Trade organizations for many of the in-dustries affected by TIPRA have debatedthe effects of the withholding mandate. Op-ponents of the TIPRA withholding require-ment have provided numerous examples ofhow TIPRA impacts the various industriesthat regularly conduct business with gov-ernmental agencies. In the construction in-dustry, the TIPRA withholding

requirement would impact the creation ofproject specific entities such as S-corpora-tions, partnerships or joint ventures.

The agreements that create these enti-ties need to anticipate the future effects ofthe TIPRA. For example, a governmentalagency is required to withhold $600,000 inpayments on a $20 million constructionproject. Because the payment withheld isapplied to the potential tax liability of theentity, the agreement creating and govern-ing the project specific entity will need toaddress how to account for the tax paymentamong its members. In addition, becausethe entity was created for a specific project,it usually would not have large cash re-serves. Withholding a $600,000 paymentmay leave the partnership or joint venturecash strapped and unable to complete theproject without a cash infusion. Any agree-ment that creates and governs a project spe-cific entity should address how futurecapital needs will be handled.

While the TIPRA withholding require-ment does not apply to contracts with pri-vate entities, any joint venture or other entitycreated for a specific construction projectcreates a very complex set of problems thatneed to be addressed. Any agreement thatcreates a project specific entity should, at thevery least, address the detailed scope of workfor each party, a specific procedure for man-aging the entity, the duration of the rela-tionship, a method by which profits (orlosses) will be divided, how future capitalneeds will be met, and how disputes will beresolved.

In addition, joining forces and financeswith another company also may require dis-closure of confidential or proprietary infor-mation, including a company’s keyemployees. In such cases, the joint ventureor similar agreement should contain a con-fidentiality provision and prohibit hiringaway key employees at the conclusion of theproject.

Whether addressing problems createdby TIPRA or those that are likely to occur on

any project, anticipating potential problemsand adopting a mechanism to resolve themproactively can go a long way toward ensur-ing the success of a joint venture. v

D. Michael Williams is of counsel with the law!rm of Rutherford & Christie LLP, a certi!edWomen's Business Enterprise with o"ces in At-lanta and New York (www.rutherford-christie.com). His trial and appellate practicefocuses on construction litigation, commerciallitigation, government liability, and zoning andland use litigation. Mr. Williams has served astrial counsel in a variety of construction litiga-tion matters involving contract disputes andclaims related to construction defects and ma-terial failures. He can be reached at (404) 522-6888 or [email protected].


New Considerations for Joint Venture AgreementsBy D. Michael Williams | Rutherford & Christie LLP

B


hen it comesto the subject of

risk managementin construction, a

vast array of litera-ture (text books, best

practice guides, standards of practice, etc.)and literary work (technical papers, whitepapers, case studies, etc.) have sprung upsince the early 1970s that, when taken col-lectively, provide comprehensive material fora construction project team to draw uponand implement a sound risk managementplan for its construction project. Particularlyin the past decade, almost all major industryconferences (AACEI, ASCE, CMAA, PMI,etc.) have started including a track dedicatedto the topic of risk management with the ob-jective of promoting a discussion on benefitsof risk management and techniques andtools currently available.

And yet, the vast majority of construc-tion projects do not have a formal risk man-agement plan in place. The more prevalentapproach is, instead of managing and miti-gating risk in the project, that the construc-tion project team’s time is spent in managingthe issues, which is the realization of risk it-self. Why is it that, despite the existence of awealth of literature, technical know-how,techniques, and tools on risk management, amajority of construction project teams arenot readily implementing risk management?This article discusses one key component inthe overall process of risk management—theimportance and application of qualitativerisk management to project performance.While several variations to the risk manage-ment model exist in the industry, there areessentially five steps in implementing a riskmanagement program for capital construc-tion projects.

As illustrated in the figure below, thesteps required for both the quantitative riskanalysis and qualitative risk management arecommon through Step 3, but a comprehen-sive risk management plan would need tofollow all the steps shown in the model.

The literary works to date, whether theybe text books, best practice guides, or tech-nical papers in various trade journals, appearto have placed equal emphasis in all the stepsoutlined in the risk management model, andrightly so. The best benefits of risk manage-ment can be achieved when all bases areproperly covered.

However, having equal emphasis on allthe steps in a typical project risk managementmodel might have given the impression to theconstruction community that, in order for theproject to have a successful risk managementplan, it must perform quantitative risk analy-

sis. The simple fact is that not all projectteams have the required resources (technicalknow-how, funds, etc.) to perform a quanti-tative risk analysis in their project. The lackof resources in carrying out the quantitativerisk analysis might have deterred the projectteam from implementing any kind of riskmanagement plan at all.

The question is: can a project team ben-efit from having a qualitative risk manage-ment plan in their project, even if it is notfeasible for them to perform a quantitativerisk analysis? The answer is ‘absolutely.’ Theprimary reason is that these two applications

Applying Risk Management to Project PerformanceBy Sagar B. Khadka, PSP | Project Manager

& Charles E. Bolyard Jr., PSP, CFCC | Chairman of the Board/Chief Executive Officer

5

RiskMonitoring &

Control

RE-ASSESS•Weekly•Monthly•Quarterly

4

Risk ResponsePlanning

ACTION PLAN•Mitigation Plan•Action Officer•Resolve by

3

Risk Analysis

ANALYSIS•Quantitative•Qualitative•Combination

2

Risk Identification

IDENTIFY•Risk Event•Impact•Probability

1

Risk Planning

DEFINE•Scope•Team•Strategy

Quantative•Monte Carlo•Others

Qualitative•Risk Register•Risk Matrix

Mitigation•Transfer•Mitigate•Accept•Avoid•Relax Rules•Contingency

W

(quantitative risk analysis and qualitative riskmanagement) serve two different and spe-cific purposes, and complement each other.Implementation of one does not necessarilyreplace the need for the other. Similarly, theinability to implement one should not deterthe project team from applying the other.

Quantitative Risk AnalysisQuantitative Risk Analysis is typically per-formed at the inception of a project to eval-uate the viability of the project cost and/ortime objectives [1]. This is not to say that thequantitative risk analyses are not routinelyperformed in periodic intervals during thecourse of construction. Also, there may beinstances in a project where circumstancemight call for a quantitative risk analysis inthe middle of a project, or at any point inthe project life-cycle.

Quantitative Risk Analysis is per-formed, after gathering all the known riskitems and prioritizing them, to evaluate:What is the probability that the project willbe within the budget?

This will help in arriving at the estimatefor setting up the contingency funds. If set-ting up a contingency fund is not an optionor if there is a limited budget available, de-scoping of project may be in order or severalother options may be considered. What is the probability that the scheduledeadlines will be met?

This will help in setting realistic projectdeadlines. If the risk analysis shows that thereis a very low probability of meeting the cur-rent deadline, the information gives the proj-ect team an opportunity to consider optionsin deciding a time contingency plan.

Besides evaluating the contingency planfor time and cost overruns, decision makersmay perform quantitative risk analysis toevaluate such scenarios as the viability of theproject itself and reach for alternative pro-grams. [2] [3] [4].

