Infrastructure Outlook: Optimizing the Value of Digital Transformation
The digital transformation taking place in cities and towns across the country is at the stage where the major barrier to adoption is no longer a lack of awareness or even a fear of the unknown. Rather, those municipal leaders who have yet to fully engage with digital asset management are most likely experiencing a condition that psychologists call “choice overload.” With so many systems, software and platforms vying for their attention, the fear of investing in the wrong solution has understand...
Transportation Troubleshooting: From Wishful Thinking to Urban Linking: Deck Lids are Transforming Cities
In the evolving landscape of urban transportation, highway deck lids—sometimes known as “caps”—are transforming how cities reconnect neighborhoods, create vibrant public spaces and unlock new economic opportunities. These innovative structures are increasingly recognized as transformative features for modern urban highway projects, which can reconnect communities that were severed when the highway system was initially built. Often, these marvelous features may go unnoticed by the untrained ey...
Thoughts From Engineers: Looking to Nature for Solutions
The city of Madison, Wis., sits within a chain of five lakes, each connected to the other in a staggered linear formation via the Yahara River, which winds roughly 42 miles through south central Wisconsin. Lake Mendota, widely viewed by freshwater scientists as “the most studied lake in the world,” is the largest in the watershed, draining a 230-square-mile watershed, 60 percent of which is in agricultural use. Thousands of acres of wetlands surround the five lakes. Cherokee Marsh sits most u...
Relief in Sight: South Florida’s Long-Awaited I-95/SW 10th Street Connector
This FDOT District Four project will enhance the safety and efficiency of the SW 10th Street and I-95 corridors as well as deliver congestion relief. (WSP in the U.S. rendering) For the team rebuilding the frustratingly congested Interstate 95 (I-95)/SW 10th Street corridor in Deerfield Beach, Fla., this is more than just another job: it’s definitely personal. “We all have encountered heavy traffic along this highway, and for some of us it’s a daily nuisance,” explains San...
Analyzing FRP’s Cost and Success in the Egyptian Theater Seismic-Retrofit Project
The Egyptian Theater was built in 1922, and its retrofit hoped to preserve as much of its history and aesthetic as possible while making it safe for a seismic event. The design-build field has continued to evolve and, as a result, various methods prove available to help engineers develop solutions to meet critical design criteria in an economically viable fashion. If the cost to produce the solution exceeds the budget, the engineer returns to the proverbial drawing board. A wave of i...
World’s Largest Wildlife Crossing Nears Completion in Southern California
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will span U.S. Highway 101 to connect the Santa Monica Mountains along the Pacific Ocean with the Sierra Madre Range to the north. (Rock Design Associates and National Wildlife Federation) The largest wildlife crossing in the world completed its first phase in June 2025, paving the way for restored ecosystem connectivity in the Los Angeles area. Sited among challenging terrain and over one of the busiest highways in the country, the Wallis Annenberg W...
When Routine Maintenance Finds Major Problems: Charleston Water System Turns Near Disaster into Opportunity
Because each half of the foldable isolation plug assembly weighed about 900 pounds, designers ended up installing manual cranks that could be used by divers when assembling. This photo was taken at the Petersen Products yard, where the dive team worked with designers to troubleshoot assembly procedure The Charleston Water System (CWS) Hanahan Water Treatment Plant set out to perform a normally routine maintenance task—take one 5-million-gallon clearwell (an approximately 220-foot-diameter...
Executive Corner: Major Updates to the DBE Program: What Firms Need to Know
In the 2025 Sustainable Engineering annual issue of Informed Infrastructure, we examined how ongoing litigation and policy developments were creating uncertainty around the future of Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) programs. Months later, more uncertainty has been introduced through federal rulemaking. On Oct. 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) published an “Interim Final Rule” in the Federal Register that revises...
Code Update: Designing and Specifying Fabricated Metal Access Hatches with ASTM C1802
Fabricated metal access hatches are essential yet easily overlooked components in modern construction. Designed to remain unobtrusive, they provide secure access to utilities, mechanical systems and maintenance areas while blending seamlessly into floors, sidewalks, roadways or other surfaces. Their primary function is practical, allowing personnel to access otherwise hidden systems, but they also enhance safety, durability and the aesthetic integration of infrastructure. Although these hatch...
Water Works: Passive Stormwater Control Measure (SCM) Effectiveness: Have We Reached Our Limits?
It’s easy to understand why we have predominantly relied on passive stormwater management infrastructure to date. Such stormwater control measures (SCMs) generally are small-scale, highly dispersed practices, installed on a wide variety of sites without convenient electrical connections, let alone the budget or qualified personnel that would be required to monitor and maintain more-advanced systems. I’m of the opinion that we should be striving to solve our collective infrastructure challenge...
Video: Crashes Drop Measurably After Rural Road Safety Improvement Project on US 521 in Lancaster County
AdventHealth Weaverville Hospital
June Issue 2026
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