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Transcript of Georgia Engineer Dec 2014 - Jan 2015
volume 21, issue 6 December 2014 | January 2015
Governmental affairs
G E O R G I A
ENGINEER®
ATLANTA STREETCARS 1874-1901
GPTQ AWARDS
2 GEORGIA EnGInEER
Publisher: A4 Inc.
1154 Lower Birmingham Road
Canton, Georgia 30115
770-521-8877 | Fax: 770-521-0406
E-mail: [email protected]
Editor-in-chief: Roland Petersen-Frey
Managing Editor: Daniel Simmons
Art Direction/Design: Pam Petersen-Frey
Georgia Engineering Alliance
233 Peachtree Street
Harris Tower, #700
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
404-521-2324 | Fax: 404-521-0283
Georgia Engineer Editorial board
Thomas C. Leslie, Chair
Michael L. (Sully) Sullivan,
ACEC Georgia, President
Shawna Mercer,
ACEC Georgia, Director of
Communications & Government Affairs
AcEc/Georgia Representatives
B.J. Martin, PE
Lee Philips
AScE/G Representatives
Daniel Agramonte, PE
Steven C. Seachrist, PE
ASHE Representative
Jenny Jenkins, PE
GSPE Representatives
Tim Glover, PE
ITE Representatives
Daniel Dobry, PE, PTOE
John Edwards, PE
ITS/G Representatives
Bill Wells, PE
Shaun Green, PE
Kay Wolfe, PE
SAmE Representative
Pamela Little, PE
SEAOG Representative
Rob Wellacher, PE
WTS Representative
Angela Snyder
The Georgia Engineer is published bi-monthly by A4 Inc. for the Georgia Engineering Al-
liance and sent to members of ACEC, ASCE, ASHE, GEF, GSPE, ITE, SAME, SEAOG, WTS; local,
state, and Federal government officials and agencies; businesses and institutions. Opinions ex-
pressed by the authors are not necessarily those of the Alliance or publisher nor do they ac-
cept responsibility for errors of content or omission and, as a matter of policy, neither do they
endorse products or advertisements appearing herein. Parts of this periodical may be repro-
duced with the written consent from the Alliance and publisher. Correspondence regarding
address changes should be sent to the Alliance at the address above. Correspondence regard-
ing advertising and editorial material should be sent to A4 Inc. at the address listed above.
G E O R G I A
ENGINEER
DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015 3
ADvERTISEmEnTS
American Engineering Inc..............................................................25
AMEC ....................................................................................................3
Burns & McDonnell .........................................................................25
Cardno .................................................................................................31
Columbia Engineering .......................................................................3
CROM Corporation............................................................................6
Edwards-Pitman Environmental Inc. ...........................................19
Engineered Restorations Inc. ...........................................................5
Georgia 811...........................................................Inside Back Cover
Hayward Baker .................................................................Back Cover
Hazen & Sawyer................................................................................19
HDR .....................................................................................................25
JAT..........................................................................................................6
Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. ................................................24
MH Miles Company ..........................................................................6
Nova Engineering ...............................................................................8
Pond Company ..................................................................................31
Prime Engineering Inc........................................................................3
Reinforced Earth Company............................................................33
RHD Utility Locating........................................................................32
ROSSER .................................................................................................8
S&ME...................................................................................................31
Schnabel Engineering ......................................................................31
Stevenson & Palmer .........................................................................31
STV.......................................................................................................31
Terrell Hundley Carroll Right of Way Services ..........................31
T•H•C .................................................................................................28
TTL .........................................................................................................6
T. Wayne Owens & Associates, PC.............................................24
United Consulting..............................................Inside Front Cover
Vaughn & Melton ...............................................................................4
Wolverton & Associates...................................................................6
GEORGIA EnGInEER4
T a b l e o f
CONTENTS GEORGIA ENGINEER December 2014 | January 2015
GPTQ Awards ......................................................................................................7
Atlanta Streetcars 1874-1901 ........................................................................14
Maintaining for Success: considerations for green infrastructure
operations & maintenance | part two .....................................................17
Georgia’s stormwater management manual: helping to protect
water quality in Georgia ...........................................................................22
The crooked yardstick - redefining success...............................................24
2014 Intelligent Transportation Society of Georgia’s
Best of ITS Award Winners......................................................................26
Engineering News.............................................................................................28
ACEC Georgia ...................................................................................................34
ASCE Georgia ....................................................................................................36
GSPE Georgia ....................................................................................................38
ITE Georgia ........................................................................................................40
ITS Georgia ........................................................................................................42
SAME Atlanta ...................................................................................................44
WTS Atlanta......................................................................................................45
GPTQ AWARDS 7
Leake mounds Interpretive Trail -
Tribal Representatives
DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015 5
6 GEORGIA EnGInEER
vISIT uS AT
THEGEORGIAEnGInEER.cOm
FEATURE
7DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
GPTQ AWARDS
GRAND AWARD
The construction project was ‘let’ in April
2014 to C.W. Matthews for $103 million
and will take approximately five years for
acquisition of Right of Way and Construc-
tion. The project will improve traffic flow,
eliminate multiple at-grade railroad cross-
ings, and increase pedestrian and vehicle
safety through downtown Douglasville
and SR 92.
This project was selected as the Grand
Prize winner as it exceeded numerous de-
sign criteria categories.
Highway Design Urban Criteria were
exceeded when the project team success-
fully developed construction documents
for the SR 92 project that included a six-
lane (three each direction) urban section
with a 20’ raised landscaped median and
urban shoulders. The project includes the
construction of SR 92 under the existing SR
5/US 78 Bankhead Highway, Norfolk
Southern (NFS) RR, and Strickland Street
to create a grade-separated underpass.
The gross length of the project is 3.1 miles
and includes three new bridges, ten new
signals, seven signal modifications; a pre-
emptive fire station signal, an adjacent
multi-use trail along the entire corridor;
noise barriers, and LED lighting for pedes-
trian intersections.
The design required three bridges for the
grade separations of SR 92 beneath East
Strickland Street, Norfolk Southern Rail-
way, and Bankhead Highway. Each of the
proposed structures is a single span,
roughly 130 feet long, supported by full-
height cantilevered concrete abutments
on rock. The railroad bridge will accom-
modate three tracks and consists of a bal-
lasted concrete deck on steel plate girders.
The two vehicular bridges will carry multi-
ple lanes of traffic and consist of concrete
decks on PSC Bulb Tee girders. To achieve
the required vertical clearance at each
bridge, the relocated SR 92 will be de-
pressed below existing grade by a maxi-
mum of thirty feet using permanently
anchored retaining walls and bridge abut-
ments to retain existing grade.
Following is a listing of design ele-
ments the design team successfully ac-
complished which significantly exceeded
the criteria for Urban Design:
• Development of fast track urban
road design schedule
• Completion of complex bridge
designs
• Innovative staging for construction
• Design approval from the railroads
• Public Interest Determination (PID)
utility co-ordinations and approvals
• Accelerated right-of-way acquisition
Context Sensitive Design/Public Participa-
tion Criteria were exceeded when, after
two years of public coordination in the de-
cision-making process, consensus was ob-
tained from all citizens affected by the
relocation of SR 92.
Accomplishments included:
• All segments of the impacted
populations involved through
stakeholder meetings, workshops,
door-to-door communications, Web
sites (http://gahwy92.com/) and
public meetings
• Spanish populations reached by
Spanish translators
• Business community meetings
discussed impacts to businesses for
both during and post construction
• The school system helped
coordinate staging to reduce
impacts to student arrivals and
departures
• Local residents and commuters were
engaged to discuss potential
displacements, impacts, and project
improvements
• Through the context sensitive design
process, solutions incorporated into
the final plans include:
• Specially designed noise barriers
with brick facades, retaining walls
with noise barriers constructed on-
top Signalization, and a preemptive
fire station signal
Pedestrian enhancements
• Landscaping
• Lighting
• Customized parking at Jesse Davis
Park
8 GEORGIA EnGInEER
• Elimination of several at-grade
railroad crossings
The Criteria for NEPA, Environmental Pro-
tection, Historic Preservation, and En-
hancement were exceeded as the
EA/FONSI and re-evaluation addressed a
wide range of issues concerning the cul-
tural, social, and natural environments
within the corridor, including environ-
mental justice, Section 4(f)/6(f) impacts to
historic resources and recreational facili-
ties, endangered species, and significant
impacts to jurisdictional waters requiring
an Individual Permit issued through the
USACE. Accomplishments included:
• Added the listing of the federally
protected Indiana bat
• Fish & Wildlife approval without
delaying the let date
• Approvals for the transfer of land
from both the Georgia Department
of Natural Resources (GADNR) and
the National Park Service (NPS)
avoiding impacts to the let date.
Other noted accomplishments exceeding
criteria include:
Staging: The project team designed three
parallel bridges including the one NFS RR
Bridge. To accomplish this, while main-
taining traffic on Bankhead Highway and
the active NFS RR, the project team de-
signed the relocation of a temporary rail-
road shoe-fly track and a temporary
Bankhead Highway realignment. To com-
plicate construction even further, railroad
traffic will be maintained without inter-
ruption throughout construction. The
staging plans provide access to the school,
parks, and businesses throughout the en-
tire construction period. The project also
includes several detours along with a com-
prehensive traffic management plan that
was approved by FHWA.
Railroad coordination: Bankhead High-
way and Strickland Street are both within
the NFS RR right-of-way and due to the
complex nature of the bridge construction
and the staging plans the project, involved
intense coordination with NFS RR. The
project team met with NFS RR throughout
the life of the project and worked dili-
gently to address the railroad’s concerns
and requirements.
utility coordination: This is the first full
utility Public Interest Determination (PID)
project that the state of Georgia let. All of
the utility reconstructions were included
in the construction package for the con-
tractor to construct. This process required
intensive weekly utility coordination for
the entire project team.
Accelerated Right-of-Way Acquisition
Within 30 months. The project team ac-
quired 247 parcels, most of which were
commercial properties with multiple ten-
ants. Sixty-nine parcels had structures that
were demolished to clear the required
right-of-way necessary for the project con-
struction. The right-of-way acquisition
team successfully met the thirty-month
schedule for right-of-way certification.
The trophy name is: uRS Inc.
Team members:
• URS - Erick Fry and Nick Castronova,
Scott Caples & Patrick Smith
• GDOT - Project Manager,
Peter Emanual
9DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
CATEGORY 1
SR 11 had experienced severe rutting due
to an extremely high percentage of truck
traffic. Trucks consist of approximately 15
percent of the total traffic in this corridor.
Pre-cast concrete panels were determined
to be the most cost effective solution for
this road reconstruction.
The project consisted of replacing ap-
proximately three-quarters of a mile of
pavement with pre-cast concrete panels.
This was the first use of this technology on
a roadway in Georgia. The panels were
fabricated by a pre-cast concrete vendor
in Winder and transported to the project
site and installed at night. This allowed a
minimal amount of construction related
congestion, and the roadway was re-
opened each day to traffic. The offsite con-
crete fabrication also allowed the
construction to continue, despite record
winter weather during the construction
period, and the project finished two
months ahead of schedule.
Lt. Governor Casey Cagle said at the
ribbon cutting ceremony: “This is the way
roads should be built,” noting the use of
innovative road building techniques and
the superb aesthetics of the project.
The SR 11 project proved not only the
successful use of a new product but also a
construction technique that delivered the
project ahead of schedule while minimiz-
ing disruption to motorists.
The trophy name is: GDOT-Roadway
Design
Team member: Eric Rohde
10 GEORGIA EnGInEER
CATEGORY 3
SR 144 extends through Richmond Hill and
southeast Bryan County along the
Ogeechee River corridor.
This project consisted of reconstruct-
ing SR 144 from two travel lanes to four
travel lanes with a 20-foot raised median
for a distance of five miles including side-
walk and bicycle access. Public involve-
ment was to be a crucial part of the
project’s success along with a first sub-
mission Draft EA document that would re-
quire minimal revisions. Adrian
Collaborative was able to accomplish
these goals by implementing the following
strategies:
• nEPA innovations such as producing
documents with reader-friendly
formats by using simplified language
and creative images that considered
the local reader’s perspective.
• creative and effective public
involvement which included
widespread use of social media
advertising of the public meetings and
new format for handouts.
Community engagement including
personal discussions with local
stakeholders gave the project team
insight on locally important resources
and preferred access points for
pedestrians.
• Integration of new technology
helped enhance the understanding of
readers and public meeting
participants. Relevant smartphone
(QR) codes and URL links were added
to the EA pages, bringing social media
and online tools into the report itself.
An interactive PDF version of the EA
was created with cross reference and
online hyperlinks. This PDF file was
made available for use at the local
library on their seven workstations.
• Protection and enhancement of
resources are local priorities and
were part of the EA. Examples include
protecting not only all eligible historic
properties, but also local resources
from the unique past of Richmond Hill
as a Henry Ford plantation and work
community. In addition to preserving
historic markers and Ford fencing, the
project meets sustainable goals of
improving access for walking and
biking between neighborhoods and
adjacent land uses. Many of the
adjacent wetlands and essential fish
habitat will be preserved, while
mitigation for unavoidable impacts
will be located nearby in the
Ogeechee River basin.