The steps required (risk planning, riskidentification, and assessment) in terms ofgathering the risk data for quantitative riskanalysis are generally the same as those forthe qualitative risk management. It is whatis done with the risk data, how they are an-alyzed, and the specific purpose it [quantita-tive risk analysis] serves, that makes

quantitative risk analysis different from qual-itative risk management.

Qualitative Risk Management and itsImportanceIt would be ideal to have the quantitative riskanalysis performed at the inception of a con-

struction project for the benefits it provides asdiscussed in the preceding section. However,it may not be feasible to perform quantitativerisk analysis for every construction project dueto resource limitations, or the lack of the tech-nical application expertise.

What is feasible and within reach of most


project teams is the application of qualitativerisk management during construction. Whilequantitative risk analysis offers a snapshot ofrisks at a certain point in time—essentially atthe time it is performed—qualitative riskmanagement goes beyond snapshots in timeand deals with those project risk events untilthey are resolved.

Qualitative risk management involvestaking steps to identify every single foresee-able risk event (things that could go wrong)in the project, analyzing the potential impactof each risk event on the project and priori-tizing them based on the severity of impact,creating problem solving strategies to miti-gate (recover from) impacts, and keeping aneye on each until the risk item is eitheraverted, mitigated or resolved. As shown inFigure 1, the process of risk monitoring andcontrol ensures continuity in its applicationthroughout the project until it is complete.

The key to risk management is that it isalways forward looking, anticipating riskevents well in advance of their occurrence inthe project and taking steps to prevent themfrom happening, or at least reducing theirimpact by having a pre-prepared strategy or

plan. This is in contrast to issue manage-ment, which is managing problems in theprojects that have already surfaced.

Put another way, the potential risks thatcould otherwise have either been eliminatedor mitigated through the risk managementplan at a lesser cost, when left unaddresseddue to lack of a sound risk management planin the project, usually turn into issues thatnow must be dealt with at full cost.

How much savings can be expectedfrom a sound risk management plan in theproject? There is no way to provide an an-swer that can satisfy all because risks faced byeach individual project are different. How-ever, findings from case studies involving twolarge programs that employed a risk man-agement plan are very encouraging. Pre-sented as the return on investment (ROI),which was defined as the ratio of savings tocost that indicates the value of performingrisk management, both case studies reportedROI at over 20 to 1 [5]. Even though thecase study involved only two programs, theresult is still very impressive.

This article, within the context of proj-ect risk management, draws the distinction

between quantitative risk analysis and quali-tative risk management. While fully ac-knowledging the significance andimportance of quantitative risk analysis, it isnot always necessary to perform a quantita-tive risk analysis on a project in order to beable implement a qualitative risk manage-ment plan, which can provide immediateand far reaching value to project perform-ance in terms of seeing the project through tocompletion on time and within budget. v

References1.Hulett, David T. Quantitative Risk Analysis Fun-

damentals. https://acc.dau.mil. 2.Hulett, David T. Project Cost Risk Analysis.

Hulett & Associates, 2002. http://www.projec-trisk.com/index.html.

3.Hulett, David T. Schedule Risk Analysis Simpli-fied. Project Risk Management Journal, 1996.http://www.projectrisk.com/index.html.

4.Singh, A., S. Shiramizu and K. Gautam. BidRisk and Contingency Analysis. AACE Interna-tional, Cost Engineering, Vol. 49, No. 12, 2007;20-27.

5.Hall, E. M. Risk Management Return on Invest-ment. Systems Engineering, Vol. 2, Issue 3.1999, 177-180.



Oregon Engineer Named President-Electof National Civil Engineering Society Gregory E. DiLoreto, P.E., P.LS., F.ASCE,chief executive officer at the publicly ownedTualatin Valley Water District (TVWD) inthe Portland, Oregon, metro area, was re-cently named president-elect of the Ameri-can Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).DiLoreto will be installed on Oct. 21, 2011,during ASCE’s Annual Civil EngineeringConference in Memphis, Tennessee, and willbegin his presidency in the fall of 2012.

For more than 12 years, DiLoreto hasbeen responsible for the overall managementof the second largest water utility companyin Oregon, serving more than 200,000 cus-tomers in west Portland, Oregon. Prior totaking over TVWD, DiLoreto was the Di-rector of the Department of EnvironmentalServices in Gresham, Oregon, where he wasresponsible for the city’s water system, sanitysewer and wastewater treatment plant, trans-portation system, storm and surface watermanagement, parks and recreation, solidwaste and recycling, and building and prop-erty management.

DiLoreto is an active member of ASCEon both the local and national levels. He iscurrently chair of the Committee on Geo-graphic Units, which fosters communicationbetween the Society and Sections, Branchesand Institutes. Prior to his national ASCEservice, DiLoreto served as the director, sec-retary, vice president, and president of theOregon Section of ASCE. He has played alarge role in local government, adamantlyvoicing his concerns to maintain adequatefunding levels for civil infrastructure, and en-sures that these funds are available by work-ing with city officials.

DiLoreto received his bachelor’s degreein civil engineering from Oregon State Uni-

versity, and a master’s degree in public ad-ministration from Portland State University.DiLoreto is a registered professional engineerin Oregon and is a resident of West Linn,Oregon, a suburb of Portland.

Founded in 1852, the American Societyof Civil Engineers (ASCE) represents morethan 140,000 civil engineers worldwide andis America’s oldest national engineering soci-

ety. For more information, visitwww.asce.org.

Middough Atlanta Office Celebrates Three Year AnniversaryMiddough Inc. celebrates the three year an-niversary of their Atlanta, Georgia office thisOctober. With dozens of employees and awealth of knowledge, Middough Atlanta hasbeen a growth market for the 60 year oldcompany. Middough’s Atlanta staff currentlyconsists of several design and engineeringprofessionals working closely with our othernational offices. The Atlanta office staff hasan average of 28+ years of experience and iscomprised of architects, civil engineers,structural engineers, MEP engineers, andprocess engineers.

President and CEO Ronald R. Ledinsays, “With local knowledge, local client re-lationships, broad expertise, and the stabil-ity and resources of an established company,our team is committed to provide the high-est quality of service, performance, and proj-ect leadership in the Southeast US Region.”

W h a t ’ s i n t h e

N E W S

Gregory E. DiLoreto

Middough has continued to expand ourgeography, our organization, our businessfocus, and our business leadership. Duringthe recent economic downturn, while otherfirms were downsizing, Middough continuedto grow strategically and position ourselvesto better serve our clients. Utilizing ourshared network and electronic communica-tions, Middough routinely executes projectsusing support from other offices in a seamlesscost-effective manner.

