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Across the nation, higher rents and a shortage of low-income housing are increasing homelessness and challenges to public works departments in keeping the public-rights-of-way safe and clean. The City of Berkeley, California, activated their emergency operations center in the winter of 2017 to facilitate the creation an emergency homeless shelter on city property. The City of Alameda, California, has implemented a comprehensive action plan to address an increased number of homeless encampments in the community. This joint presentation will discuss how this issue affects public works and steps that are being taken.
Read MoreThis session will include presentations from Norway and Australia about 21st Century solid waste management technologies, practices, and advancements. • Dulverton Waste Management operates 60,000 tonne per annum landfill and a 30,000 tonne per annum compost facility in northwest Tasmania, Australia. (1 metric tonne = 1.10231 US tons.) In 2017, the facility claimed the Waste Management Association of Australia’s Award for Landfill Excellence. This presentation will note the challenges overcome to turn this business, with many shortcomings, around to one that achieved this prestigious award. • Does this sound like science fiction to you? The City of Bergen, Norway uses a pneumatic waste collection system (PWCS) to collect and dispose of solid waste. The waste is disposed of and transmitted pneumatically in underground pipes beneath city streets. The construction of PWCS can be combined with other infrastructure projects installing fiber optics or water/sewer projects.
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Everyone brings their own experiences and perspectives to the job of snow and ice control. Enjoy this story of how the speaker’s previous work experiences shaped his perspective on public service and leadership, including a safety before service philosophy.
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Lehi City, Utah, has adapted its winter maintenance program to meet the challenges of today’s ever-changing cultural and technological landscape. Like most local governments, they are managing the modern workforce, experimenting with new products and technologies, and facing the challenges of population growth and increased public expectations for snow and ice control services.
Read MoreWhen disasters and emergencies occur, public works personnel are among the first to respond. Public works provides traffic control and debris management; assists with rescue, evacuation, damage assessment, infrastructure repair, and service restoration. Attend this session to examine what agencies should do to have the resources, training, policies and procedures to be ready and responsive for all-hazards incidents. We will discuss responsibilities and unique capabilities of public works in emergencies and planned special events. Public works must have a seat at the table with police, fire, and public health when it comes to planning, training, exercising, and actually managing incidents.
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It seems inevitable that winter maintenance activities involve lots of paperwork. Keeping track of your operations is important, because you can’t manage it if you don’t measure it. But is there a way to do away with the paperwork and data entry and instead automate the data collection process? What sort of reports do you need to generate to be able to manage your operations effectively? Let’s discuss what it would take to go paperless. You may be surprised to learn that this goal is more easily reachable than you think.
Read MoreNational Weather Service staff from around the Country will provide information to attendees on NWS weather products that may be useful to public works operations, a basic tutorial on how weather radar works, an introduction to the Weather Ready Nation effort, and other weather hot topics.
Read MoreThe Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI) Envision® is a decision-making guide, providing sustainability metrics for all types of infrastructure assets. The industry understanding of resilience has grown tremendously, especially in the wake of hurricanes occurring over the last ten years. ISI has identified the need to expand the Envision® framework to incorporate a more advanced appreciation and understanding of resilience. The updated Envision v3 will also include a greater emphasis on evaluating the economics of infrastructure projects.
Read MoreAn avalanche of new technologies that will transform the urban fabric is upon us! We are already preparing for and implementing some of these new advancements. With each new technology comes a full array of unforeseen complications. For example, autonomous, self-driving, and driverless cars are being tested in cities across the nation. Some jurisdictions are planning for or already using instruments that detect the presence of cell phones to measure traffic volume and adjust signal timing. But have we fully discussed what the need for broadband, fiber optics, and telecommunications will be to implement these and other technologies? Some cities are repurposing utility and traffic signal infrastructure to provide broadband services and thereby, achieving new municipal revenue sources. Emerging issues and trends such as smart growth, the sharing economy, new urbanism, transit-oriented development, co-housing, etc., will forever change our profession’s perspectives on resource management, engineering design, telecommunications, and our interactions with the public. Come join in on this timely conversation.
Read MoreThe panel will discuss the concepts and goals of public works asset management by focusing on the initial development of a roadmap, governance model, asset data gathering, data cleaning, and the development of condition and risk scores.
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