The trophy name is: Adrian collaborative
Team members:
NEPA/Public Involvement, Todd Barker
GIS Planner, Martin Rose
Public Involvement Analysis, Stenka
Vulova and Heather Hatzenbuhler
GDOT: Project managers- Matt Bennett
(2010-2014) and Michelle Wright (2014-
present)
Public Involvement Support- Maggie
Yoder – District 5 Planning and Program-
ming Engineer
Environmental Services Support-
Michael Murdoch and Paul Alimia
Note: Category 2 was eliminated.
CATEGORY 4
The Georgia Department of Transporta-
tion has recently completed a public out-
reach project associated with the
widening of SR 61/SR 113 in Bartow
County. This public outreach project was
related to the mitigation of a National Reg-
ister of Historic Places eligible archaeology
site, known as the Leake Site. The Leake
Site is an American Indian archaeological
site that is located along the Etowah River
southwest of Cartersville, Georgia. The site
contains the remains of an American In-
dian occupation that lasted from approxi-
mately 300 B.C. until 650 A.D. The site was
excavated in advance of the widening of
State Highway 61/113, with over 50,000
square feet excavated. The Leake Site ar-
chaeological investigation revealed that
this site represents a major center during
the prehistoric Middle Woodland period,
figuring prominently in the interaction
among peoples from throughout the
Southeastern and the Midwestern United
States.
One of the components of this proj-
ect was the development of an interpre-
tive trail through the Leake Site. The
Leake Mounds Interpretive Trail is a 1.5
mile loop that contains 18 interpretive
panels and one kiosk which present infor-
mation on the archaeology of the Leake
Site as well as the surrounding natural and
11DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
cultural landscape. This project developed
out of a unique partnership between fed-
eral, tribal, state, and local entities. The
trail panels were designed by the Univer-
sity of West Georgia, in consultation with
GDOT, FHWA, SHPO, and several federally-
recognized tribes, while the trail itself was
developed by the city of Cartersville Parks
& Recreation dept. and Bartow County
Public Works, with aid from GDOT.
The trail is situated on green space
owned by Bartow County and the city of
Cartersville, a space which is intended to
protect remaining portions of the Leake
archaeological site from development, as
well as provide recreation for local resi-
dents. The trail was designed to be con-
text sensitive, using locally sourced,
natural stone as gravel, coursing across
the natural landscape, and not involving
excavation so that archaeologically sensi-
tive subsurface remains were not harmed.
In addition, the trail was developed with a
mobile Web site component so that addi-
tional information is available to the trail
user (via a smart phone or tablet) AND so
that the trail can be more accessible to
users that cannot make the 1.5 mile jour-
ney. The trail was dedicated in October
2013. All project partners were present in-
cluding five of the federally-recognized
tribes.
The trophy name is:
GDOT - Environmental Services
Team members:
Pam Baughman, GDOT, Project Manager
• Dr. Ann McCleary, University of West
Georgia Center for Public History
• Greg Anderson, City of Cartersville
Parks & Recreation
• Bryan Tucker, State Archaeologist,
Georgia DNR-Historic Preservation
Division
• Katy Allen, Environmental Team
Leader, FHWA
• Muscogee (Creek) Nation
• Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
• Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas
• Thlopthlocco Tribal Town
• Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
• United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee
Indians
CATEGORY 5
The well known congestion at the GA 400
/ I-85 interchange was vastly improved by
the addition of this project. The project
added two ramps which provide connec-
tions for I-85 southbound to GA 400 north-
bound and GA 400 southbound to I-85
northbound. The project also included the
construction of a half pedestrian trail.
The design-build team of Archer
Western Contractors and Heath Lineback
Engineers were awarded the project and
incorporated several innovative design el-
ements into the project. The design-build
team shortened one of the proposed
bridges by 650 feet by modifying the
geometry of the original design. They also
used deck widening, cap extension, and
sign pier/beam layout to reduce super
structure and sub-structure costs on one
of the bridges.
There were significant challenges
from existing utilities as well. In order to
avoid existing utilities, the Archer Western
/ Heath & Lineback team incorporated:
1) A straddle bent cap with pile footing
to avoid an existing sanitary sewer
line in Sidney Marcus Blvd.
2) A four-cassion foundation was
designed to allow retention of a
sanitary sewer line buried deep
beneath I-85
3) A drilled shaft at Cheshire Bridge was
employed to avoid an AT&T duct
bank.
The cost savings associated with avoid-
ance of city of Atlanta sewer lines was
around $1Million. In all, the project con-
struction came in almost $10 million less
than the original estimate.
Former mayor of Atlanta and presi-
dent of the Buckhead Coalition said that
“this is an extremely important project for
both Buckhead and Atlanta, and there are
tremendous benefits that are going to
come from it. I think the riding public will
be very pleasantly surprised.”
The GA 400 / I-85 Connector Ramps
project is an outstanding example of su-
perior bridge and structural design that
will benefit Atlanta commuters for years
to come.
The trophy name is:
Heath & Lineback Engineers
Team members: John Heath
and Phil Ravotti
GDOT - Loren Bartlett
12 GEORGIA EnGInEER
CATEGORY 6
The Windy Hill Road and Interstate 75 di-
verging diamond interchange project is a
good example of a project that meets the
objectives of the traffic safety/intersection
design category.
Windy Hill Road is a heavily-con-
gested east-west arterial through Cobb
County in metro Atlanta. The area around
the interchange currently experiences
crash rates three times the state average,
while injury rates in those crashes are dou-
ble the state average. Traffic volumes are
expected to increase 15 percent in the
short term. The Atlanta Braves new sta-
dium and mixed-use development will fur-
ther increase congestion in the area.
The diverging diamond interchange
eliminates left turns at traffic signals, and
has been shown to be successful at reduc-
ing crashes and increasing safety. In this
location, traffic flow is increased with the
addition of through lanes, without the
need to reconstruct the existing bridge
over I-75.
The diverging diamond interchange at
Windy Hill Road and I-75 is a successful
partnership between Cobb County and the
Cumberland Community Improvement
District. The project will prove to be a cost
effective solution to increasing safety and
operational efficiency.
The trophy name is:
moreland Altobelli Inc.
Team members:
Moreland Altobelli: Buddy Gratton, Brad
Hale, Chris Kingsbury, and Joe McGrew
Cumberland CID - James Hudgens w/
ARCADIS
CATEGORY 7
The Canton Road and Georgia Northeast-
ern Railroad over US 41 (Cobb Parkway)
project increased safety and mobility for
multiple transportation modes in an urban
setting. The dense development in the
area surrounding this intersection led to a
high volume of pedestrian and vehicular
traffic at this location. The project also cor-
rected substandard and/or functionally
obsolete bridges over US 41.
Strong coordination among stake-
holders was essential to keep the project
moving and to ensure that the interest of
the various stakeholders were considered
and project goals met. The project team
streamlined the design process with dili-
gent cooperative input from the Georgia
Northeastern Railroad and GDOT.
With less than standard vertical and
horizontal clearances, the bridges were
routinely hit and caused bottlenecks on a
major north-south corridor in Cobb
County. In addition, pedestrians could not
travel the area safely due to a lack of facil-
ities and insufficient clearances.
The ultimate project solution mini-
mized impacts to adjacent rights of way,
maintenance of traffic requirements for
the roadway and railroad, and railroad op-
erations.
Constant coordination, communica-
tion, and partnering of the project stake-
holders and each partner’s desire to see
this critical project come to fruition made
this project a success story. Strong GDOT
Project Management leadership helped
ensure the project ultimately was let on
schedule and under budget.
The trophy name is: ARcADIS
Team members: Arcadis – Keith Kunst
and Shamir Poudel
GDOT - PM Kim Nesbit
Looking West at the finished project and
showing the roadway and railroad bridges
over US 41, the spur and at-grade railroad
crossing, and the signalized pedestrian
crossing required for the project.
13DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
CATEGORY 9
This Design-Build (DB) project constructed
an auxiliary lane from Eagles Landing Park-
way/Hudson Bridge Road north to I-675 in
Henry County. To accommodate the new
lane, widening, and future managed lanes,
the Walt Stephens Road/Red Oak Road
Bridge was replaced. The DB team pro-
posed to move the bridge further north
than the RFP provided costing plans to
provide separation between it and the ex-
isting bridge, thereby reducing the num-
ber of construction stages. The overhead
utility lines in that area were moved to the
south side of bridge and bored beneath
the interstate; this required extensive pre-
proposal coordination between the DB
team and the affected utility owners. In an
effort to get the construction started and
meet a tight schedule, the DB team pro-
posed to phase the project by constructing
the interstate portion, which had no utility
conflicts or right-of-way, first. While Phase
I was under construction, the DB team
worked with the department to get the
overpass bridge released for construction,
including the completion of all necessary
utility coordination and design activities.
One key aspect of the phasing plan was a
phased Erosion Sediment Pollution Con-
trol Plan (ESPCP) and Notice of Intent
(NOI)—a first for the department, requir-
ing close coordination with the depart-
ment and EPD. This practice is now
standard in the delivery of Design-Build
projects, allowing for schedule savings and
earlier open to traffic dates. This particu-
lar project was open to traffic nearly one
month prior to the contract completion
date.
The trophy name is:
moreland Altobelli Inc.
Team members: Moreland Altobelli As-
sociates Inc.: Will Sheehan, P.E - Project
Manager
E.R. Snell Contractor Inc.:
Kathy Stansell - Project Manager
Billy Franklin – Project Superintendent
GDOT - Loren Bartlett – Darryl VanMeter
CATEGORY 8
The I-75 Rocky Face interchange is located
near Dalton, Georgia. The existing inter-
change was designed as a partial clover-
leaf with a diamond configuration for
northbound I-75 movements to SR 3/US
41 and a loop ramp serving I-75 south-
bound movements. The original design is-
sues were long queues for the I-75
northbound to east SR 3 due to a short
ramp with insufficient storage and signifi-
cant accident history due to high speeds
entering the southbound loop ramp. The
original concept design called for a barrier
separated collector distributor for both
northbound and southbound I-75 to move
queuing traffic off of I-75 and reduce
speeds entering the southbound loop
ramp. A new loop ramp was proposed for
the northbound to west SR 3 movement
and the addition of a future lane to the
outside of both I-75 northbound and
southbound.
Early in the project design, the I-75
Bridge over SR 3 was found to be insuffi-
cient and the reconstruction of this bridge
was added to the project. This led to a
complicated phased construction that
maintained 75,000 VPD on I-75 and 40,000
VPD on SR 3. The team also performed a
Value Engineering Study that resulted in
the future lane along I-75 being moved
into the existing 44-foot median. This
eliminated stream impacts to 15 identified
state waters and wetlands and reduced
the linear stream impacts to below the
permit threshold. The I-bats survey was
completed ahead of the USFWS mandate
enabling the project to be constructed on
time.
The trophy name is:
Kimley-Horn & Associates
Team Members - Kimley-Horn:
Gary Newton,P.E. - Project Director
Peter Coakley, P.E. - Project Manager
David Stricklin, P.E. - Bridge Design Lead
GDOT - Peter Emmanuel -
Project Manager
14 GEORGIA EnGInEER
he first operating streetcar in Atlanta was on the West End line of the Atlanta Street Railroad company. George
W. Adair and Richard Peters acquired its charter in 1871, after the failure of its previous owners to lay a single rail
in the previous two years. The company ran a horse-drawn car on iron rails from Five Points to West End (near
where Spellman college now stands) within five months of taking over the company. The West End line coinci-
dentally passed in front of the two owners’ homes. Other lines were completed in 1872 – 1874. In 1874 the
Peachtree Street line was extended to what is now Ponce de Leon Avenue and then about a mile east to Ponce de
Leon Springs (site of the old Sears building and now being converted to a live-work-play development adjacent to the beltline).
unlike most other cases, the streetcar line came first, and Ponce de Leon Avenue followed along its alignment.
T
Atlanta Strtcars1874-1901
15DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
In 1889, Adair sold to Peters, who installed his son Edward C.Peters as General Superintendent. The company had 15 milesof main and leased lines, 50 cars, and 200 horses and mules.
The Atlanta Street Railway Company was certainly notthe only show in town; it was just the oldest. Between 1872and 1886, the Georgia General Assembly chartered five othercompanies, the city of Atlanta awarded them franchises, andthey actually built and operated streetcar lines. The AtlantaStreet Railroad Company acquired two of them in 1889.
An additional six companies were chartered and awardedoperating franchises between 1882 and 1888, but they neverlaid a single rail. Many newly minted street railway compa-nies were less about public transport and more about servingas vehicles for quick profit schemes. The 1880s and early1890s were a time of unfettered industrialization and capital-ism. There were corporate excesses throughout the U.S.:stock manipulation, colluding competitors, monopolies, po-litical bribery, and the absence of any state or federal regula-tory structure. It was not until the first of the 20th centurythat President Teddy Roosevelt began his ‘Trust Busting’ tobring under control the robber barons of the day.