Combining our national resources withour ability to execute services locally has al-lowed our company to continue to growwith our clients and provide ‘PerformanceYou Trust.’ Our relationship based culturepromotes teamwork, trust, and commitmentto quality. Our credentials are evidenced bythese current rankings:• Ranked # 23 of Giants 300 in Building

Design and Construction• Ranked # 99 of Top 500 Design Firms

in Engineering News-Record • Ranked # 69 of Top 100 Pure Design-

ers in Engineering News-Record

Middough’s multi-disciplinary approach pro-vides clients with a multi-discipline, singlesource for architecture, engineering, andmanagement. We provide a seamless synergyof specialists, resources, and services to takeprojects from inception to completion. Mid-dough offers a complete range of services tohelp our clients maintain a competitive ad-vantage in today’s marketplace. From initialplanning and feasibility to move-in training,we have the resources to meet the client’sneeds.

About Middough Inc.For more than 60 years, Middough Inc. hasbeen recognized for its performance andleadership as an international company inengineering, architecture and managementservices. With major offices in Cleveland, At-lanta, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, andToledo and additional offices nationallycomprising more than 800 professionals,Middough provides a full-range of tradi-tional and specialized design, technical andmanagement services worldwide in 16 in-dustries. For more information about Mid-dough, visit www.middough.com. v

Denise McCoy Joins O’Brien & GereO’Brien & Gere is pleased to announce thatDenise McCoy, PG has joined the Companyas a Project Associate in its Savannah, Geor-gia, office location to direct environmentalprojects for clients in the Southeast. Ms.McCoy has more than 14 years of profes-sional experience with a focus on environ-mental project management; environmental

investigation, remediation, and compliance;hazardous waste site assessments; and soiland groundwater assessment, remediation,and monitoring.

Ms. McCoy has provided environmen-tal compliance services for various industriesand managed numerous environmental proj-ects from the initial assessment phases to ex-ecution and completion of remedial actionsfor industrial, private, and government enti-ties. As a Project Associate at O’Brien &Gere, Ms. McCoy is responsible for planning,directing, and supervising major complex anddiverse projects and is accountable for scope,schedule, and budget, as well as business de-velopment and client management. She re-ceived a BS in geology from the University ofWisconsin and is a certified professional ge-ologist in Georgia and South Carolina. Con-tact Denise at: Denise McCoy, PG, ProjectAssociate, O’Brien & Gere, (912) 644-5648,[email protected] v

Engineering and Environmental Firm S&ME Expands via Assets Purchase of BBCMS&ME Inc. has taken its first steps in ex-panding beyond its traditional southeastern

footprint by acquiring Ohio-based BBC&MEngineering Inc.

The deal, effective October 3, resultsfrom S&ME’s purchase of the assets ofBBCM.

About 75 former BBCM employeesjoined S&ME, increasing the company’s em-ployment to nearly 1,100. This staff willwork from 27 offices in North Carolina,Ohio, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky,South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Though concentrated heavily in the South-east, S&ME has completed projects through-out much of the U.S. and in the Caribbean.The addition of BBCM is a continuation ofS&ME’s strategic growth plan.

Announcement of the acquisition wasmade in Raleigh by S&ME President Randy

Neuhaus, PE. “Clients will benefit throughenhanced services, as well as access to adeeper pool of expert talent to help themsolve project challenges,” Neuhaus said.“We’re excited to bring on BBCM’s expertisein geodesign services and experience withmine reclamation and earthen structures in-cluding dams, landfills, and upground reser-voirs.”




Denise MCCoy

Randy Neuhaus


Since 1957, BBCM, a civil engineeringfirm specializing in geotechnical engineering,geodesign, environmental, materials testing,and construction observation, has providedservices to clients throughout the Midwest.S&ME was founded in Raleigh in 1973. Itsmajor service lines include geotechnical en-gineering; construction materials engineer-ing and testing; environmental services,occupational health and safety; water re-sources and solid waste engineering; and nat-ural and cultural resources.

Market segments served include energy,transportation, industrial, federal, state andmunicipal government, solid waste, portsand terminals, healthcare, education, and pe-troleum retailing. v

Schnabel Engineering Inc. AnnouncesBest Civil Engineering Firms to WorkFor RankingSchnabel Engineering Inc., Glen Allen, Vir-ginia, is pleased to announce that they havebeen ranked 9th on the “Best Civil Engi-neering Firms to Work For” list by CE Newsmagazine. The criteria used to make the se-lection included culture, benefits, compen-sation, performance/recognition, recruitingand employee retention, and professional de-velopment, as well as an employee satisfac-tion survey. In addition to the aboverecognition, Schnabel placed 167th on theZweig White Hot Firm List. The Zweig Let-ter 2011 Hot Firm List recognizes the fastest-growing engineering, architecture, planning,and environmental consulting firms in theUnited States and Canada.

Schnabel’s CEO, Mr. Gordon M.Matheson, PhD, PE, PG, stated, “The em-ployees and management team at Schnabelare proud of these accomplishments. We arecommitted to serving our clients by creatingan inviting workplace to attract and retainquality employees.”

Schnabel, an employee-owned com-

pany, is an ENR top ten geotechnical engi-neering firm, employing more than 300 inoffices from coast to coast. Schnabel’s spe-cialized services include geotechnical andgeostructural engineering, as well as dam andtunnel engineering, environmental services,geophysical and geosciences services, con-

struction monitoring, and resident engineer-ing. These coordinated GeoDesign effortsprovide integrated service to every projectfrom subsurface explorations and soil testing,through engineering analysis, design, andconstruction support. For more information,please visit us at schnabel-eng.com. v

2012 Georgia Engineers Week Awards GalaGeorgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center

Atlanta, GeorgiaSaturday, February 25, 2012

Georgia will celebrate the engineering profession at the annual GeorgiaEngineers Week Awards Gala. Join your colleagues and friends for an

evening to acknowledge and highlight the accomplishments of companiesand individuals that have excelled in engineering.

The following awards will be presented at the Gala on February 25, 2012:

Engineering Excellence AwardsGrand Prize Award

5 State AwardsHonor Awards

People’s Choice Award

Engineer of the YearLifetime Achievement Award

Georgia Engineer of YearEngineer of the Year for Private Practice

Engineer of the Year for GovernmentEngineer of the Year in Industry

Engineer of the Year in EducationEngineer of the Year in Construction

Young Engineer of the YearEngineering Technology Student of the Year

Engineering Student of the Year

Visit www.engineersweek.com to learn more about the 2012 Georgia Engineer Week.




Transportation Summit 2011GPTQ Preconstruction Design Awards

Acworth Due West Road

he Georgia Partnershipfor Transportation Qual-

ity is a continuation of thepartnership that began inGQI and continues with highquality solutions to Georgia’stransportation needs. These

awards are intended to recognize the creativ-ity, sensitivity and command of technical andorganizational skills necessary to forge suchsolutions.

Those eligible to compete were trans-portation projects in Georgia, by any firm orpublic agency, demonstrating project basedtransportation planning and design expert-

ise and commitment to the principles towhich the Georgia Quality Initiative is ded-icated. Design projects mush be constructedand open to traffic for not more than threeyears upon submission, except as noted.

