Engineering The Future: Choose the ‘Yes, And’ Rather Than the ‘No, But’ Category
As we start a new year, we’re filled with hope and the promise of change. Our firms, agencies, universities and organizations look at our mission, vision and strategic plans to measure how we did in 2025 as well as what adjustments we need to make to ready for the future. In previous columns, I’ve discussed streamlining permitting and delivery, the reality of the workforce shortages that will get worse during the next decade, and the growing needs of U.S. infrastructure. With a $3.7 trillion bac...
From the Editor: Are We Looking in the Right Places To Lower Construction Costs?
At Valparaiso University, our senior civil and environmental engineering students work together in teams on projects that involve structural, transportation, water resources and environmental engineering disciplines. Each team has a representative from each discipline. The first semester takes them through the proposal stage, some preliminary design and evaluation of alternatives. At the end of the semester, each team must come up with a cost estimate for their project based on general square fo...
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...
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...
Change Leader: How Utilities Can Improve GIS Migration by Rethinking Design Data Management
As utilities modernize their GIS platforms, one question continues to challenge even the most experienced teams: how should network design data be managed during platform migration? Traditionally, utility infrastructure design has been managed directly within GIS platforms. While GIS and design are closely linked, design was never intended to cohabitate within GIS. With many utilities now considering a move to Esri’s ArcGIS Utility Network, now is the time to rethink legacy design workflows...
Future Forward (Powered by ACEC): ACEC Research Institute Study Reveals Economic Impact of Engineering Industry
Powered by: In an era marked by volatility—economic, institutional and cultural—the engineering industry continues to be a quiet yet common thread of our communities and an essential force of cohesion for our economy. The work of engineers is the scaffolding of civilization—the structures, systems and processes that make modern existence possible. The roads that connect our communities; the water systems that sustain life; and the structures where we live, learn and heal all are...
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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