In the midst of this business and political setting, two At-lantans stand out as the most influential leaders of the evolv-ing streetcar and electric power industries.
Joel Hurt arrived in Atlanta in 1875 as a 25-year old, Al-abama-born Civil Engineer with a degree from Franklin Col-lege in Athens, Georgia (now the University of Georgia).Hurt was an ambitious, hard-driving entrepreneur. He mar-ried Annie Woodruff of Columbus, before her brother, Ernest,became president of the Trust Company of Georgia bank, andbefore Ernest’s son, Robert became head of the Coca ColaCompany. Hurt developed Inman Park, Atlanta’s first sub-urb, and ran a streetcar to it in 1889 (the Atlanta and Edge-wood Street Railroad), which was the first electrified streetcarin Atlanta. The 3.25-mile system was one of the first electri-fied streetcars in America, and was considered the most fi-nancially and technically successful of them.
Hurt was the undisputed street railroad magnate of At-lanta for over ten years (1891 – 1901). Like many of his ilk,he was technically and managerially astute and created a verysuccessful business in a new industry, but was unloved bymany because they considered him obstinate and high-handed. He is given credit, however, for building the streetrailway to high technical standards, and his creation was saidto be the envy of many American cities of Atlanta’s size. Hewas highly regarded by his streetcar colleagues throughout theU.S. and served as president of the American Street RailwayAssociation in 1894.
On September 21, 1891, Hurt oversaw the merger of fivestreet railway lines into the Atlanta Consolidated Street Rail-way Company. A sixth line was added in 1892. Fares werefive cents. By 1894, Atlanta Consolidated had more than 54
miles of operational lines: 44 were electric, 9 had dummy en-gines,*and one (on Wheat Street) remained mule drawn. Theelectricity was largely supplied “by a huge dynamo which Hurtbuilt for exactly that purpose,” although some electricity camefrom the Georgia Electric Light Company, led by Henry M.Atkinson.
Henry M. Atkinson was born wealthy of a Boston patri-cian in 1862 and had a Harvard education. An uncle was anationally known political economist and strong supporter ofAtlanta’s 1881 International Cotton Exposition. He rodewith Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish Amer-ican War. At the urging of this uncle, the 26-year old Atkin-son moved to Atlanta in 1888. He soon married May Peters,daughter of Richard Peters, the engineer in charge of build-ing the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta in the1840s. Peters owned hundreds of acres that now encompassmuch of Georgia Tech and extend East of Peachtree Street.
The Georgia Electric Light Company was chartered in1883 by three Atlanta businessmen (including Edward C. Pe-ters). It obtained a modest contract with the city to providewhat amounted to experimental electric street lighting. Atthe time, the city was a major stockholder in the Atlanta GasLight Company, and it approached the transition from gasto electric lighting cautiously. In 1891, the company’s origi-nal Atlanta investors sold to a group led by Atkinson thathad access to Northern money from financial companies andelectrical equipment suppliers. In 1891, he also became the
1874 - Streetcar over Clear Creek, near Ponce de Leon
and Argonne Avenue
16 GEORGIA EnGInEER
*Smaller version of a railroad locomotive that was much disliked because it belched smoke and was noisy.**MARTA has 48.1 miles of heavy rail and the Atlanta Streetcar has 2.9 miles of light rail.
NOTE: The source of most of this material is Mules to MARTA, Volume I, Jean Martin, 1975, and quotations are from it. At-lanta’s experience follows closely nationwide trends during this time as described in Mass Motorization + Mass Transit, David W.Jones, 2008.
President (and founder) of Southern Banking and Trust Companyand was the leader of the Atlanta, West End, and McPherson Bar-racks Railway. The streetcar company’s name was soon changed tothe Atlanta Traction Company, which increased trackage from fivemiles in 1891 to 25 miles in 1894.
Atkinson and Hurt were both of the business and social elitein Atlanta. They had common friends and surely saw each otherfrequently in an Atlanta with a population of 37,400 in 1880 and65,500 in 1890. By the mid 1890s, the two men were on a colli-sion course for control of the street railway and electric power sys-tems. The collision became known as the ‘Second Battle of Atlanta’in both local and national newspapers.
At the end of 1891, Joel Hurt was president of a street railwaycompany with electric generation capacity to power most of itsstreetcars, and Henry Atkinson was president of an electric lightcompany and held interests in a street railway company.
Georgia law stipulated that a street railway could “own andoperate power plants for commercial purposes beyond their ownneeds while electric light companies were barred from the opera-tion of streetcar lines.” In brief Hurt was a streetcar operator whoneeded electric power, and Atkinson was an electric power opera-tor who ran streetcars as a competitive tactic.
By the mid-1890s, Hurt had done much damage to his rep-utation and relationship with city hall and his customers. Two in-cidents serve as examples. One of Atlanta’s largest and mostsuccessful civic endeavors was the 1895 Cotton States and Inter-national Exposition. Hurt built a special streetcar line to delivervisitors to the exposition site (now Piedmont Park). Instead ofthe standard five-cent fare, he charged ten cents. It was consideredprice gouging and outraged the public and especially Atlanta eliteswho had worked tirelessly and generously to make the event reflectfavorably on their beloved city. Hurt’s name was conspicuouslyomitted from the lists of committee members in the expositioncatalogue. Henry Atkinson was listed as chief of the ‘electricity de-partment’ and a member of the finance committee, which waschaired by Samuel M. Inman, a close friend of Hurt and for whomhe named Inman Park.
In streets where rails existed, the city required streetcar com-panies to share in the cost of paving them. Hurt reasoned that byremoving the rails, the street paving costs could be avoided, re-gardless of the inconvenience to customers. In 1896, Hurt orderedthe removal of tracks from Capitol Avenue in the middle of thenight to avoid what he considered unfair paving requirements. Atthe time, Capitol Avenue was a very desirable address. Police werecalled to Capitol Avenue, and they ordered the crew to stop work.After the police left, however, Hurt ordered the crew to continue!
Work was finally stopped when the police returned and confis-cated the workers’ tools.
By 1897, Hurt’s Atlanta Consolidated Street Railroad Com-pany operated ten routes with 60 miles of rail, which extended be-yond the city and into adjacent counties. Three competingcompanies operated lines with combined trackage of 36 miles,making a total streetcar trackage of at least 102 miles.
In 1899, Atkinson and Hurt held secret talks on combiningtheir operations, but they led nowhere. They even flipped a cointo determine who should buy out the other, but their relationshipremained rocky. Atkinson sought city approval of new streetcarfranchises that would compete directly with Hurt. Hurt changedthe name of his Atlanta Consolidated Street Railroad to the At-lanta Railway and Power Company and announced its plans for an‘up-to-date power plant in central Atlanta,’ including steam heat-ing and air-cooling facilities.
Hurt and Atkinson seemed bent on encroaching on the cen-tral business interest of the other. By 1899, the Hurt-Atkinsonrivalry played out publically in courts, newspapers, city hall, andnorthern financial centers.
An 1899 report by Ford, Bacon & Davis, ‘consulting streetrailway engineers and experts with offices in New York, Philadel-phia and New Orleans,’ assessed Atlanta’s transit system in supportof Atkinson’s petition to the city for new franchises. The AtlantaConsolidated Street Railroad Company had 93.4 miles of singletrack equivalent (composed of 14.3 miles of double track and 79.1miles of single track). Most lines had 15-minute headways, someas low as five minutes and some as high as 30 minutes. In NewYork, some downtown streetcars had 15-second headways, and inNew Orleans on Canal Street headways were as low as 30 seconds.Atkinson hired the firm to assess Hurt’s operation, so it was nosurprise that they concluded, “ . . . the present service is little shortof ridiculous.”
The Second Battle of Atlanta continued unabated until 1901when Hurt finally agreed to sell his streetcar and power intereststo Atkinson. The successor company that emerged from the com-bination was the Georgia Railway and Electric Company in 1902.It included the streetcar (with 138 miles of track**), electric light,steam, and (later) gas light companies. The complete monopolyof public utilities in Atlanta was finally achieved (except the city-owned waterworks). This structure remained until the 1940swhen the federal Security and Exchange Commission orderedGeorgia Power Company to divest itself of gas and transportationinterests. v
The first part of this article left off discussingO & M procedures and guidelines among GIpractices by organizing them into major main-tenance areas or functions that will apply tomost GI system types. Part 2 of the article willcontinue that discussion briefly and finish bydiscussing economic factors such as estimatedO & M costs, including financing strategieswhich support the funding of O & M programsfor GI.
Typical Operations & maintenance
Recommendations for various GI
Technologies, continued…
Inlet & Outlet Control Device MaintenanceInlet and outlet control devices generally
require routine inspection and cleaning.
However, their maintenance procedures
should be familiar to most maintenance
staff responsible for traditional stormwa-
ter systems. Typically, these structures
should be inspected at least two times per
year and in some cases following major
storm events. They should be periodically
cleaned to remove sediment, trash, and
other debris, particularly when they in-
clude sumps or inserts for pretreatment of
runoff. Maintenance of inlet and outlet
strucutres helps to prevent flow restric-
tions and can be combined with system-
wide inspections or with routine street
inlet maintenance that may already be a
standard part of community maintenance
programs.
vegetation
Vegetation maintenance can vary consid-
erably among different GI practices and is
highly dependent on system visibility and
planting palette. Typically, planting sys-
tems located in highly visible urban and
park environments and those with com-
plex planting palettes will be more main-
tenance-intensive than those that are
designed to function as ‘naturalized’ sys-
tems in less traveled areas. Typical routine
maintenance activities for vegetated sys-
tems include: inspection/observations and
trash removal, annual mulching/pruning in
more visible or intensively planted sys-
tems, routine weeding during the growing
season and especially during the estab-
lishment period, and plant replacement
and irrigation during drought periods.
Permeable Pavements and Pavers
Permeable pavement maintenance is criti-
cal for ensuring the long term porosity of
the pavement surface and varies depend-
ing on the type of surface material in-
stalled. Routine maintenance for
permeable asphalt and concrete primarily
requires that the pavement surface be
vacuum swept biannually at a minimum,
although more frequent vacuuming may
be required when there is high exposure
to debris, sediment, or leaf litter. Perme-
able pavers should be vacuumed less often
to remove debris accumulations without
impacting gravel joints typical of most
paver varieties.
cold Weather considerations
Cold weather and associated deicing ac-
tivities such as plowing and application of
deicers (e.g. salts), must be considered
during the design phase in order to help
mitigate or altogether prevent these ac-
tivities from reducing the long term per-
formance of GI systems. Often, vegetated
GI systems are located adjacent to road-
ways and parking areas and are used as
stockpile areas for plowed snow and as a
result can receive particularly heavy salt
loadings. Thoughtful design decisions,
such as establishing alternative, desig-
nated stockpile areas, can help alleviate
such cold weather-related concerns. In-
deed, such careful design practices, as well
as proper plant species selection, has
yielded successful GI implementations in
various northwest climates exposed to
consistently heavy snowfall. On the oper-
ations side, maintenance staff are encour-
aged to consider changes to their typical
cold weather protocols, such as using
more environmentally benign deicers and
adjusting plow blade heights on perme-
able pavements, in order to minimize neg-
ative impacts on GI systems.
Operations & maintenance Tasks
and Frequencies
Many O&M tasks, such as structure in-
spection and cleaning, are common across
the spectrum of GI technologies. However,
as one might suspect, some tasks are very
specific to the type of GI system being
17DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
MAINTAINING FOR SUCCESS:considerations for green infrastructure operations & maintenance | part two
By Daniel Wible, PE | Water Resources Engineer | CH2M HILL &Susan McDaniels, LEED AP | Water Resources Engineer | CH2M HILL
Street inlets connected to GI systems aremaintained using familiar tools such as
vacuum trucks that are already employed forstandard inlet cleaning.
18 GEORGIA EnGInEER
maintained. In most cases, the frequency
of scheduled routine maintenance tasks,
such as structure inspection and cleaning,
is one to two times per year. Most main-
tenance activities and frequencies will also
vary seasonally, particularly for vegetated
surface systems, which typically require
more frequent care during the growing
season. Table 1 summarizes the recom-
mended O&M tasks and frequencies for
seven common GI practices and/or com-
ponents.
Paying for GI Operation and maintenance
One of the biggest barriers to GI is the per-
ceived long term cost of implementing a
GI maintenance program. However, there
are various examples of large-scale GI pro-
grams where maintenance has been suc-
cessfully undertaken on a large variety of
GI types and projects, and where the busi-
ness case for such implementation has
been proven beneficial.