The judging was based on total engi-neering excellence in the criteria establishedfor each category of entry. In addition, eachentry was judged fro excellence based on thegeneral criteria listed below, as appropirate:- Customer Satisfaction- Sustainability- Constructability- Cost Effectiveness- Environmental Protection

- Minimal Inconvenience to Transportation Facility Users

- Aesthetics- Completeness and Accuracy of Plans

These are this year’s five (5) awards categories: - Best Traffic Safety/Intersection Design - Best Rural Design Project- Best Context Sensitive Design and

Public Participation Project- Best Innovative Solution- Best Airport Design Project

and Grand Design Award—the projectgiven most overall points from among these five winning projects

Best Traffic Safety/Intersection DesignParsons Transportation Group and Cobb County Cobb County’s goal was to improve the safety and operationalmovement of vehicular and pedestrian traffic along AcworthDue West Road corridor, between Nance Road and BurntHickory Road, about 5.2 miles.

This corridor was originally a rural collector road, but dueto the growth of single family homes along its length and in theimmediate area, Acworth Due West has more recently operatedlike an urban collector. With 25 intersections, sight distancechallenges and a speed limit of 40, there were high crash and ac-cident rates. Limited areas had curb and gutter and continuoussidewalk between intersections, and the disjointed mix of ruraland urban design elements were neither pedestrian friendly, aes-thetically pleasing or functional.

Best Rural Design ProjectGresham Smith and Partners and Clayton County The new 1.7 mile multi-modal Garden Walk Boulevard exten-sion was designed to provide a new connection between UpperRiverdale Road and SR 85 in Clayton County. However, theproject had a missing roadway segment at onset—the two-lanerural roadway section of Garden Walk Boulevard that connectedto Upper Riverdale Road was formerly known as Hastings Drive.It ended at a cul-de-sac. Immediate surroundings included afloodplain and wetland—a hospital, fire station and businesses,vacant property which Clayton County planned to develop, anddense woods that lined the Eagles Crossing subdivision. Thecounty facilitated coordination with key stakeholders, especiallythe hospital and fire station and the Board of Education.

T

Garden Walk Boulevard


Best Context Sensitive Design & Public ParticipationParsons Transportation Group & Georgia Ports AuthorityIn acknowledgement of Georgia’s growing freight movement,the Jimmy DeLoach Connector project was designed to provideadditional capacity and faster roadway access for freight betweenthe Georgia Ports Authority Garden City Terminal and I-95.Garden City Terminal is the largest single container facility inthe US in area, capacity and container volume. In anticipationof the Panama Canal expansion, much larger container shipswill have access to the East Coast ports, and the roadway net-work must be able to keep up with the anticipated growth. Asa result of the Georgia DOT Statewide Truck Lanes Identifica-tion Study, the Department and GPA have been working to-gether to develop a limited access roadway that would parallelSR 21 from the Pierce Avenue intersection and provide directtruck access into the Savannah Port.

Best Innovative SolutionGresham Smith and Partners & the City of RoswellThe intersection of Norcoss Street/Warsaw Road with GrimesBridge Road in the City of Roswell handled 28,000 vehicles perday, through traffic between SR 9/Alpharetta Highway and SR140/Holcomb Bridge Road. The only approach with a dedi-cated left turn lane was northbound Grimes Bridge Road, butthere was no signalized left turn phase. This intersection had ahigh volume of crashes and peak hour delays. Two design so-lutions were presented at the PIOHs—traditional intersectionimprovements with dedicated left and right turn lanes in eachdirection, and a four-leg roundabout with a realignment ofnearby Melody Lane. Public comment revised the concept toaccommodate Melody Lane within the roundabout, creatingthe unique five-leg configuration. This project became the firstroundabout constructed in the City of Roswell. It is 130 feet indiameter, with a ten-foot outside urban shoulder and a 20-footwide circular travel lane. A four-inch high, ten-foot wide con-crete truck apron with traversable curb and landscaped island ison the inside.

Best Airport Design ProjectW.K. Dickson and Co. & Cherokee Airport AuthorityConstructed in the 1960s on a ridgeline within the Etowah RiverBasin, the airport’s former 3414-foot runway and lean-to thatserved as the terminal building offered limited opportunities forthe area’s business growth and expansion. In spite of the runwaylimitations, the demand on the facility was at capacity, with over100 based aircraft and a long waiting list for additional facilitiesthat couldn’t be achieved in the small footprint of the existing air-port. The goal was to provide a fully-functional and capable air-field for business jet aircraft with a minimum 5000-foot runway,space for 300 aircraft and a modern passenger terminal facility.This transformational group of projects had an estimated cost of$34 million, funded by the County, FAA and GDOT. Keepingthe airport operational during construction required extensive co-ordination. These improvements, along with its proximity to theI-575 corridor, fully support the economic development plans forCherokee County and the region.

Jimmy DeLoach Connector

Norcross Street/ Warsaw Road with Grimes Bridge Road

Cherokee County Regional Airport

GRAND PRIZE



One thing I have worked very diligently withmy kids on over the past 16 years is encour-aging them to be fearless in life. Of course,it doesn’t always manifest itself in my house-hold as I have one that loves to watch horrormovies and the other can be found with thecovers over their head as I ask “Why are youin here watching this movie if you’re soscared!” I won’t say which one of my twothat is.

I don’t think I got a handle on ‘fearless-ness’ until relatively late in life, and it con-tinues to be a struggle just like for most of usI suspect. Fear is a pretty powerful emotion!The phrase I use around our house is “Let ItFly!” I encourage Iana and Samuel to mas-ter their class subjects at home, and then LetIt Fly on the test without fear of failure.When I talk to them the evening after a test,my first question is always “Did you?” Ofcourse they’re 15 (almost 16, as Iana insistson reminding me) and 12, and their dedica-tion drifts from time to time so they don’t al-ways perform as they would wish. But whenthey deal with me at home, they know thatif they did their best (which is equivalent toLet It Fly) I’ve always got their back and allcan be worked out.

My Pastor shared this insight in one ofhis devotionals recently. Researchers havefound that about 40 percent of the things weworry about never happen. Thirty percentare in the past and can’t be helped. Twelvepercent involve the affairs of others that arenot even our business. Ten percent relate tosickness, real or imagined. That means onlyeight percent of the things we worry aboutare even likely to happen!

My favorite part of this particular devo-tional was “worry is just interest paid ontrouble before it comes due. This means thatwhen you worry, there’s a 92 percent chanceyou’re paying interest on a debt that’s noteven yours! How foolish is that?”

Fear is all around us. It’s on TV, theradio, our dinner tables, in our kids’ class-rooms, corporate board rooms, mayors of-fices, county government buildings, theGeorgia Legislature, the Governor’s Office,

our U.S. Congress, the White House, and allother locations where leaders are charged tobe good stewards over their areas of respon-sibility. The source of all fear is constantlyat work, and enjoys watching the chaos anddiscontent it creates. I happen to believe thatfear is the source of sexism, racism, and allactions and general mentalities that cause usto retreat to our comfortable corners of fa-miliar looking faces and shut the doors whentimes get tough.

