ASCE Infrastructure Report Card

America’s infrastructure is vital to our everyday lives, but the nation’s report card seems to say otherwise. Once every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) compiles an infrastructure report card. ASCE’s Report Card for America’s Infrastructure is a comprehensive assessment of the nation’s major infrastructure categories including Water Environment, Transportation, Public Facilities, and Energy. Within each of these categories are sub-categories narrowing down these main topics.

 

Civil engineers compile information and an ASCE advisory committee assigns a grade based on eight criteria. The grading system is similar to a school report card of A to F. GBA’s Tawn Nugent, John Cooper, and Dave Mennenga are a few of the civil engineers who participated in compiling information for Kansas and Missouri. Nugent assisted with the Missouri Road portion while Cooper and Mennenga assisted with the Kansas Road portion.
Overall, America’s cumulative GPA is a D+, which is slightly higher from the D four years ago. The best grade was given to solid waste with a B-. Both Kansas and Missouri earned an overall infrastructure grade of C-. These grades seem less than encouraging, but ASCE is working on solutions.

To view the nation’s report card, please visit ASCE’s Infrastructure Report Card.

 

Other media outlets throughout the Kansas City and St. Louis metros, such as the Kansas City Star, KMBC, and St. Louis Public Radio, also shared comments about the report card.

National Public Works Week 2013

The City of O'Fallon Public Works hosts an annual community event to celebrate National Public Works Week. The event is attended by approximately 400-500 families. GBA participated with a Traffic Light bean bag toss game giving children an opportunity to toss bean bags into a traffic light and win candy.

 

Children also enjoyed train rides, heavy equipment truck shows, traffic light games, food and drinks. We had a great time at the event and look forward to next year.

 

To see more photos from the event, please visit our Facebook page.

Glass Fiber Reinforcing Bars Being Evaluated by KDOT

Reinforcing steel corrosion is one of the main enemies of bridge decks. When steel corrodes, or rusts, it expands to many times its original volume, cracking the concrete around it and creating a vulnerable point of entry for salt-laden runoff water to access

Exposed Rebar

the steel. This accelerates the corrosion process and ultimately leads to weakening of the bridge deck, potholes, undesirable patches, lane closures and more.

In their continuing effort to mitigate bridge deck cracking, KDOT has partnered with GBA to evaluate a new way to reinforce bridge decks: glass fiber reinforced polymer rebar (GFRP).

Being an inert non-corrosive material, the GFRP is not expected to react to de-icing salts that typically corrode reinforcing steel. To test this, GBA designed twin bridge decks — one with GFRP and one with standard epoxy-coated reinforcing steel rebar.

Glass Fiber Reinforcing Bars

The bridges are on I-635 over State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. Both the north bound and south bound bridges will be completely re-decked within the next two years. The south bound bridge will get GFRP, while the northbound bridge will be reinforced conventionally.

As the bridge decks age and are subjected to truck loading and corrosive runoff water, KDOT will be able to draw conclusions about the long-term durability of the GFRP. In addition to the deck replacement, plans were also provided for girder strengthening, approach slab replacement, and detailed traffic management. 

While the initial construction bid increased approximately one percent due to the GFRP, it is anticipated the life cycle cost of the project will more than gain that amount back due to reduced maintenance costs.

May is National Wetlands Month

This month marks the 23^rd anniversary of the American Wetlands Month.  

Wetlands play a vital role to the ecological, economic and social-wellbeing of communities.  Wetlands improve water quality, increase water storage and supply, reduce flood and storm risk and provide a critical habitat for plants, fish and wildlife.

Celebrate the American Wetlands month by:

• Volunteering with a local watershed or conservation group (or start your own if none exist in your area) to protect, restore, and monitor a local wetland or stream area. Check Surf Your Watershed for a watershed group near you.
• Working with a community group, youth group or school to identify a local wetland that could be restored to its natural condition.  
• Talking to your local government about steps they are taking to protect and restore wetlands in your area, and encourage action.
• Plant native vegetation in your yard and limit your use of fertilizers and pesticides which can pollute nearby waterways.

GBA's Johnson County Wetlands Mitigation Bank

Energy Efficiency

Energy conservation is a key factor in reducing the operating cost of a facility. Imagine cutting your energy bill by implementing simple tactics to lower energy use and slice spending. While this is not the first time energy efficiency and energy conservation have been at the forefront, time and time again, GBA’s Energy Audit team finds facilities that lack these solutions. For instance, do your facility lighting levels meeting IESNA standards? Have your HVAC systems been set properly? Even computer settings can have an impact on increased energy use.

Based on GBA’s experience conducting energy audits, our team has collected recent data from over 95 public-sector buildings spanning 3,000 to 405,900 square feet. We’ve seen all types of city, county and state facilities with mechanical systems encompassing chillers and boilers as well as simple split systems and roof top units. Building envelopes have ranged from metal building shells to concrete masonry units, and florescent and incandescent lighting was typically observe. As noted in the chart below, we have provided a list of fundamental energy conservation measures evaluated from these common facility types to aid in reducing your energy bill:

 

Energy Conservation Measure	Energy Conserved	Average Savings
Change temperature setpoints	81,597	$1,815
Implement computer sleep mode	612,300	$1,322
Remove lamps from fixtures and meet IESNA standards (Illuminating Engineering Society of North America)	38,170	$1,056
Replace T12 lamps with T8 lamps	20,710	$518
Turn off lights in unoccupied spaces	96,440	$2,158
Replace incandescent lamps with CFL	11,733	$372
Install daylight controls	541,050	$11,140
Implement night and weekend setbacks on programmable thermostats	261,724	$3,229
Install pipe insulation	111,474	$855
Install window shading	26,575	$430

*Values are the average savings from single building energy audits performed during the Resourceful Kansas program.

Start integrating these solutions at your facility to gain results that will pave the way towards a sustainable future. Not only will you pinch pennies, but many of these standards can be implemented at little to no cost. Visit www.energy.gov  to discover more tactics to target your energy efficiency and conservation needs.

If you serve as an operating leader in Kansas for a public utility, our team will be sharing these tips and more at the Kansas Municipal Utilities Conference May 8-9 in Wichita, Kansas. Learn more about this educational event at www.kmunet.org. 

We welcome your energy efficiency and conservation success stories - share your results with us in the comments!

Have fun visiting a GBA project this summer - Worlds & Oceans of Fun, Kansas City

Did you know that GBA has been providing on-call design services to Cedar Fair for the Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun theme parks since 1996? When Craig Rogge, former facility manager, came to work for us, the work came with him! Task orders range from minor building modifications to preparing for a new roller coaster and design-build improvements at Oceans of Fun.

In preparation for the 2013 season, the GBA Buildings group and site development teams have been part of a design-build effort to improve Oceans of Fun with the following:

• Updated main entrance
• Renovated bathhouse
• ADA compliant sidewalks and walkways
• Two new water slides
• An additional and a replacement filtration building to support the water park
• Locker rental building

Back in 2011, we were part of bringing “Greeter Snoopy” Plaza to Kansas City, by designing accommodations for:

• Picnic shelter and entertainment area
• Featured rides including a spinning tug boat, carousel, mini tea cup, balloon tower, speedway, and convoy

Other general assignments throughout the years have included:
 

• The Mamba
• Stormwater detention
• Design of BMPs to address water quality
• ADA compliant sidewalks and walkways
• NPEDS Permitting and Land Disturbance Plans for site modifications impacting more than 1 acre
• Site design for attractions such as roller coasters, water slides, haunted houses, food vending and customer cueing areas
• Private utility extensions
• Demolition plans
• Streamway geomorphology