One such example is in Onondaga
County, New York, where implementation
of an ambitious GI program (‘Save the
Rain’) has also meant rapid deployment of
an equally ambitious GI maintenance pro-
gram. To date, the Save the Rain program
has successfully implemented approxi-
mately 170 GI projects in streets, parks,
schools, libraries, parking lots, and nu-
merous other settings. The program has
employed a wide variety of GI technolo-
gies, including bioretention, green roofs,
and permeable pavements, at varying
scales, in order to reduce stormwater
runoff inflows to combined sewers by over
100 million gallons annually. Onondaga
County’s maintenance program has been
funded through a combination of strate-
gies, including: integration of GI mainte-
nance into the existing infrastructure
maintenance regime and CMMS tracking
system, utilization of large-scale mainte-
nance contracts which create jobs and
healthy market competition, community
partnerships to provide low-cost mainte-
nance while providing entry-level jobs and
job training, and establishment of incen-
tive programs to offset costs through pri-
vate implementation of GI and its
associated maintenance. Since 2010,
Onondaga County’s GI program has been
both an environmental and political suc-
cess story due in large part to its effective
maintenance efforts. For more informa-
tion on this program, please
visit:savetherain.us/greenprograms/green
infrastructure/maintenance/.
The business case for GI maintenance
becomes most apparent when looking at
the incremental costs of GI maintenance
activities compared to those associated
with conventional infrastructure or land-
scape maintenance. In addition, when one
considers the multiple benefits of GI over
conventional stormwater management,
the business case for GI appears even
more favorable. For example, the ancillary
benefits of GI, such as increased property
values, economic stimulus through the
creation of new permanent jobs, commu-
nity enhancement through increased
green space, and water quality and other
environmental benefits, far outweigh the
benefits of traditional stormwater man-
agement. As discussed below, there are
various ways to pay for the costs associ-
ated with GI maintenance, including com-
munity partnerships, novel financing
opportunities, and implementation of
stormwater utilities.
Funding mechanisms
Funding mechanisms for stormwater man-
agement, whether conventional or GI, and
its associated maintenance continue to be
a challenge for many communities, espe-
cially when competition for such funding
is stacked against budgets for schools, li-
braries, and police departments. While
bonds can be used to fund stormwater
maintenance, this funding must be repaid
over time and as such it can contribute to
the community’s overall tax burden. In
order to compensate for these challenges
and to provide an equitable method of
stormwater cost distribution that is linked
to impact, many communities are imple-
menting stormwater utility fees. Stormwa-
ter utilities can provide dedicated funding
for the long term maintenance of
stormwater systems and in effect ensure
the long term performance of GI and other
stormwater systems. They also pair well
with crediting programs that can be used
to incentivize private investment in GI and
its maintenance.
Other alternative funding mecha-
nisms include innovative financing options
such as public-private partnerships (PPPs),
Table 1 - Routine and non-Routine maintenance Tasks and Frequencies
19DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
beneficiary opportunity funds, infrastruc-
ture improvement districts, and clean
water funds. Partnerships with community
groups, such as youth work training pro-
grams, can provide economic benefits to
the community by providing long term and
permanent jobs.
Factors Influencing maintenance costs
The factors influencing maintenance costs
are often based on the type of GI technol-
ogy, with vegetated systems, such as curb
extensions or planters, typically having
higher maintenance costs than non-vege-
tated systems. That being said, mainte-
nance costs among similar GI technologies
are largely based on system size, design
complexity, location, and public visibility.
More frequent and intense maintenance
requirements obviously lead to increases
in cost. For example, maintenance cost
will be higher for a system of permeable
pavers and stormwater planters in an
urban plaza verses permeable asphalt with
bioswales in a community parking lot.
While both have similar systems and traf-
fic uses associated with them, the urban
plaza will likely require more frequent
maintenance since it is more heavily used
by pedestrians that spend longer amounts
of time in the space, increasing the sys-
tem’s visibility and required maintenance.
Although more complex and visible GI sys-
tems require more maintenance, they are
often systems that become community as-
sets and maintenance costs can be incor-
porated into maintenance budgets which
already exist.
Other factors that may influence GI
maintenance costs relate to the policy and
political factors associated with a particu-
lar GI program. In a larger program, where
This award winning GI project in Lancaster, PA provides traffic calming and increases
pedestrian safety at a busy intersection while creating an outdoor seating area for
the adjacent restaurant. The restaurant’s owner partnered with the city and is par-
tially responsible for the maintenance of the new GI systems.
20 GEORGIA EnGInEER
larger scale maintenance contracts can be
implemented (for permeable pavements,
for example), there are economies of scale
that may help reduce costs. In a commu-
nity where there is wide public support
and the ability to partner with local com-
munity institutions and organizations such
as schools, park preservation groups, or
environmental organizations, there may
be an opportunity to offset costs through
the use of low-cost or volunteer labor.
Although the concept of conducting
and paying for the maintenance of nu-
merous new GI systems can be daunting, it
is important to note that many of the
maintenance activities associated with GI
systems are already conducted as part of
conventional maintenance programs. For
example, regular clean up, weeding, irri-
gation, mulching, and pruning is already a
part of most urban landscape mainte-
nance programs in public and private
spaces. Street sweeping programs are
widely used in the regular maintenance
regime of standard pavements in many
communities and could be expanded to in-
clude permeable systems. Mowing lawns
in and around detention basins and other
conventional stormwater systems and
inlet/outlet structure cleaning is already
being performed by city maintenance
crews and private property management
groups. The fact is that the maintenance
associated with many ‘naturalized’ GI sys-
tems (e.g. infiltration basins or bioreten-
tion in a meadow or wooded area) and
other landscape restoration practices can
be relatively easily integrated into existing
maintenance programs and in some cases
can even reduce existing maintenance ac-
tivities and costs. Examples include a re-
duced need for mowing and fertilization
due to conversions from lawn to native
landscapes or a reduction in the need for
deicers as permeable pavements some-
times experience less surface icing.
Typical GI maintenance costs
Comprehensive data on the potential
maintenance costs associated with GI is
fairly limited but has been documented by
some, including the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency, the Center for Watershed
Protection, and the Water Environment
Research Foundation (WERF), which de-
veloped an LID cost tool in 2009. Review
of that information reveals a relatively
high level of cost variability due to the fact
that GI maintenance costs can and will dif-
fer based on the numerous factors de-
scribed above. A survey of communities
that are implementing GI programs
throughout the United States indicates
that annual O&M budgets for these pro-
grams can range from approximately
$250,000 to over $1 Million. Budgets are
directly dependent upon the number of in-
stalled facilities, the age of the program,
and the number of additional facilities
planned.
The following chart (Figure 1) of an-
nual maintenance cost ranges for GI proj-
ects implemented by the City of Lancaster,
PA clearly illustrates the variability in
maintenance costs for common GI tech-
nologies. The costs (2014 dollars) are
based on both ‘low’ and ‘high’ routine
maintenance regimes for these GI tech-
nologies and their associated labor and
material replacement costs. Low and high
routine maintenance costs are a function
of the assumed complexity of the GI sys-
tem and exemplify the range of costs that
could be associated with a particular GI
practice. The chart shows that on average,
vegetated systems such as bioretention
and tree trenches have higher annual
maintenance costs per square foot than
non-vegetated and subsurface systems
such as infiltration trenches or permeable
pavements. The obvious conclusion is that
less visibility often translates into reduced
costs, at least when comparing costs on
the basis of dollars per unit area of GI.
However, as illustrated in Figure 2,
when typical O&M costs are applied to
typical maximum impervious drainage
areas for the same GI technologies, the re-
sults change. Suddenly, seemingly less
cost-effective technologies, from an O&M
standpoint, like bioretention, appear more
cost-effective since they can accept runoff
from more impervious area per square
foot of system area than, say, permeable
pavements. Indeed, Figure 2 reveals that
bioretention and tree trenches, which are
typically more resilient to rapid clogging,
are just as cost-effective to maintain on an
area managed basis as most subsurface
systems and are almost two times less ex-
pensive than green roofs. Green roofs,
which are typically limited to managing di-
rect rainfall and potentially some adjacent
roof areas, are shown to have higher
maintenance costs per acre of managed
area than all other systems. Such insights
can help program managers evaluate the
cost effectiveness of various GI technolo-
gies in the long term; in other words, they
can help determine which systems can be
deployed to maximize runoff capture
while reducing both capital and long term
O&M costs.
Comparing the costs of GI O&M with
conventional drainage practices or land-
scape improvements has generally proven
problematic due to both the lack of data
and the inherent challenge of an equitable
Figure 1 – Typical Annual maintenance cost Range for GI (cost per SF of GI area)
21DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
comparison (i.e. comparing ‘apples to ap-
ples’). For example, in order to under-
stand the O&M cost ‘delta’ associated
with maintaining bioretention, the ques-
tion of what does the bioretention replace
must be answered. Does the bioretention
replace turf grass? Or densely vegetated
public gardens? Or pavement? And how
‘complex’ will the bioretention design be?
Is the project a retrofit or is it required to
achieve regulatory compliance for
stormwater management?
In 2007, an EPA-funded modeling
study on the benefits of trees and green
roofs in Washington, D.C. concluded that
annual savings of $1.4 to $5.1 million in
grey infrastructure maintenance costs
could be realized depending on the level
of GI implemented. Similarly, in its 2013
report, “Staying Green: Strategies to Im-
prove Operations and Maintenance of
Green Infrastructure in the Chesapeake
Bay Watershed,” American Rivers pre-
sented several case studies comparing
green and grey infrastructure O&M costs.
The report ultimately concluded that
“maintenance for properly designed and
appropriately selected GI practices can be
less costly than conventional stormwater
infrastructure,” but that “more research is
needed.” Furthermore, “better tracking of
maintenance costs for GI combined with
increased research will provide a strong
foundation for local governments to make
informed choices about their options for
cost-effective stormwater management.”
conclusions
Beyond the obvious environmental bene-
fits, GI is capable of improving communi-
ties, benefitting economies, educating the
public, and creating more resilient places
for people to live and work. However,
when politicians or community leaders or
even the design community sells the idea
of GI implementation to their respective
communities, they must also sell the idea
of maintaining that GI, of keeping the
green. In other words, selling GI imple-
mentation is the same as selling 20 or 30
or 40 years of dedicated, effective, and
consistent O&M. Without such a ‘sale’ to
the public and to stakeholders, successful
GI implementation is impossible. Fortu-
nately, as described above, there are nu-
merous tools, strategies, and lessons
learned from other communities available
to help decision-makers overcome their
‘GI anxiety’ and implement successful pro-
grams. In general, the 10 most important
considerations for successfully maintain-
ing GI systems are as follows:
1. Commit to implement and maintain GI
2. Identify funding sources for GI imple-
mentation and O&M
3. Gain community endorsement
4. Plan and design GI projects for minimal
and/or effective maintenance
5. Develop GI standard operating proce-
dures, inspection forms, and related
documentation
6. Identify responsible agents for various
O&M practices
Figure 2 – Typical Annual maintenance cost Range for GI (cost per SF of
impervious area managed) ReferencesThe Green Build-out Model: Quantifying theStormwater Management Benefits of Trees andGreen Roofs in Washington, DC, Casey Trees andLimnoTech, 2007.
The Importance of Operation and Maintenance forthe Long-Term Success of Green Infrastructure, USEPA. 2013. http://water.epa.gov/grants_fund-ing/cwsrf/upload/Green-Infrastructure-OM-Re-port.pdf
Kinter, Mark. Maintenance and Restoration ofPorous Pavement Surfaces White Paper. ElginSweeper Company.
NC State University Cooperative Extension BMP In-spection & Maintenance Certification.http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/topic/bmpim/overview.html
Staying Green: Strategies to Improve Operationsand Maintenance of Green Infrastructure in theChesapeake Bay Watershed, American Rivers.2013.
Staying Green and Growing Jobs: Green Infrastruc-ture Operations and Maintenance as Career Path-way Stepping Stones, American Rivers. 2013.
Stormwater BMP Maintenance. ChesapeakeStormwater Network. http://chesapeakestormwa-ter.net/training-library/design-adaptations/stormwater-bmp-maintenance/
Users Guide to the BMP and LID Whole Life CostModels, Version 2.0. Water Environment ResearchFoundation. 2009.
7. Conduct ‘gap’ analysis of O&M re-
quirements (i.e. what you are doing
now and what needs to change)
8. Educate and train maintenance staff
9. Construct GI projects according to best
erosion and sediment control practices
10.Monitor and track effectiveness of
O&M efforts over time
At the most basic level, both big and small
communities interested in such success
should consider what they are already
doing for maintenance and then deter-
mine how to most effectively bridge the
gap to full-scale GI maintenance. v
22 GEORGIA EnGInEER
he 1972 Clean Water Act wasan important step toward ad-dressing many of the waterquality issues in the UnitedStates. Focused primarily onpoint source discharges, itmade great strides in cleaning
up waterways that were historically theprimary source of water pollution. In1987, Congress passed amendments tothe Clean Water Act that provided addi-tional regulatory controls over nonpointsource pollution, focusing primarily onstormwater runoff. With these amend-ments came new regulations, affectingmany Georgia municipalities. In 1990,regulations addressing stormwater runofffrom large municipal areas (populationover 100,000 people) (Phase I) were im-plemented, and in 1999, regulations wereexpanded to smaller municipalities(Phase II) . These regulations necessi-tated new tools to facilitate complianceamong local governments. In response,the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC)secured funding from the Georgia Envi-ronmental Protection Division (GAEPD) in1998 to coordinate the development of astormwater management guidance tool.In 2001, the first Georgia StormwaterManagement Manual (GSMM) was com-pleted. Consisting of two volumes, theGSMM was one of the first statewide
stormwater manuals in the country.