Right now, I happen to believe thatFEAR is keeping us from believing all thesigns that are out there that the worst of thishorrific economic recession is over, and wehave to get back moving again. Time to LetIt Fly! Local, state, and federal revenues arestill slow to recover, but they will. We allknow that! Here’s a few things on my mind:In my opinion, we have to encourage the pas-sage of the Regional SPLOST in July. AsTodd Long continues to tell us, “It’s our PlanA and there is No Plan B.” We in the privatesector consulting business have to look evenharder at bringing value to our clients for thefees they pay us. Value relates directly toStewardship. If we intend to work for andpartner with Stewards (aka clients) we haveto bring them unquestionable value. We also

have to be more aggressive on working out-side of our normal bandwidths to engage thetons of private capital that is out there tobring public private partnerships to the ta-bles of our public sector clients. And whilewe do all these things and others, we mustmaintain our dedication to contribute dailyto the growth of our young engineering pro-fessions, healthy and uplifting environmentsin our work places, small and minority busi-ness inclusion, and the protection of our en-vironmental resources.

I believe what all of you believe deepdown inside, that we can do it all, and do itwell. But we gotta Let It Fly! No more

What Are We Waiting For? Let It Fly!By Jeff Dingle


Position DescriptionThe Senior Transit Engineer provides environmental planning, civilengineering, design, and construction management services in-cluding project management for the organization’s transit capitalprojects, and performs scope development, plan and specificationreview, scheduling, budgeting, negotiating, and contract adminis-tration. The position will coordinate and direct employees and con-sultants and ensure a commitment to quality work and timelyproject delivery through consistent and professional performance ofjob requirements. The position will demonstrate that design excel-lence, cooperation with partners, and team building are funda-mental values that guide all aspects of our work. The positionperforms related duties as required.

The Senior Transit Engineer will work on a portfolio of streetcar/lightrail projects that include segments within the Atlanta BeltLine cor-ridor and the ongoing downtown streetcar project and future exten-sions. The Atlanta BeltLine is a large scale public infrastructuresystem that includes, in addition to the transit lines, 33 miles of trails,over 1,200 acres of new parkland, several miles of new streets andstreetscapes, public art, brownfield reclamation, and the construc-tion of several thousand affordable housing units in the neighbor-hoods surrounding an underutilized railroad corridor.

Position ResponsibilitiesUnder the general supervision of the Director of Transportation,the position will be responsible for design and engineering proj-ects within established budgets and schedules. Specific responsi-bilities include:• Manage, review, and coordinate civil engineering, design, and

field construction efforts for new rail transit lines, operationsand maintenance facilities, and other transportation projectsas needed. Responsibilities include developing and managingthe scope, schedule, budget, and overseeing staff/consultantsfor projects. Coordinate project efforts with internal staff, con-sultants, and public and private agencies. Define and negoti-ate pertinent permits and variances as required by theperforming agencies.

• Responsible for direct negotiation with attorneys and prepa-ration of formal intergovernmental agreements and other du-ties as required.

• Provide contract administration. Review and approve invoices,potential design changes, field orders/force account work and

value engineering proposals. Review organization's critical cor-respondence to and from contractors and other jurisdictions.

• Provide technical assistance on planning, design, and envi-ronmental issues to ensure compliance with the organization'spolicies and procedures, and state and federal regulations in-cluding National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) andAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

• Prepare, review, and evaluate contract technical specifications,bid documents, and cost estimates to ensure adequacy, com-pleteness, economy, maintainability, and compliance with de-sign standards and formal agreements.

• Direct and manage preparation of federal environmental doc-uments and related state, federal, and local permits.

• Represent Atlanta BeltLine Inc. at public and inter-jurisdic-tional meetings to ensure organization interests and policiesare addressed.

• Produce quarterly reports for the FTA. Produce other reportsas required.

Position RequirementsBachelor’s degree in Engineering, preferably Civil Engineering orrelated field. Professional Engineering registration from the State ofGeorgia or the ability to obtain such registration within six monthsof being hired.

Ten years experience in the design, management, and constructionof rail transit projects including five years experience in streetcarand/or light rail lines and support facilities. Experience with multi-disciplinary projects in urban environments is desirable. Experi-ence in field construction management is desirable. Proficiencywith project management and office software, such as MicrosoftProject and other Microsoft Office products. Familiarity with ap-plicable technical software, such as AutoCAD and Microstation.

Or any equivalent combination of training and experience.

How to ApplyInterested candidates should submit a cover letter and résumé [email protected].

Atlanta BeltLine Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Atlanta Beltline Inc.Senior Transit EngineerPosition Available


Governmental Affairs—my personal connectionAt some point in running my business, Itook an interest in what was going on out-side the walls of my business and took noticeof our industry as a whole. A huge steppingstone for me involved a trip to Washington,DC, with Tom Leslie. I owe Tom hugethanks for what I learned on this trip and themany subsequent trips. Not only does Tomknow how laws are made but he has a keenability to really ‘connect’ with all facets of theprocess (mostly the people) both in Wash-ington and here in Georgia. During this tripI began to recognize how the process couldaffect the success of my business day to day,year to year, and during the life of my busi-ness. And, I learned we can have a voice inthe process.

I have been on the ACEC NationalWashington trip five times and will be on my6th ‘fly in’ this spring of 2012. Not only dowe get an understanding from ACEC Na-tional about upcoming legislation affectingthe business of engineering but we also get‘face time’ with our Georgia congressionaldelegation. You cannot imagine the signifi-cance of these meetings until you sit in thehallowed halls, within the historic chambers,conference rooms, committee rooms, or theirsurprisingly small yet functional officeswhere the future of our nation is crafted.Some call it making sausage (creating law); Ifind it beyond impressive, and it takes an un-believable commitment for those we elect todo what they do 18+ hours a day.

I have a special story of one Washingtontrip in the mid-nineties when Senator Isak-son was Congressman Isakson…

One evening of an ACEC National din-ner we invited ‘Johnny’ to have dinner with

us- the response was iffy, at best, as their cal-endars are often overloaded and often chang-ing based on the immediacies of the day.Seated at a 12-person table with an emptychair next to me, I was halfway into a glass ofred wine (pre-dinner) after pounding theWashington pavement most of the day. TheGeorgia ACEC delegation had launched intoour dialogue of the needs of the next day-what congressmen and senators we would see(hopefully) in their Capitol offices, and whatwe would say about infrastructure issues, taxeson professional services, and other current is-sues we had on our agenda. I was turned tomy right and did not notice our congressmanquietly slipping into the seat next to me- soona genuine warm firm handshake and a hello-“My name is Johnny Isakson glad you came toWashington.” After 20 minutes of round tablediscussion of policy and his advisement onwhat is on the congressional agenda pertain-ing to engineering, he turned to me for a briefone-to-one conversation. I asked Johnny howhe dealt with the constant lobby advice andhow he really made his final decision on keymatters—feeling a bit embarrassed about aseemingly non life changing superficial ques-tion. His answer changed my approach togovernmental affairs as an engineer. Con-gressman Isakson said:

“I came here tonight as I haveknown Tom Leslie, ACEC/G and manyof you for years. I have huge respect forACEC/G and engineers in general as amatter of fact. When I hear your input,I know it comes from an engineeringapproach to problem solving. It involvesthe real facts (no spins) and evaluatesthe real outcomes. Important to me isthat you always contemplate on how de-cisions affect others, yet it is always the

best approach. It is how you practiceeveryday. It is how you run your busi-nesses. I have two other dinners to at-tend tonight but I would not havemissed this opportunity to spend 30minutes with the engineers from Geor-gia. I need your input and advice as it isvery important to me.”

