A Day in the Life of a Civil Engineer – Day 57

Day 57

Intersection Enhancements

We have an intersection in our city where many people cross from a local hotel to a banquet center. The crossing is at a state highway and is uncontrolled – no stop sign or signal. So the business is requesting that we look into enhancing it to better facilitate pedestrian crossings. Today we spent some time discussing ideas and solutions. And I arranged for a vendor I know to stop by next week to show us some of the solutions they have available. My supervisor and I also visited the site to see the condition and space we had to work with. This is the beginning of a potentially big and interesting project for us.

Pavement Treatment

We also met with the contractor who installed the pavement treatment system we were researching earlier in the year. They are going to spray the treatment on one of the roads in our city we paved last year. We wanted to go over the details at the meeting. Later in the day the project engineer and I handed out letters to residents to let them know about the work. We also needed to ask the residents to keep the cars and leaves off the road on Monday so we could spray.

Gate Access & Security

In the afternoon, we met with the installers for a new system that will open our gates and our doors at public works using a card reader. This will help increase security for our facility. We made plans on where to install the electric lines and the equipment.

Lots of miscellaneous work

Although today was busy with many meetings, I also had a lot of miscellaneous work to take care of:

• Arranged to have GIS plot out displays for the council’s strategic planning meeting
• Arranged to have GIS collect the field locations of the new water lines in the community gardens with GPS
• Met with another staff member for a performance review
• Sent out a map for the bike committee to mark up with attractions for bikers

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