Volume 1 (the Policy Guidebook) was
intended to provide baseline knowledge of
stormwater management to local govern-
ments attempting to setup stormwater
programs. It was also intended to provide
a degree of consistency between each
local government with a stormwater per-
mit. Volume 1 contains general informa-
tion on stormwater issues, regulatory
requirements, stormwater planning, and
implementing operations and mainte-
nance programs. Volume 2 (the Technical
Handbook) was, and is, the heart of the
GSMM. Containing all the engineering in-
formation for designing and building
stormwater best management practices
(BMPs), Volume 2 focuses on reducing
total suspended solids (TSS) by 80 percent
from up to the first 1.2” of any given storm
event. This approach reflected the rules
and permit language at the time by focus-
ing on stormwater quality as opposed to
the current focus on stormwater quantity.
Volume 2 also contains extensive in-formation on drainage design as well assupporting information on topics like soilsand rainfall curves.
In 2009, the Coastal StormwaterSupplement (CSS) was developed in re-sponse to the unique conditions withinGeorgia’s coastal area. This addition tothe GSMM marked a shift in stormwatermanagement in Georgia by focusing oninfiltration of stormwater as the primarygoal with 80 percent TSS reduction beingthe fall back where infiltration is not pos-
sible. This is also the first manual in Geor-gia that discussed and referred to the nowubiquitous term of green infrastructure(GI). It is interesting to note that severalof the BMPs in Volume 2 of the GSMMare the same BMPs that are now regardedas GI, such as vegetated swales and per-vious paving. The CSS also emphasizedconserving as much undisturbed area onsite as possible to better mimic pre-de-velopment hydrology.
Volume 3 is the most recent additionto the GSMM. Completed in 2012, Vol-ume 3 serves as the ‘Good HousekeepingGuide.’ It contains helpful practices toprevent potential stormwater pollution.Practices cover a range of topics such asvehicle washes, hazardous chemicals, tooland equipment cleaning, and outdoormanufacturing operations. Volume 3 wasaimed at not only municipal stormwaterpermit holders, but also construction andindustrial permit holders. Given the rela-tive newness and focus of Volume 3, it willnot be addressed in the update process.
Georgia’s stormwater management manual: helping to protect water quality in Georgia
TBy Chris Faulkner | Senior Planner | Atlanta Regional Commission
An example of green infrastructure at Rock Mill Park, Alpharetta, Georgia
23DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
GSmm version 2.0
The original GSMM was an innovativetool for managing stormwater. It has beenvaluable for engineers, designers, land-scape architects, and many other practi-tioners from all sectors. However, likemost nearly 15-year-old tools, it is in needof an update. Slated for completion in thefall of 2015, GSMM 2.0 (as we are callingit for now) will provide necessary updatesto Georgia’s primary stormwater man-agement tool.
First and foremost, GSMM 2.0 willnot be a rigid, prescriptive document.Flexibility will be a key feature of the up-dated manual to provide maximum us-ability for anyone who managesstormwater. This will be achieved largelythrough an integrated approach, meaningBMPs will be able to address either the 80percent TSS approach or the infiltra-tion/volume approach. An integrated ap-proach recognizes that different localgovernments and other users have differ-ent needs in terms of stormwater man-agement. Having an integrated approachwill also allow for users to adapt their ap-proach to stormwater management overtime without the need for a different man-ual. GSMM 2.0 will also include completeupdates to Volume 1 and Volume 2.
Revision of Volume 1 will includelooking at and updating existing sections,removing sections no longer needed, andadding sections that provide more infor-mation to local decision makers and otherusers. Some of the key features of thenew Volume 1 will be:• High level cost / benefit analysis of
stormwater management;• Case studies of stormwater manage-
ment;• More discussion on financing op-
tions; and• Improved information on operations
and maintenanceIt is expected that putting this kind of in-formation into the hands of decision mak-ers and other stakeholders will result inmore informed decisions regardingstormwater management.
Updates to Volume 2 will include re-viewing existing BMPs in both the existing
Volume 2 and the CSS to determine whichare still relevant and what specific infor-mation requirements each has. In doingthis, the project team will not be adding anabundance of new material, but will in-stead focus on providing information oneach BMP that is useful and has beenproven effective. Updates will also incor-porate the previously mentioned inte-grated approach to each BMP. Examplesof additional information for inclusion are:• Regional considerations / geographic
appropriateness;• Improved soils information;• New development versus redevelop-
ment considerations;• Treatment trains; and• Special requirements for use
The updated Volume 2 will also incorpo-rate GI; however, GSMM 2.0 will not justbe a GI manual. Again, in an effort to pro-vide maximum flexibility, GSMM 2.0 willalso include many of the traditional BMPsusers are familiar with. This will help in-crease the usability and flexibility of themanual.
While the updated GSMM 2.0 willnot be able to address all situations andconditions, it is expected to build upon thesuccess of the original GSMM and en-hance Georgia’s primary tool for
stormwater management. A great teamhas been assembled to ensure the abovestatement comes to fruition. The projectteam, being managed by ARC, consists of:• URS Corporation (Lead Firm);• Center for Watershed Protection;• Hussey, Gay, Bell, & DeYoung;• Center Forward; and• Mendel Designs
In addition to the consultant team, a Tech-nical Advisory Group (TAG) has beenformed to provide user input and feed-back. The TAG consists of representativesfrom local governments of different sizeswithin Georgia, state and federal govern-ment officials, industry groups, and non-profits. To ensure maximum feedback,there will also be two larger stakeholderreview periods to collect comments froman even wider range of users.
Overall, this project promises to pro-vide Georgia with an enhanced stormwa-ter management tool that will ensure thatwe, as a state, continue to be at the fore-front of managing our stormwater. Byproviding flexibility, enhanced informa-tion, and innovation, we hope users willfind GSMM 2.0 to be an effective tool forbetter managing stormwater state-wide.v
Gainesville installed an infiltration trench to address stormwater runoff from a road
adjacent to their stream restoration of Flat Creek, a tributary to Lake Lanier.
24 GEORGIA EnGInEER
ake inventory of your suc-
cesses. What comes to mind?
The title of your position in
your company? How much
money you make? The value
of your home? An award you
won? If you had to measure
your success, would you place yourself in
the top ten percent? Top five percent?
Did your company or your team meet this
quarter’s sales goals? Regardless of which
success percentile you stand in, does the
nagging sensation that something isn’t
quite right tug at you? you’re not alone.
A recent Harris poll shows a downwardtrend in happiness in America. Onlythirty-five percent of Americans saythey’re happy—two percent fewer thanfive years ago. A Gallup poll taken last yearshows only thirteen percent of employeesin the world feel engaged and invested intheir jobs.
Abraham Lincoln had a keen insightinto happiness. He said, “I reckon mostpeople are about as happy as they make uptheir minds to be.” The same can be saidof success.
Ruth McClain, a talented seamstresswho grew up an orphan in Philadelphia,used to lose track of time standing at themetal racks in fabric stores that heldwooden yardsticks. To the casual observer,they all looked the same. Not to Ruth Mc-Clain. She examined them, observing acurve in one, a bow in another, a nick inanother.
Asked about her fixation with theyardsticks, she explained once, “If youmeasure garments with a crooked yardstick,the garment will look right when you fin-ish making it. It will come out the rightsize, but the person who wears it will feellike something isn’t quite right. They won’tknow what it is, but they’ll feel it. Whenyou measure with a crooked yardstick thefinished product never feels quite right.”
Goals and benchmarks others set forus create a similar effect as measuring gar-ments with a crooked yardstick, because,even if you hit the benchmarks, somethingstill won’t feel quite right. Eventually, likerunning into the wind, that feeling will fa-tigue you, overwhelm you—burn you out.
Sales goals, income levels, and posses-sions never fully satisfy us when someoneelse sets them as a standard of success.Who said you had to become a multi-mil-lionaire, or that your company had to growby seven percent a year? That the unem-ployment rate had to go down? If it wasn’tyou, then stop using those data points as
measurements! They’re crooked yardsticks.Sure, they reflect something, but they maynot reflect what matters to you.
Here are four questions that will helpstraighten out your yardstick:
1. Who are you?
Not just your name or your logo butyour essence. What are the essentialthings you want people to rememberabout you or your organization longafter you’re gone? What do you standfor? What really matters? What makesyou feel special and fulfilled?
2. Where are you, and how long have
you been there?
That’s your present and your past.Know it and honor it. Make peacewith it. Now stop letting it limit you.It’s just your starting point for the fu-ture. To get accurate directions youneed to know a starting point and anending point. Your starting point does-n’t define you.
T
By Gerry Sandusky
The crooked yardstick - redefining success
3. Where are you going?
A lot of people and organizations can’tanswer this. Stop until you can. If youdon’t know where you want to go, howwill you know if you’re on course or offcourse? You won’t. Instead, you’ll fallfor the trap of using goals and meas-urements set by other people to defineyour success.
Imagine outcomes that feel true,authentic, that feel like wearing a per-fect fitting jacket while you walkthrough the woods on a chilly, fall af-ternoon. There’s no one else around tosee you in that jacket. Just you. Does itfeel tailored for your body, warm, justenough to keep you comfortable withyour hands tucked into the pockets butnot too much to bog you down?Someone made that jacket using astraight yardstick! That’s what successfeels like. It can look like a thousanddifferent things. That’s your choice.But make sure your vision of it feelsright.
4. How will you get there?
Probably the same way Ruth McClaindid: measuring everything with astraight yardstick. You will remain theproduct of a crooked yardstick untilyou have the courage to define successon your terms and measure it only byyour terms. No matter how goodeverything looks, it won’t feel quiteright, and achieving more won’tchange that.
Answer those questions honestlyat an individual level and you will quietthe noise caused by exterior expecta-tions or crooked yardsticks. Answerthem at a company or organizationlevel and you will unleash purpose andcommitment beyond anything youhave experienced before because theseanswers come from a place deeperthan the bottom line.
Ruth McClain had fewer thanfive hundred dollars in her checkingaccount when she died at the youngage of fifty-eight, but she died happyand she died fulfilled. She died know-ing she had given the world somethingthe world didn’t give her: the gift of amother. She raised a good family, lovedher husband and five children. Shedied knowing the shirts and blouses,the dresses and the drapes she madebrought beauty and joy to the lives ofothers. And she died knowing her life,like those garments, was measuredusing a yardstick she carefully selected.By many measurements—income, as-
sets, fame, power—Ruth McClain’slife may not look like much of a suc-cess, but by her measurement it was astrue as a perfect yardstick; a yardstickI keep to this day to remind me ofher—my mom—a genuinely happy,successful person.
Choose your yardstick carefully. Your suc-cess and happiness depend on it. v
Gerry Sandusky is the play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Ravens, and a speaker, corporate trainer, and author of The New York
Times bestseller, Forgotten Sundays. He is the recipient of two regional Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Awards for his accom-
plishments in broadcast journalism. Gerry’s energetic and insightful presentations will impart the value of effective leadership
techniques and communication on your audience. For more information on Gerry, please visit www.GerrySandusky.com.
25DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
ach year the Intelligent Trans-
portation Society of Georgia
recognizes people and projects
that exemplify the highest level
of achievement in intelligent
transportation. In 2014, two
projects and two people were
singled out for their innovation and achieve-
ments.
Project of Significance Award - A project,study, or program undertaken in the previ-ous twelve (12) months with an impactthat is quantifiable and directly related to aspecific activity/action that reduces con-gestion, improves safety and security, andenhances mobility in Georgia.
Winner: – I-75 South Express Lanes Proj-ect - Georgia Department of Transporta-tion and State Road and TollwayAuthority. Contractor: C W Matthews,Designer: ARCADIS.
I-75 Express Lane Project will add op-tional reversible tolled lanes for 12 milesalong I-75 south of Atlanta, in Henry andClayton Counties from SR 155 to SR 138.Access to the reversible lanes system willbe facilitated by an automated gate system.
Traffic in both express lanes and generalpurpose lanes will be monitored by ex-panded Georgia Department of Trans-portation’s NaviGator ITS System. Thelanes will be managed by a variable pricedtolling system, and drivers will use a PeachPass to access the lanes.
The benefit: The I-75 Express lanes willprovide motorists in the corridor with ex-panded choice and a valuable option for areliable trip regardless of traffic conditionsin the general purpose lanes. The I-75 Ex-press lanes are anticipated to provide an av-erage of ten minutes in travel time savingsfor users.
The Significance: This project is the firstsuch project implemented under the stateof Georgia’s policy that any new capacityon Metro Atlanta’s freeway system will bemanaged. The full electronic tolling featureof the project provides a means to maintainoptimal usage and reliable travel time, andtherefore, better mobility and accessibilityin the corridor. This express lane system isalso the first reversible lanes system inGeorgia that utilizes automated gates andassociated changeable message signs, toll
rate signs, and traffic signals to manage theoperations. Innovation: Outside the Box Award –Creative and unique approach or solutionby an individual or group to an ITS chal-lenge, or to an issue using ITS as a solutionduring the previous twelve (12) months.Winner: Variable Speed Limits on I-285 -- Georgia Department of Transportation.Contractor: Brooks-Berry-Haynie, De-signer: ATKINS, Software: Delcan, Main-tenance Support: Serco.