Wow, how can you top that? I am proud ofwhat ACEC/G does in governmental affairsfor our membership. And I am proud of ourassociation with the Georgia LegislativeCoalition through GEA. We engineers dohave the facts. We do have the problem solv-ing technique. And yes, we have recognitionof the impact of our decisions—it is just howwe are wired. It is really all about the ‘correct’answer, isn’t it?

There is a long list of bills in Washing-ton and in our state legislature that gothrough the sausage process year after year.Tom Leslie has led the charge for many yearswith dedicated volunteers from our ranksand with the expert advice of Joe Tanner andAssociates. We have advised, we have negoti-ated, we have won, and we have lost but wehave been totally engaged in the process dueto Tom’s passion and perseverance.

Governmental affairs are very importantto your business and to you individually asyou practice engineering, and ACEC/G isyour advocate in this every day.

And again—many thanks to Tom Lesliefor fueling my passion about governmentalaffairs.

Please ask me the next time you see me-“How can I make a difference in governmen-tal affairs.” There is room for you on our team! Sincerely, James R Hamilton, PE

James R. Hamilton, PEPresident ACEC/G

ACECNews


GSPENews

William G. Wingate III, P.E. President Georgia Society of Professional Engineers

2011 New PE Recognition DinnerThe Georgia Society of Professional Engi-neers hosted the New Professional EngineersRecognition Dinner for the PEs that passedthe professional licensure exam in October2010 and April 2011. The evening sparkedan important reminder to engineering col-leagues of the passion needed for the profes-sion. Forty-six engineers were honored.

The speakers at the event represented es-tablished engineers, as well as one new engi-neer. GSPE President, William “Trey”Wingate, III, opened the program welcom-ing the new professional engineers to the en-gineering profession and the engineeringcommunity. Focusing on community, Mr.Wingate stressed the importance of joiningengineering organizations and the impor-tance of reaching back and helping future en-gineers along the path that leads to theprofession that is vital to society.

The majority of the new professionalengineers want to connect with engineering

companies. The American Council of Engi-neering Companies (ACEC) is a valuablesource for engineering career opportunities.ACEC/Georgia President, James Hamilton,addressed the audience and shared his expe-riences from taking the licensure exam andwaiting for his scores to arrive, to the careerand relationships he now has in the engi-neering profession.

It was significant for the new profes-sional engineers to hear from one of theirpeers. Brannen Butts is a new professionalengineer that was not only in attendance tobe honored, but he also talked to the audi-ence about the accomplishments they all hadachieved. He shared with the group the needto volunteer and be active within organiza-

tions. The new professional engineers are thefuture leaders in tomorrow’s engineeringcommunity. v


The engineering community lost a leader

with the passing of Danny E. Stanley.

Danny was the past-president of Thomas

& Hutton and enjoyed a 35-year career

with the company.

During Danny’s career, Thomas &

Hutton grew from 25 employees to over

425 while he was president. The Savan-

nah-based company now has five offices

and is a regional leader providing civil en-

gineering and related services.

Danny’s career with Thomas &

Hutton began September 5, 1973. His

dedication was apparent through the

growth and success of the company. He

led many projects that stand today as

outstanding achievements in the engi-

neering industry. Danny’s passion for

golf and growth along the southeast coast

combined to create an opportunity for a

civil engineering company. With Savan-

nah being so close to Hilton Head Island,

the company provided engineering serv-

ices for many of the golf communities in

Beaufort County and beyond. Hilton

Head Plantation was Danny’s first proj-

ect. That experience led to other work

including Dataw Island, Haig Point,

Melrose, Colleton River Plantation,

Hilton Head National Golf Club, and

others. Thomas & Hutton served as the

engineer for projects on St. Simons Is-

land, Sea Island and The Landings on

Skidaway Island in Georgia. In Savan-

nah, the company played a part in proj-

ects such as Savannah River Landing,

Hutchinson Island, and numerous infra-

structure projects.

Danny served his profession as a

member of ASCE, NSPE and ACEC.

Danny was a member of the ACEC-GA

board of directors. In addition to his pro-

fession, Danny served his community

through a number of organizations in-

cluding Savannah Chamber of Com-

merce Board, (Sports Council and CEO

Council), Wachovia Advisory Board, Ro-

tary Club of Savannah, Savannah Quar-

terback Club, Legends of Golf

Tournament Committee (co-chairman),

Georgia Tech Savannah Advisory Board

(fundraising co-chairman) South Car-

olina Tourism Council (director). Mr.

Stanley was awarded the honorary mem-

bership in the First Ranger Battalion of

Hunter Army Air Field and honorary

membership in the 75th Ranger Regi-

ment for his dedicated work and support

of the Rangers and the Ranger Memorial

at Hunter Army Airfield.

Danny’s passing created an opportu-

nity for friends, colleagues, and co-work-

ers to come together and share memories.

One of those shared was a story from the

son of the founder of Thomas & Hutton.

It was told - “…another memory will stay

with me. It was in the Eighties, and Fa-

ther and I were talking about the future of

Thomas and Hutton.

“The engineering world has

changed, Tad, and I’m more and more

like a knot on a tree that’s growing differ-

ently than I ever imagined. But keep your

eye on Danny Stanley. He’s the future of

this company.”

Well said, Joe Hutton. The memory

of Danny Stanley lives on through the ca-

maraderie of the Thomas & Hutton fam-

ily. With each funny story and the echoes

of laughter through the hallways, a little

piece of Danny carries on. His accom-

plishments, contributions, and loving

spirit will forever be etched in the foun-

dation of Thomas & Hutton. Danny

Stanley made the engineering world a

better place to be. v

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” ~ Warren G. Bennis

Danny Elkins StanleyJune 21, 1946 - September 18, 2011

In Memoriam ~ Danny Elkins Stanley

I have been honored to serve as the GeorgiaSection ITE President this past year. At thebeginning of the year, I reviewed our strate-gic plan, aligned our committees with theseplans, created five initiatives and targeted 11Goals for 2011. We have made good progresstoward each goal through the dedication ofour 31 committee chairs and members,which has led to a successful year. Below isthe initiative list with our progress throughOctober:

Membership Growth ~ Our reported mem-bership at the end of 2010 was 456 mem-bers, although we discovered at thebeginning of the year that many of thesemembers were not in good standing (duesnot paid), had left the profession, hadmoved, or primarily, were students that hadalready graduated. Our membership com-mittee worked hard this year to ‘clean thebooks’ of all unpaid and departed memberswhile recruiting new members. Our currentmembership stands at 414, including 39 newmembers in 2011. While our reported mem-bership numbers dropped from 2010, allcurrent members are paid through 2011.Dues invoices for 2012 were e-mailed to allInternational Members in late October, andall Affiliate Members will be invoiced in No-vember. Please pay your dues on time so ourmembership committee can focus on re-cruiting in 2012 instead of collecting dues.Thanks to Sunita Nadella, our MembershipCommittee Chair, working alongside our Af-filiate Director, Robert Baker, to promotethis strategic initiative.

