Town of Shakopee Develops Alternative Intersection to Reduce Congestion and Improve Mobility

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Downtown Minneapolis is experiencing rapid population growth that is stretching the capacity of its current transportation systems. To combat existing congestion and proactively address future crowding, the Town of Shakopee, a small community near Minneapolis, decided intersection and crossing improvements were the most useful and cost-effective tool for reducing congestion and protecting bicyclists. Shakopee’s project,......

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Louisiana Saves Big with Levee Inspection System Overhaul

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

An outdated, non-functioning legacy software system made overseeing Louisiana’s flood protection infrastructure, which requires regular inspections and monitoring to prevent flood damage and risk, difficult and costly. In response, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development discarded the legacy program, which cost approximately $18,000 a year, in favor of a new mobile system to more......

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Contaminated Sacramento River Undergoes Major Cleanup

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Prior to Superfund cleanup actions, acid mine drainage discharges from the Iron Mountain Mine Superfund site in northern California resulted in massive fish kills, impacted municipal and agricultural water supplies, and required use of valuable water resources to mitigate impacts to the Sacramento River. Discharges resulted in deposition of more than 160,000 cubic yards of......

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Turning Food Waste into Renewable Energy

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Each year, every American family throws out an average $640 worth of food. Much of it goes into landfills, decomposes, and turns into methane. Several cities have found new ways to convert leftovers into biogas to produce electricity. The City of Philadelphia mandated in-sink garbage disposals in all new construction in the hopes that residents......

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Blue Lake Expansion Project

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

In the remote and isolated town of Sitka, Alaska, with no connection to a mainland power grid and escalating imported fuel costs, residents decided to raise the Blue Lake Dam to supply 100% of the town’s energy needs and reduce its dependence on outside energy providers. Partnering with Barnard Construction Company in Bozeman, Montana, the......

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Atlanta Water Storage Project

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

After experiencing multi-year droughts, officials in Atlanta estimated that running out of water could cost the city $100 million a day. To avoid those costs, the city took a proactive approach, creating a $300 million, 2.4-billion-gallon raw water storage facility in an abandoned quarry funded by a municipal-option sales tax. Using dynamite and a deep......

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Use of Plastic Balls is Saving Los Angeles From Drought

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

The City of Los Angeles regularly experience extreme drought and water supply scarcity. To protect the city’s water supply, the city of Los Angeles unloaded 96,000,000 small black balls into its reservoirs to help maintain good water quality. These small black balls, known as shade balls, were created by a Los Angeles Department of Water......

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RhodeWorks Transforming Rhode Island Bridges

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Rhode Island consistently ranks among the states with the largest number of structurally deficient bridges. Two of those deficient bridges, connecting the East Shore communities with Interstate 195, were built in 1959 and have weight restrictions, adversely impacting area businesses and residents. In an effort to restore bridges in the state, Rhode Island DOT developed......

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Historic Milton-Madison Bridge Project

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

The Milton-Madison Bridge has connected the small river towns of Madison, Indiana and Milton, Kentucky for 85 years. However, after eight decades and millions of vehicle crossings, the bridge’s 20-foot-wide road deck had become too narrow to handle modern traffic, and the bridge was showing signs of deterioration. Seizing on the opportunity to replace the......

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Town in Connecticut Builds Bridge Out of a ‘Backpack’

March 07, 2017By. ASCE Staff

Traditional bridge construction can be a costly and lengthy process, greatly affecting local traffic. In Weston, Conn., the Department of Transportation used first-of-its-kind “bridge-in-a-backpack” technology to replace a major bridge in just 16 weeks, rather than two years. The bridge over the Saugatuck River, originally constructed in 1933, experienced about 9,100 crossings each day and......

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