The Georgia DOT continues to look forinnovative technologies to deal with theever-increasing traffic on metro Atlantafreeways. A concept proposed by Com-missioner Keith Golden has allowed for anincreased speed limit on I-285 south of I-20 and implementation of a Variable SpeedLimit (VSL) system on I-285 north of I-20. During times of lighter traffic, thisVSL system will allow drivers on this seg-ment of I-285 to enjoy the same 65 mphspeed limit that drivers south of I-20 have.However, during times of increasing con-gestion, the VSL system will display re-duced speed limits in ten-mph increments(to a minimum of 35 mph) to slow traffic
26 GEORGIA EnGInEER
2014 Intelligent Transportation Society ofGeorgia’s Best of ITS Award Winners
E
Ashlyn Morgan, Whitley Nottage, Bill Gunter and Mark Demidovich receive the 2014
Innovation award from ITS Georgia President Tom Sever (second from right).
ITS President Tom Sever (right) congratu-
lates David Smith winner of the Out-
standing Volunteer Award.
as it enters a congested area.This VSL system was deployed as a
design-build project; the design-build teamwas led by Brooks-Berry-Haynie withAtkins as the designer. It features a com-bination of wireline and wireless commu-nications to the 176 VSLs, most of whichare solar powered. The VSL are controlledby GDOT’s Navigator II system from theTMC in Grant Park.
Larry R. Dreihaup Award – The ITS Geor-gia Larry R. Dreihaup Award recognizesan individual or an organization who hasprovided leadership, professionalism, and
dedication in promoting ITS in the stateof Georgia during the previous 12 months. Winner: Grant Waldrop, P.E., GeorgiaDepartment of Transportation.
Grant has served in many roles at ITSGeorgia and most recently as board mem-ber. He is a dedicated individual that workstirelessly on any initiative that advancesITS and Operations and Maintenance. Heled the charge on behalf of ITS Georgia inorganizing a very successful and visible ITS3C Conference along with Gulf RegionalITS and ITS Florida. His efforts atGDOT have garnered attention and re-spect for Traffic Signal Operation andMaintenance projects by GDOT manage-ment and decision makers regionally.Through these efforts, he has propelled thedepartment’s disjointed signal programsinto an award winning nationally recog-nized regional arterial management pro-gram. Throughout his career, Grant hasstrived to improve how ITS is done inGeorgia, be it through his mark on thespecifications or management of the largestregion-wide arterial management programin the southeast. Grant serves as mentor tohis colleagues and ITS Georgia member-ship and has acted as champion for ITSand ICM during a time of transition at thestate’s leading ITS agency.
Recently, Grant agreed to representITS Georgia in securing the CompleteStreet Symposium, which will be last of the
series. He is a professional in every aspectand a great ambassador of ITS GA.
Outstanding volunteer Award - Open toall membership, including Board membersand Committee Chairs, who have goneabove and beyond to support ITS Georgiaduring the previous twelve (12) months. Winner: David A. Smith, P.E., SunbeltTraffic, LLC
While serving as a board member,David has assumed several leadership andvolunteer roles within ITS Georgia. Hehelped organize the out of town technicalworkshop in Columbia County in May2013, which drew close to 50 participants.He arranged for some of our monthlymeeting speakers in 2013, including GregNajjar, Sprint Networks ( July 2013) andPhil Spicer, Norfolk Southern (October2013).
When the board was looking for anew meeting facility for 2014, David re-searched various facilities and provided theboard with several options. He made fullarrangements for us to meet at PetiteAuberge Restaurant in February 2014.
David is constantly volunteering histime to assist with chapter activities andinitiatives, including working with XuewenLe this year as the board manager for theactivities committee. He has gone beyondthe call of duty to be worthy of the 2014Outstanding Volunteer Award. v
27DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
ITS Georgia President Tom Sever (second from right) presents the 2014 Project of Significance Award to Bill Gunter,
Shubhendu Mohanty, Matt Glasser, Mark Demidovich, Xuewen Le.
Grant Waldrop (left) winner of the Larry
R. Dreihaup Award with ITS Georgia
President Tom Sever.
28 GEORGIA EnGInEER
ENGINEERING NEWSEPA P3 Grant for SPSu
GEORGIA
A team of SPSU students (known as theSun-Seekers) led by Dr. Bill Diong (Elec-trical Engineering), Dr. Kevin McFall(Mechatronics Engineering), and Prof.Scott Tippens (Electrical EngineeringTechnology), has recently been fundedby the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) to develop a new type of solarpanel. As part of the EPA’s P3—people,prosperity, and the planet —Phase I pro-gram, the team is designing a panel con-taining sun-tracking cells rotated by asmall motor, which can increase dailysolar energy capture by at least 25 per-cent compared to non-tracking solarpanels.
This team follows in the footsteps ofa previous team (see photo below) thatdeveloped a version of this panel wherethe sun-tracking cells were rotated bybimetallic coils—like those found in out-door thermometers and older thermo-stats. That panel increased daily solarenergy capture by about ten percent. Tosee it ‘in action’during lab testing, viewthe video at http://podcasting.gcsu.edu/4DCGI/Podcasting/spsu/Episodes/10427/486822636.mp4 .v
2013 SPSU Sun-Seekers team: (l-r) Manoj Chaulagain, Alex Daly, Pedro Guevarra,
and Teshaun Francis
We have been informed by ABET that in
our enthusiasm we shared too many de-
tails relating to our recent ABET visit and
accreditation findings. (Georgia Engi-
neer Volume 21, Issue 5, October | No-
vember 2014) by Lance Crimm. The
paragraph on page 13 starting with,
“Despite the unrest and uncertainty on
campus...” until the paragraph’s end vi-
olates ABET policy and should be disre-
garded. We apologize for this oversight.
When ABET awards accreditation to a
program, the accreditation action indi-
cates only the nature of the next review
and is not an indicator of the program’s
quality. ~ omas R. Currin, PH.D., P.E.,Dean, School of Engineering, SPSU
AuTHOR’S ERRATum
29DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
The ITS Georgia chapter supports stu-
dent involvement in the engineering pro-
fession and hopes to encourage future
Georgia ITS Engineers through the
Wayne Shackelford Engineering Scholar-
ship Program.
Our 2014 winner of the sixth annualITS Georgia Wayne Shackelford Engi-neering Scholarship is Simon Berrebi, adoctoral candidate at Georgia Tech whodeveloped a method that uses real-time in-formation to control buses on a high-fre-quency route—a technology he hopes tocommercialize upon graduation.
The question answered by this year’sapplicants was: What are the top benefitsand challenges of implementing au-tonomous vehicles in metro Atlanta?
below is the winning abstract.
Recent advancements in sensing and track-ing technologies allow shifting the controlof vehicles from the driver to the vehicle it-self. The paradigm of autonomous vehicleis an old dream: it was presented as the vi-sion for the 1950s at the New York 1939World’s Fair. Later, cars came equippedwith air bags that automatically detectedcrashes, and now with automatic-brakingsystems that avoid collisions. Several com-panies have started working on prototypesthat could operate without a human in thecar, and have completed successful tests onthe highway network.
There is a wide consensus amongtransportation experts that vehicles in thefuture will carry out an increasing numberof driving tasks. However, it is still unclearwhat level of autonomation they willachieve in the next ten to thirty years. Astechnology continually improves, severalquestions regarding the impact of au-tonomous vehicles on the transportationeco-system must be addressed. This paperpresents some of the main benefits andchallenges of implementing autonomousvehicles in metro Atlanta, Georgia. Thetransportation network is already facing se-rious challenges in congestion mitigation,safety, infrastructure funding etc. Au-
tonomous vehicles will relieve some ofthese issues and aggravate others, whilecarrying challenges of their own.
Many of the transportation challengesfacing the metro Atlanta transportationsystem are caused by human behavior andcharacteristics. Human drivers take longerthan computers to react to changing con-ditions and to unexpected events, so theydrive more slowly and dangerously, whileconsuming more fuel and space. In addi-tion, many people do not have access topersonal mobility because of physical dis-abilities, visual impairment, or age, and thistrend will likely increase with the raisinglife expectancy.
By contrast to human drivers, au-tonomous vehicles can be programmed toreact effectively to changes in their sur-rounding conditions. Recent prototypes ofautonomous vehicles were tested on thehighway with a visually impaired passen-ger, and were found to perform better thanhuman drivers. One of the main benefits ofimplementing autonomous vehicles inMetro Atlanta is that individual vehicleswill drive more safely and more efficiently.In addition, autonomous vehicles will pro-vide access to personal mobility for people
who currently cannot drive.The road network is made for the de-
sign driver. The design driver is one of theworst drivers on the road, partly because heor she uses intuition rather than reason tomake decisions. Autonomous vehicles canbe excellent drivers, because they are pro-grammed to react to their environment, butlack the intuition to adjust their decision-making when confronted with an unex-pected situation.
Unexpected situations are unavoidableon a transportation network where millionsof people and vehicles interact on a dailybasis with each other and with surround-ing infrastructure. The interaction betweenhuman drivers and autonomous vehiclescan be dangerous because one can misap-prehend the behavior of the other. Acci-dents may occur, for example, when ahuman suddenly decides to take control ofhis or her vehicle, or when a human and anautonomous car compete for right of wayat an intersection with a broken traffic sig-nal. To prevent these situations, the rules ofdriving for humans would have to change,and there should be very specific standardsto make autonomous driving as predictableas possible.
As the need for human involvement inthe task of driving will diminish, the costand the overall burden of transportationwill decrease. For-hire rides will becomecheaper as the salary of the human driverwill be excluded from the price. Au-tonomous cars will be able to park them-selves or to become for-hire vehicles untiltheir owners hail them back. Commuterswill be able to multi-task in their car ontheir way to work. As inexpensive, reliable,and fast transportation solutions that donot require vehicle ownership will arise, thedemand for personally owned vehicles willdiminish, but the demand for transporta-tion will increase.
As the cost of transportation will de-crease, people will most likely alter theirtravel behavior by making more trips, trav-eling farther, and shifting modes to the au-tomobile. This change in travel patterns
ITS Georgia chapter Supports through Wayne Shackelford Engineering Scholarship Program
ITS Georgia President Tom Sever (left),
congratulates Simon Berrebi, winner of
the 2014 Wayne Shackelford Scholarship
Winner.
30 GEORGIA EnGInEER
will put a strain on the transportation net-work, which will become more congestedand more damaged by the increased de-mand in vehicular transportation. In addi-tion, it will likely spur changes in land usepatterns as commuters will be willing tolive farther away from their work.
The implementation of autonomous
vehicles in Atlanta will a have deep impacton traffic operations and travel patterns.The autonomous vehicles will be designedto drive more safely and efficiently thanhuman drivers, and they will give personalmobility access to people who cannot drive.There remain, however, technological andlegal challenges whereas to the interaction
of autonomous vehicles with humans driv-ers and the built environment. The imple-mentation of autonomous vehicles will alsodiminish the cost of transportation inmetro Atlanta, and reduce the need for per-sonally owned vehicles, but it will also in-crease the demand for transportation andput a strain on the road network. v
Georgia Institute of Technology Renovates Residence Halls, clemson university Plans new and Replacement Space within core campus Precinct
Stevens & Wilkinson, a full-service archi-
tecture, engineering and interior design
firm based in Atlanta and columbia, South
carolina, today announced ongoing
progress of two new higher education
housing development projects. The proj-
ects include renovation of the historic
Glenn and Towers Residence Halls at Geor-
gia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and
a comprehensive redesign of clemson uni-
versity’s core campus Housing Precinct in
clemson, South carolina.
Georgia Institute of Technology hasretained Stevens & Wilkinson to providearchitectural, engineering, and interior de-sign services for a comprehensive renova-tion of the Glenn and Towers ResidenceHalls.
The firm, in association with VMDOArchitects, will completely replace allbuilding infrastructure systems, making thefacilities accessible to the disabled and pro-viding new student amenities. A new8,400-square-foot addition will connectthe two residences, fulfilling the original1940 master plan, and feature a fitness cen-ter, multipurpose meeting room, classroom,and small group study rooms.
“The 616 residents will enjoy new ex-panded social and study lounges, restrooms,and laundries on every floor,” said RonStang, AIA, LEED AP and chairman forStevens & Wilkinson, Georgia. “The ren-ovation scope includes incorporating newelevators, converting existing open atticspaces into two new residential floors, andreplacing slate roofs and historically accu-rate windows.”
Exterior grounds will also be re-designed to create new outdoor spaces forrecreation and entertainment as well as a
new accessible route through the sector ofcampus where the residences are located. The three-year, 125,000-square-foot proj-ect is on track to achieve LEED Gold cer-tification from the U.S. Green BuildingCouncil.