Program Diversification ~ Our programbegan to diversify in 2010, as we met at sev-

eral different locations and added technicaltours to our monthly meeting agenda. Thisyear we continued this diversification, as weheld monthly meetings at Mary Macs, WorldFiber Technologies, Garden Plaza Hotel,Maggianos, and MARTA, as well our jointstudent chapter meetings at Georgia Techand Southern Poly. Additionally, we heldjoint meetings with some of our sister pro-fessional organizations, including ITS Geor-gia, ASCE, WTS, and a happy hour withASHE.

In addition to our monthly meetings,we added our inaugural Winter Workshop in2011. This one-and-a-half-day program wasdeveloped for younger members and wasscheduled on a Sunday-Monday in order tominimize time away from the office. OurWinter Workshop was held February 27-28at the Winshape Retreat Center at BerryCollege in Rome. Our ‘Traffic EngineeringBootcamp’ had 45 participants, and welearned new trends in basic traffic engineer-ing tools, such as signal timing, as well asanalysis tools for new concepts, such as

roundabouts and complete streets. The tech-nical sessions were very interactive, and wesaw evidence of emerging leadership fromour student and young member participants.Please mark your calendars for the last week-end of February 2012, as planning is under-way for next year’s Winter Workshop atUnicoi State Park in Helen.

Our Summer Seminar is the highlightof our year, as we provide up to 12 hours oftechnical training at the King and PrinceHotel on St. Simons Island. While our mem-bers are able to learn about the latest trans-portation projects and trends, as well asnetwork with fellow colleagues, our guestsand kids enjoy the pool, beach, waterslidepark, bowling, and other family activities.Registrants also participate in friendly com-petition through golf, volleyball, and a 5krace. Prior to the Tuesday night banquet, weconduct the John Moskaluk MemorialScholarship Auction, which raised almost$7000 this year. Our Summer Seminar par-ticipation increased by five percent in 2011to 315 attendees, including 135 registrants.


ITENews

Mike Holt, PE, PTOE, PresidentGeorgia Section, Institute of Transportation Engineers

ITE members during Technical Tour at Kia Plant

Jonathan Reid did an excellent job as Sum-mer Seminar Chairman, with much helpfrom Josh Williams, who will be chairing our2012 Summer Seminar.

Technical Training ~ In addition to theWinter Workshop and Summer Seminar,our Technical Committee has been busy thisyear planning the following technical train-ing opportunities:

We conducted a half-day Technical Ex-changes in Savannah (Adaptive Signal Con-trol and Fiber Optics) and LaGrange(AASHTO Roadside Design Guide and In-novative Intersections/Safety Initiatives), andwe have another training scheduled for De-cember 1st in Roswell to discuss DivergingDiamond Interchanges.

We continued our initiative begun in2010 by providing two technical tours dur-ing the year. A Port of Brunswick Tour wasincorporated into our Summer Seminar pro-gram, and our LaGrange Technical Exchangewas followed by a tour of the Kia plant inWest Point.

We sponsored LTAP training on theRoad Safety 365 initiative for GDOT andlocal governments at three district offices(Atlanta, Cartersville and Macon) with 53 at-tendees.

We held six webinars in 2011, many onupdates to the MUTCD in cooperation withGeorgia DOT, with a total participation ofover 100.

Technical Committee members con-ducted and judged two technical paper com-petitions—one for the Winter Workshopand one for the Summer Seminar.

We started a Simulation Capacity usersgroup on LinkedIn. Thanks to AndrewAntweiler and his committee for chairing theTechnical Committee and organizing all theactivities listed above.

Career Development ~ We have two veryactive student chapters in the Georgia Sec-tion. Georgia Tech and Southern Poly havededicated advisors and student leadershipthat has allowed them to excel this year. Weheld our inaugural Georgia Section TrafficBowl, a Jeopardy-style competition com-prised of transportation related topics, at ourMarch joint ITE-ITSGA meeting. After a

very close competition, Southern Polyemerged as the winner and was awarded theopportunity to represent our section at theSouthern District Annual Meeting TrafficBowl in April. Southern Poly had an evencloser match at the district event, and theyproudly finished in second place among thenine schools that entered the competition.Georgia Tech’s student chapter made usequally proud by finishing second in theBest Student Chapter award among the 26chapters in the Southern District. PaulDeNard and Jim Tolson have done an out-standing job serving as liaisons to the Geor-gia Tech and Southern Poly studentchapters, respectively.

Our third annual Mentoring Program isnearing completion, as we continue to de-velop our future leadership through men-tor/protégé relationships, focusing on issuessuch as: politics and relationships, dealingwith the media, financial management, busi-ness etiquette, and presentation skills. Underthe leadership of Committee Chair AlvinJames, our 2011 protégés include Holly Bau-man, Sean Coleman, Nelson Davis, MarcoFriend, and Jody Peace.

Networking ~ While we have providedmuch technical training throughout the year,

we always provide networking opportunitiesin conjunction with such training. Ourmonthly meetings always allow for lively dis-cussions during registration, while our Win-ter Workshop and Summer Seminar providea venue to develop relationships in a casualenvironment away from the weekday workpressure.

Our Activities Committee has conducted 14activities through October, ranging fromcommunity service activities to sportingevents to happy hours. This committee pro-vides a connection to our younger members(and those younger at heart) who choose tospend some of their free time networkingwith fellow transportation professionals anddeveloping friendships that transcend theprofession.

Finally, we will resume a Georgia Sec-tion tradition this year that we had taken abreak from the past couple years. We willhost our Annual Meeting on December 7that Indian Hills Country Club in Marietta.This evening event will celebrate the successof 2011 and allow our spouses and guests toenjoy an evening with good food and friendsas we prepare for the holidays. v


GAITE VP John Karnowskitouring Kia Plant

USE A COMPANY YOU CAN TRUST WITH YOUR

TRANSLATION PROJECT,because a little mistake

in another language can have unpleasant results.

“Gort! Klaatu Borada nikto.”

