April’s Recommended Reading List for Civil Engineers

Lately quite a few good resources have shown up in my email. So I’ve compiled a reading list for this month to showcase these new releases. The first publication I’d like to recommend is:

Minimizing Traffic-Related Work Zone Crashes in Illinois by The Illinois Center for Transportation at the University of Illinois

If you are involved in work zone safety, particularly in Illinois, you’ll definitely want to check this out. Although much of the report focuses on Illinois, in one section it also lists some of the statistics about work zone crashes in several different states. Below is a page from the document summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of the different work zone strategies.

The next item might not make it to most people’s reading lists: Composting Animal Mortality Removed From Roads: A Pilot Study of Rotary Drum and Forced Aeration Compost Vessels by the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research

I’m including this report mainly because it highlights a topic that seems to be rarely discussed: disposal of animals picked up by highway departments. According to the report, “the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) removes an estimated 55,000 deer carcasses from its roadways each year at a cost of more than $4 million per year.” That’s a lot of money to spend on getting rid of dead animals. It’s good to see that Virginia is investigating more efficient ways to handle this and sharing the information with others because every highway maintenance department deals with this issue.

And finally a newly released publication from the City of Chicago Department of Transportation: Complete Streets Chicago Design Guidelines.

This is a nicely laid out publication offering a look at how the Chicago DOT will incorporate a complete streets approach to transportation.