“The renovation of the halls sets thestage for the establishment of enriched stu-dent living accommodations that are inkeeping with the high level of standards forwhich Georgia Tech is known,” said Stang.Renovation statistics include 63,259 squarefeet of floor space and four stories at GlennHall, 53,116 square feet and three storiesat Towers Hall, and 8,400 square feet at theNew East Campus Commons. The Glennand Towers renovation is targeted for com-pletion in 2015.
As part of the Campus Master Plan, astudy was conducted to answer the ques-tion: “How might forward-looking ap-proaches to housing, academic, dining, andstudent life programs be combined into anintense, innovative, and dynamic mixed-usecenter for Clemson University?”
To resolve the question, VMDO Ar-chitects, the firm directing the design of the700-bed housing initiative, sought the col-laboration of Stevens & Wilkinson in con-junction with Sasaki Associates to develop
a clear and engaging vision for theprecinct’s evolution.
"The design fits very well with theCampus Master Plan and has embellishedit in ways we could never have otherwisearticulated,” said Gerald Vander May, di-rector, campus planning for Clemson Uni-versity. “The program was very challenging,but through innovative problem solvingand tireless interaction, the team has takenthe complex goals of the university andfashioned a vision that has taken root.”
The architecture, engineering, andlandscape design services provided byStevens & Wilkinson will involve 179,000residential square feet, 76,000 dining squarefeet, and 5,000 academic square feet, result-ing in 260,000 gross square feet of new con-struction and 700 beds. The ClemsonUniversity Core Campus Housing projectis scheduled for completion in 2016.
“Beyond square footage and new con-struction, the project aspires to much more,including the design and development ofquality campus life for students and newforms of housing that support the univer-sity’s desire for a multi-purpose, mixed-usecenter of living and learning,” said AshbyGressette, AIA and president of Stevens &Wilkinson.v
31DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
Merrick & Company welcomes three newmembers to the firm’s Geospatial team.“The new additions represents our com-mitment to grow our market share inAlaska and the lower 48,” said Gary Out-law, Vice President of Merrick. “Withtheir contributing talents, Merrick will beable to continue growing our surveyingand remote sensing offerings.”
Scott North, PLS, joined Merrick asthe Southeast Regional Survey Managerbased in Merrick’s Duluth, Georgia, office.North is a registered professional landsurveyor in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia,Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,Tennessee, and Virginia and has 14 yearsof experience in the survey profession.Additionally, North holds a Certified Fed-eral Surveyor (CFedS) license and is ac-tive in several professional organizations.North received his Bachelor of Engineer-ing, Surveying, and Spatial InformationSystems from the University of NewSouth Wales, Australia.
James (Jamie) W. Young, GISP, joinedMerrick as Senior Geospatial Technologistin Greenwood Village, Colorado. Young isa GIS Professional with 20 years of expe-rience in remote sensing and is compe-tent in (light detection and ranging)LiDAR, digital imaging, and GIS applica-tions development. Young is co-chair ofthe LiDAR sub-committee for the Ameri-
can Society for Photogrammetry and Re-mote Sensing (ASPRS) and is often calledupon for LiDAR specification review forASPRS, United States Geological Survey(USGS), and Federal Emergency Manage-ment Agency (FEMA). Young holds aBachelor of Arts in technical geographyfrom the University of Colorado.
Charles Barnwell joined Merrick asthe Geomatics Regional Manager in thefirm’s Anchorage, Alaska, office. Barnwellhas 25 years of experience in GIS man-agement, database development, applica-tions design, implementation,management, and specialty systems de-velopment in a variety of industries, in-cluding natural resources, local
government, and transportation. Barnwellwill lead business development growth inAlaska and has extensive project man-agement experience in GIS, surveying,and mapping (LiDAR). Barnwell receivedhis Master of Science in planning from theUniversity of Alaska and Bachelor of Sci-ence in geology from the University ofWisconsin. v
32 GEORGIA EnGInEER
merrick Welcomes new members to its Geospatial Team
James W.
young
Scott north
charles
barnwell
Don’t miss a single issue of the
Georgia Engineer magazine!
Subscribe today online at
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Professional Service Industries Inc. (PSI)is pleased to announce the promotion ofJames Johnson to project manager of itsKennesaw Environmental/Facilities De-partment. He was originally hired Aug.25 as staff architect.
Mr. Johnson earned his ProfessionalMaster of Architecture from SavannahCollege of Art and Design in Georgia, hisMaster of Science of Architecture fromMississippi State University and his Bach-
elor of Science in Industrial Technologyfrom Mississippi Valley State University.
PSI provides a wide range of environ-mental, engineering, and testing services,including: environmental consulting, ge-otechnical engineering, construction ma-terials testing and engineering, industrial
hygiene services, facilities and roof con-sulting, NDE, and specialty engineeringand testing services. Headquartered inOakbrook Terrace Ill., PSI operates from100 US based offices with 2,300 employ-ees and $260 million in annual revenues.v
PSI promotes James Johnson
James
Johnson
33DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
Georgia Tech Appoints William Higginbotham to cEE board
ET Environmental President and CEO Be-gins Three-Year Term
The Georgia Institute of Technologyhas appointed William (Bill) Higgin-botham, PE, President and CEO of ET En-vironmental Corporation, to the School ofCivil & Environmental Engineering Exter-nal Advisory Board (EAB). The EAB meetstwice per year for a three year term withthe option of a second term. The 2014 fallmeeting will be held October 31.
Georgia Tech is consistently rankedamong the top undergraduate and gradu-ate civil and environmental engineeringprograms in the country, graduating morestudents than MIT, Stanford, Berkley, orIllinois. The responsibilities of the EAB areto promote and advocate for the schoolnationally and internationally; provide ad-vice and strategy to the chair, faculty, andstaff leadership; and provide financial
support individually and through externalfund raising efforts. The activities of theEAB have consistently played a significantrole in the overall success of the school.“My experience at Tech has been invalu-able to my career, and this is my chance
to give something back in return,” says BillHigginbotham, Georgia Tech alumni andAtlanta area resident. Mr. Higginbothamjoins 29 distinguished members on thisprestigious board.
About ET Environmental
ET Environmental is an independent de-sign/build firm with in-house professionalengineers and construction managers in14 offices in the US and Canada. The com-pany focuses on design and constructionof alternative fueling infrastructure andmaintenance facilities as well as all areasof the solid waste industry. Founded in1993, ET Environmental has blended en-vironmental expertise and constructionmanagement systems into a comprehen-sive design/build service model. Contact:Tina Reed, ET Environmental Corporation,LLC, 602-920-7852, [email protected]
bill
Higginbotham
34 GEORGIA EnGInEER
Ten or more years ago, I decided to getinvolved with ACEC Georgia because I
loved my life choice of becoming anEngineer. The problem, I discovered, withthe profession I so dearly love, was it isbeing dumbed down to a commodity. Itseemed that many of our clients (orpotential clients) seemed only interested inone thing; “How much does it cost?”Rather than “What value do you bring tothe table?” Sadly, I found clients makingconsultant selections based on how cheaptheir fees are rather than whether the firmis qualified to perform the work. And thenthe realization of competing firms reversebidding for work set in. “If he can do it for$1.00, then I will do it for $0.95.” Candidly,this irritated me to the point that I decidedI have to do something. So, I asked myself,“Do you want to make a difference? Then
get involved!” I was recently having a discussion with
a business associate, and we were talkingabout the value of ACEC. His concernwith becoming a member was related tocost, and I reminded him that “if we don’tlook out for our profession, who is goingto?” The truth is, we have to look afterourselves because no one else will. If I amnot looking out for my business, I certainlycannot expect good things to happen.
I have become increasingly aware thatthe beginning of failure comes when wetake our eye off the ball. We have to stayfocused on the right things. There willforever be new legislation proposed thatcan and will have adverse effects on our
AcEc Georgia
Political Advocacy• Advocating at all levels of government to advance policies that impactthe business of engineering in Georgia.
• Monitoring the regulatory issues and government agency actions thataffect engineers.
• Working for a more pro-business climate and defending against unfairbusiness practices.
• Fighting to protect the professional engineering practice.
Business Development• Providing networking opportunities, meetings, and programs that putyou in contact with potential clients, industry peers, and the leaders ofthe engineering profession.
• Hosting the Georgia Engineers Summer Conference, TransportationSummit, P3 Summit, and other programs that expand your professionalknowledge and network.
• Offering informative and relevant seminars, programs, and webinarswith presentations from leaders who affect our industry andcommunity.
Firm Operations• Providing a forum for the exchange of business and professionalexperiences.
• Offering programs and resources on best business practices formember firms.
• Sponsoring the Future Leaders Program to build the next generation ofleaders within member firms and the engineering profession.
• We provide executive development training for emerging leaders andfirm management.
The Value of ACEC GeorgiaServing your firm’s business
interests through:
News
Darrell K.
Rochester, PEChairmanACEC Georgia
(678) [email protected]
35DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
businesses. If we are not paying attention,guess what? The proposed legislation willbecome law, and the next thing you know,it is too late to do anything about it. ACECis in the business of protecting andadvancing the business of engineering.Sully, the staff, and board of directors arelooking out for our profession.
There are those that do not want to bebothered. They will just let someone elsetake care of it. What is that about?Laziness? Complacency? Do they thinktheir involvement doesn’t matter anyway?We have to get ready to rumble! Knocksome heads! Duke it out! Fight for what isrightfully ours! Otherwise, you can counton your fees getting cheaper and cheaper.You can also get prepared for moregovernment regulation. The best way toavoid complacency is to strive forcontinuous improvement. Greatorganizations or companies constantly askquestions, challenge assumptions, andcreate a sense of urgency. Everyoneinvolved actively works toward makingthings better. I believe that ‘many handsmake light work.’ Imagine if we all chippedin and did our part. I believe we could seegreat things happen. We would have theopportunity to lift our profession to a new
level.“The tragedy of life is often not in our
failure, but rather in our complacency; notin our doing too much, but rather in ourdoing too little; not in our living above ourability, but rather in our living below ourcapacities,” said Benjamin E. Mays
As I shared in the last issue, we aremoving around the state to hear your issues.We met in Macon in September,Greensboro in October, Rome inNovember, and we plan to be in Columbusin January. From these meetings, werecognize there is a wealth of knowledgeand ideas each of you have that needs to betapped. There is a need to hold focusgroups based on your particular area ofexpertise. One of our longstanding focusgroups is the Transportation Forum, whichhas been tremendously successful. Becauseof the expressed need in other areas, we willbe starting additional forums as soon as wecan get enough people engaged to helpmake it happen. We plan to start or restartthe Building Systems Forum (MEP firms),Energy Forum, Environmental Forum,Geotechnical Forum, Land DevelopmentForum, Small Firm Forum, and StructuralEngineers Forum.
But, here is the deal…Do you want to
make a difference? Do you care about theengineering profession? If you care like Ido, you need to “Get in the game!” We needfor you to invest some of your time andthose great ideas you have locked away inthat noggin of yours. We cannot do italone. We need for you to participate inone of the forums. Our futures arecounting on your involvement.
If you or your firm is not a member ofACEC, we would like to talk with youabout the benefits of membership. If youare a member and you have ideas of howACEC can better serve your firm or theengineering community, please let us know.Also, if you are a member of ACEC, pleaseconsider taking the time to share yourpersonal story about how ACEC hasbenefitted you and your firm. There is nobetter way to help others see our value thanthrough the eyes of someone they knowand trust.
I wish you all a wonderful Christmasand a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
Darrell K. Rochester, P.E. [email protected](678) 450-5161 v
ACEC GEORGIA MEMBER FIRMS
Board of DirectorsDarrell K. Rochester, Chairman / Roseana Richards, Chairman-elect / Jay C. Wolverton, Past Chair / Charles Ezelle, Treas-urer / John Heath, Secretary / Dave L. Wright, National Director / Jim Case, Vice Chair / Don Harris, Vice Chair / RobertLewis, Vice Chair / Anita Atkinson, Director / Daveitta Jenkins, Director / Emily Meador, Director / Kevin McOmber, Direc-
tor / Al Pramuk, Director / Charles ‘Corky’ Welch, Director / Brent Wright, Director / Taylor Wright, Director
StaffMichael ‘Sully’ Sullivan, President & CEO
Jennifer Head, Director of Membership & Programs
Brittney Love,Director of Finance & Operations
Shawna Mercer,Director of Communica-tions and Government Affairs
CommitteesKevin McOmber, Government Affairs/PACDavid Wright, ACEC PAC ChampionRob Lewis, Business DevelopmentJim Case & Don Harris, Firm OperationsJohn Heath, CoalitionsDoug Robinson, CommunicationsBrannen Butts & David McFarlin, Leadership DevelopmentCharles Ezelle, MembershipJay Wolverton, NominatingJay Wolverton, Past Presidents/ChairmenScott Gero, Transportation Forum
ForumsBill Griffin, Building Systems
Corky Welch, Environmental
Chris Marsengill, Transportation
Brannen Butts, Leadership
dkrochester@rochester-
assoc.com
(678) 450-5161
36 GEORGIA EnGInEER
Activity in the Georgia Section continuesto increase. Volunteers continue to step for-ward to create great programs for ourmembers including informative institutemeetings, fun younger member events andextensive student outreach. This year’sBoard of Directors is very active in attend-ing events, planning for the future of theGeorgia Section and answering memberquestions.