(770) 521-8877


Marion Waters, P.E.ITS President

ITS News

DIAMOND SPONSORTemple

PLATINUM SPONSORSWorld FiberUtilicomURSPBS&JGS&PArcadisSercoDelcanSensys

GOLD SPONSORSControl TechnologiesAECOMTransdynKimley-HornIterisTraficonGarrettcom

SILVER SPONSORSSouthern Lighting & Traffic SystemsMultilinkMaxcell

DaktronicsCambridge SystematicsIntelligent DevicesMidascoGrice and AssociatesVideolarmGannett FlemingQuality TrafficCitilog

OUR SPONSORS Thanks to our sponsors, who provide valuable financial assistance to the organization:

It has been a great pleasure being the Presi-dent of the ITS Georgia Chapter during2010 and 2011. I have been honored toserve, and it has been great working with theother officers, directors, and committeemembers. I have learned a lot, and I lookforward to assisting the new Chapter Presi-dent, Scott Mohler during his tenure in 2012and 2013. Scott has great abilities and awonderful experience base to take on thechallenges of growing the organization dur-ing the next two years. Scott has been activein other professional organizations andbrings all of the lessons he has learned fromthose programs over to ITS Georgia. Weshould all look forward to supporting himand working under his leadership.

My thanks go out to the many folkswho have worked to enable our chapter’soutstanding year in 2010. We have had anoutstanding series of monthly technicalmeetings. Our membership has increased,and we have maintained a good student par-ticipation. In a very tight year, our chapter

put forth an amazing effort to continue thefunding of student scholarships at the samelevel as previous years. Our annual meetingwas successful, with great speakers and ashared vision of the future of ITS (20/20).Best of all, the committees involved a wholenew group of younger members to work onthe program and lead in the chapter activi-ties. Again, I offer my sincere thanks to eachand every one of the folks who participatedin any way this past year.

The strength and value of our Chapteris based on its individual members and theservices we provide to the organizations thatenable these individuals to participate.Please do not forget that our chapter is builton the partnership formed when public sec-tor agencies, vendors, educators, and con-sultants work together to advance the stateof the industry. Intelligent TransportationSystems function to enhance the efficiencyof transportation infrastructure in all sec-

Take a look at !e Georgia Engineer Blog.

Enjoy a new video every day.

GEORGIAENGINEERBLOG.

GeorgiaEngineerthe


PresidentMarion Waters, Gresham, Smith andPartners Scott Mohler, URS ~ President-elect

Vice PresidentMark Demidovich, GDOTTom Sever, Gwinnett DOT ~ Vicepresident-elect

SecretaryKristin Turner, Wolverton and Associates Inc.

TreasurerChristine Simonton, Delcan

DirectorsMarwan Abboud, ArcadisRonald Boodhoo, GDOTSusie Dunn, ARCJohn Hibbard, PBS&JCarla Holmes, Gresham, Smith andPartnersPatrece Keeter, DeKalb CountyScott Mohler, URSTom Sever, Gwinnett County DOTKenn Fink, Kimley-HornBayne Smith, URSGrant Waldrop, GODT ~ electEric Graves, City of Alpharetta ~ electKeary Lord, Douglas County DOT ~elect

State Chapters RepresentativeKenny Voorhies, Cambridge Systematics Inc.

Ex OfficioGreg Morris, Federal Highway AdministrationJamie Pfister, Federal Transit Administration

ITS GEORGIA CHAPTER LEADERSHIP

tors of surface transportation. ITS does notcreate capacity in any of the transit or trans-portation systems, but it does enhance themost efficient and effective use of these sys-tems.

There are many challenges facing ournation in 2012, and our concern for the stateof the transportation infrastructure is just

one. However, our chapter can and shouldplay a role in educating transportation sys-tem users, managers, and leaders to the ad-vantages of using the existing infrastructurebetter.

Please visit our Web site(www.ITSGA.org) for information aboutour monthly meetings for 2012. v


WTSNews

Jennifer King, PE, PresidentWomen in Transportation Seminar

President Jennifer King, [email protected] HNTB

Vice President-Programs Laurie Reed, [email protected] HNTB

Vice President-Membership Tonya [email protected] MARTA

Secretary Angela Snyder, [email protected] and Assoc

Treasurer Marissa Martin, [email protected] Smith Partners

Director at Large Beth Ann Schwartz, [email protected] The LPA Group

Director at Large Heather Alhadeff, [email protected] + Will

Director at Large Jennifer Harper, [email protected] Corporation

Director at Large Helen McSwain, [email protected] PBS&J

Immediate Past PresidentEmily Swearingen, PE URS [email protected]

Platinum Level

Gold LevelCubicEdwards-Pittman Environmental

HNTBJAT ConsultingThompson

Engineering

Silver LevelCroyPSIURS

Bronze LevelAtkins CH2MHillKimley Horn KYS CommunicationMcGee PartnersReynolds, Smith & Hill

Southeastern Engineering Inc. (SEI)

StantecSTV/RalphWhitehead Associates

Wolverton & Associates

Thanks to our 2011 Corporate Sponsors:

For up to date information about upcomingWTS Programs please visit the WTS Atlanta

Chapter Web site atwww.wtsinternational.org\atlanta or contact

Jennifer King at [email protected]. Look forwardto seeing you at our next program!

The fall was a busy time for the WTS AtlantaChapter. As the temperatures dropped andthe leaves began to fall, the WTS Atlantastayed busy with social, technical, and phil-anthropic events.

Joint Golf Tournament with ITEEarly this fall, WTS Atlanta joined forces withITE GA to host a joint golf tournament. Par-ticipants from various firms, agencies, and or-ganizations came together on this lovely dayin September to enjoy each other’s companyand a round of golf. Congrats to winners TimMatthews, Richard Meehan, Scott Athey, andRobert Murphy and thanks to all who cameout to join us. We hope to see you again nextyear.

WTS Annual Scholarship LuncheonWTS Atlanta held our annual ScholarshipLuncheon this October at the Fox Theater inMidtown. The event was attended by over350 guests, including many representativesfrom GDOT, the State Transportation Board,ARC, MARTA, the City of Atlanta, localCIDs and numerous consulting firms.Keynote speaker, Tad Leithead, discussed thecritical issues regarding transportation fundingin the region. The silent auction and raffle,which are traditions at this event, raised almost$6,000 for our scholarship fund. We werepleased to honor several individuals and or-ganizations for their efforts towards advancingwomen in the transportation industry:

Woman of the Year ~ Shelley Lamar, Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Member of the Year ~ Jenny Jenkins, McGee Partners

Diversity Leadership ~ Chief Wanda Dunham

Employer of the Year ~ HNTB Corporation

In addition, we were honored to award sev-eral well deserving young women with schol-arships to assist them as they pursueundergraduate and graduate degrees in engi-neering. The following scholarships were pre-sented at this year’s luncheon:

Sharon D Banks Memorial (Undergraduate) ~ Amanda Wall

Leadership Legacy (Graduate) ~ Jamie FischerHelene M. Overly (Graduate) ~ Stacey MumbowerTechnical Tour

In November, WTS offered members theunique opportunity to tour Hartsfield Jack-son Atlanta International Airport’s new In-ternational Terminal. Attendees were guidedon a behind the scenes tour of this $1.4 bil-lion facility that is set to open in the springof 2012. Upon completion, this facility willprovide additional capacity to the airport andwill serve to improve the efficiency of inter-national travel by eliminating the baggage re-check process.

Thanks again to our Corporate Spon-sors, who enable us to host such events. v

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The Georgia Engineer - Dec 2011 / Jan 2012

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