Student Outreach
Last year we reached over 12,000 studentsthrough our student outreach program, en-couraging students to become civil engi-neers. It’s a tough challenge. Civilengineering just doesn’t sound as cool asbiomedical engineering, which is a top pickamong engineering students today. Butcivil engineering is a career where peoplecan make a difference in the world aroundthem and have meaningful work while rais-ing families and being a part of their com-munity. Encouraging future civil engineersis important for the future of infrastructurein our country, and therefore, important topublic safety and our future economy. Aspecial thanks to External DirectorShaukat Syed and the many volunteers forour student programs.
collaboration
In October I spoke at the American Soci-ety of Landscape Architects Gala at Pied-mont Park. Younger Member Director
Annie Blissit attended with me and it wasinteresting to see their winning projectsand talk about how engineers, landscapearchitects and architects can better collab-orate. While we focus on infrastructure,landscape architects bring a perspective oftying to the natural environment and cre-ating livable communities that should beincluded in the design process. They arealso supporters of transit and transporta-tion enhancements, which the 2014 Geor-gia Infrastructure Report Card identifies asareas of great need in Georgia.
AScE national board
Georgia Section Past-President MelissaWheeler was installed on the ASCE na-tional board of directors in October inPanama City, Panama. The ASCE nationalorganization continues to grow and providesupport to sections such as the GeorgiaSection. It is an honor to have a GeorgiaSection member on the board.
volunteers needed
The Georgia Section has a number ofcommittees. We have two committees indesperate need of leadership. The Contin-uing Education committee coordinates ed-ucational activities that provide PDH
credits for civil engineers. The “What DoCivil Engineers Do?” Contest occurs in thespring and gives middle school students theopportunity to learn about civil engineeringand receive cash prizes. If you are interestedin either of these committees, please con-tact me.
Report card update
On September 30, 2014 Internal DirectorRick Gurney testified before the JointTransportation Funding Study Committeeon the findings of the 2014 Georgia Infra-structure Report Card. Many GDOTBoard members were present, as well asheads of transit and transportation systemsin the state. In January the legislative cyclebegins again and we will continue to bedown at the Capitol talking to our electedofficials about infrastructure issues.
upcoming
Be sure to check out our award winningwebsite at www.ascega.org for upcomingevents including Georgia Section meetings,Younger Member events and Institutemeetings. On December 16th we are hold-ing the first ever Holiday Party at RedBrick Brewery. This should be a great eventwith all of the Technical Groups invited. v
Rebecca Shelton,
P.E., President
American Society
of Civil
Engineers,
Georgia Section
www.ascega.org
News
AScE Georgia
37DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
PRESIDENTRebecca Shelton, PE Gwinnett County [email protected]
President-ElectRichard Morales, PELB Foster [email protected]
Vice PresidentDaniel Agramonte, PE
O'Brien & [email protected]
TreasurerChristina Vulova, PE Arcadis US Inc. [email protected]
SecretaryJulie Secrist, PE
TY Lin International [email protected]
External DirectorShaukat SyedGeorgia [email protected]
Internal Director Rick Gurney, PEKeck & Wood [email protected]
Technical DirectorLuis Babler, PEGeo-Hydro Engineers [email protected]
Younger Member DirectorAnnie Blissit, EITGresham, Smith, and [email protected]
N.E. Ga. Branch DirectorJ. Matthew Tanner, PEBreedlove Land Planning [email protected]
Savannah Branch DirectorChris Rains, PEChatham County Dept. of [email protected]
South Metro Branch DirectorDoug Hintz, PEFAA - [email protected]
Past PresidentKatherine Gurd, PE [email protected]
ASCE/GEORGIA SECTION 2014 - 2015 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
38 GEORGIA EnGInEER
A famous US president once wrote: “Asknot what your country can do for you —ask what you can do for your country.” So,as your president, I will ask those samequestions. First, what is GSPE doing foryou?
Well, we’ve done quite a bit in recentweeks and had a great time in the process!If you were not a part of some of the activ-ities we’ve hosted during the past twomonths, you are missing out. So what didyou miss?
new PE Recognition Dinner – OnWednesday, October 1 we celebrated theaccomplishments of those who recentlypassed the Professional Engineering exam.This year, 158 men and women passed thisdifficult test to join the ranks of otherhighly competent engineers. We celebratedat the Georgia Tech Hotel and ConferenceCenter, enjoying a wonderful dinner fol-lowed by an excellent speech from HarveHnatiuk, President of NSPE. The eveningclosed with the new PEs’ recitation of theEngineers Creed followed by the Order ofthe Engineer Ceremony. Congratulationsto all 158 engineers who passed this examduring the past year.
mATHcOunTS Golf Tournament – OnFriday, October 17 – one of the year’s mostbeautiful days – we played golf. The sunwas out in full fall brightness. The temper-
ature was just perfect including a slightcool breeze. The air was crisp. The onlything wrong was my play. Fortunately I hada great group of golfers picking up myslack. We awarded prizes to lots of con-testants, but Wayne Cox and Jarred Jack-son took the prize as the best golfer in thetournament. We had some magnificentsponsors including: Gold Sponsor Schn-
abel Engineering, LLC; Silver SponsorsSouthern Company, Hydro Generation,and Wolverton & Associates, Inc.; andBronze Sponsors Integrated Science andEngineering, Prime Engineering, and AR-CADIS. Thanks also to Canongate I GolfClub in Sharpsburg for hosting a fantasticevent.
PDH Days – Georgia Tech hosted thePDH Days events on Friday, November 7.More than 100 attendees listened to TomLeslie discuss engineering ethics and RickMarotte of AMEC described challengesassociated with the Savannah Harbor Ex-pansion. We had tracks on forensic engi-neering and State of Florida rules andregulations. We ended the afternoon with apresentation demonstrating how LinkedIn3D printing can be used to improve yourbusiness. The event also provides an excel-lent time to network and see old friends.
Atlanta chapter – GSPE’s Atlanta Chap-ter meets the second Monday of eachmonth at the Piccadilly Cafeteria nearNorthlake Mall in Tucker. I was fortunateto attend the meeting in September. It wasa fantastic evening seeing lots of folks andlistening to Professor Haiying Huang ofGeorgia Tech teach us about safety, eco-nomic, and environmental issues associatedwith fracking. If you aren’t attending, youare missing out on some great topics. RogerGrabman, keep up the great work.
Relaunch of cobb chapter – GSPE’sCobb Chapter relaunched its organizationin September. The chapter hosted its firstmeeting in October, with Secretary of StateBrian Kemp providing an update on theProfessional Licensing Board. In Novem-ber, John Hancock, Project Manager of theNorthwest Corridor Project, gave an excel-lent overview of the project and its impacton Cobb County. The Cobb Chaptermeets the second Wednesday of eachmonth.
So now I get to ask, “What can you do
GSPE Georgia
Rob MacPherson,
P.E., President
Georgia Society
of Professional
Engineers
News
Georgia Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, wasthe guest speaker at the GSPE Cobb Chapter
Meeting in October
Jason Cooper ( Geotechnical & Environmen-tal Consultants) served as the 2014 MATH-
COUNTS Golf Tournament Chair
for GSPE?” First: Join GSPE. It promotesthe ethical and competent practice of en-gineering, advocates licensure, and en-hances the image and well-being of itsmembers (that’s you). Second: Get involvedin your local chapter. We have chapters inNorthwest Georgia, Atlanta, Cobb, North-east Georgia, Augusta, Macon, and an up-coming chapter in Columbus. Attendmonthly meetings, sign up to help withMATHCOUNTS or E-Week, or justcome and hang out.
One of our main focuses for GSPEthis year is to make MATHCOUNTS inGeorgia better than ever. To do so we needyour help. If interested in giving back andperhaps encouraging a young man orwoman to become an engineer, please call(404) 425-7100 or email me ([email protected]). I look forward tohearing from you. And to all those alreadyinvolved, you are making a difference.Thank you and keep up the good work. v
39DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
Prime Engineering Golf Team
1st Place Team Jarred Jackson (integrated Sci-ence and Engineering) and Wayne Cox (LOCEngineering)
Greetings once again from Georgia ITEheadquarters in lovely Egypt, GA (not beconfused with that other town Cairo, GA)to all Georgia Engineering Magazinereaders! I can’t believe that we have come tothe end of 2014 and thus the end of mypresidential reign (unless that I can get theBoard to agree to that “lifetime”amendment clause…). I was most honoredto lead our amazing organization this year,as I have grown a lot personally and havehad the opportunity to reflect and thinkdeeply on who we are and where we aregoing as an organization. Our future is verybright, beginning with the group on theboard and extending to the many new andyounger members that have joined ITE thisyear (are they really younger or am I justthat much older?…). It has been trulyamazing how many younger members havenot just joined but become active in theorganization. I recall one lunch meetingwhen I saw a young woman I didn’trecognize working at the registration tableand asked how long had she been attending.To which she replied, “this is my firstmeeting”. Thanks Meridith for engaging(and arm-twisting?) others this year.
I am encouraged that we are growingyounger and stronger. In preparing apresentation on innovation for our sisterorganization ASHE (who we arepartnering with to offer the 5th AnnualWinter Workshop – see advertisement
below), I reflected on how important it isthat we as an organization and we as thetransportation industry compete forgraduating young minds. There are somany career paths available that may seemmore “attractive” or at least get moreattention than engineering, and thus itmust be our constant mission to reach outand show our current and future grads allthat our industry has to offer. Yes, it is easyto be pessimistic about current and futuretransportation funding levels, but it isequally easy to be optimistic about thechanges and innovations that are takingplace in our industry. The first traffic signal
arrived exactly 100 years ago, and sincethen we have innovated and created newways to transport people, goods andservices, new and safer vehicles, thenational interstate system to name a few –all that required the brightest and bestminds in society. Now we are on the vergeof incredible changes in vehicle technology,managing roadways for mobility, andinnovating construction techniques toname a few – all that will require thebrightest and best minds in society. I ammore committed now than ever to gettingthat message out to continue to attract thebest engineers for the future of our noble
40 GEORGIA EnGInEER
Jonathan Reid, PE
Georgia Section,
Institute of
Transportation
Engineers
NewsITE Georgia
Past presidents
and important industry. To do so may be assimple as going into the classrooms atschools and universities in our verybackyard and showing them some of thegreat projects, tools and innovations ourprofession has to offer. Will you help inthat cause in 2015?
The other event that always leaves alasting impression on me is our pastpresidents meeting held in October. Thisyear we had 26 of our past 52 presidents(including our very first president JohnEdwards) gather together to hear what wehave accomplished and what the incomingpresident and board can do to improve howwe serve our members, organization andindustry. The focus of the meeting washow to attract new and young members(see a theme here?) and how to expand ourcommittees’ outreach to include the diverseinterests and sub disciplines of ourmembers. “Transportation Engineering”casts a wide net, and we hope to make ourfuture meetings, events and initiatives asinclusive as possible to our diversemembership base (no pressure on youAndrew, Mr. Future President). We willalso focus on better partnerships with ourstudent chapters and engage in school andcommunity events to get the word outthere that there are some greatopportunities in being a transportationengineer. ITE does have a bright future andI thank the many board, committee andactive members who have served the ITEorganization well in 2014.
The Institute of Transportation Engineers isan international educational and scientif icassociation of transportation professionals whoare responsible for meeting mobility and safetyneeds. ITE facilitates the application oftechnology and scientific principles to research,planning, functional design, implementation,operation, policy development andmanagement for any mode of groundtransportation. Through its products andservices, ITE promotes professionaldevelopment of its members, supports andencourages education, stimulates research,develops public awareness programs andserves as a conduit for the exchange ofprofessional information. v
41DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
Board Position Member E-mail PhonePresident Jonathan Reid [email protected] (404) 364-5225Vice President Andrew Antweiler [email protected] (678) 639-7540Secretary/Treasurer Sean Coleman [email protected] (404) 419-8700Past President Dwayne Tedder [email protected] (404) 406-8791District Representative David Low [email protected] (770) 594-6422District Representative Vern Wilburn [email protected] (678) 423-0050District Representative Marion Waters [email protected] (770) 754-0755Affiliate Director Meg Pirkle [email protected] (404) 631-1025
Committee Activities Chair(s) E-mail PhoneActivities Kate D’Ambrosio [email protected] (404) 635-2842Annual Report David Low [email protected] (770) 594-6422Audio/Visual Mark Boivin [email protected] (404) 374-1283Awards/Nominations Dwayne Tedder [email protected] (404) 406-8791Career Guidance Amy Diaz [email protected] (678) 333-0283Clerk Elizabeth Scales [email protected] (404) 574-1985Comptroller Jim Pohlman [email protected] (404) 790-3569Engineers Week Amy Diaz [email protected] (678) 333-0283Finance Charles Bopp [email protected] (678) 380-9053Georgia Engineer magazine Dan Dobry [email protected] (770) 971-5407Georgia Tech Liaison Chris Rome [email protected] (770) 368-1399Historian Charles Bopp [email protected] (678) 380-9053Host Meredith Emory [email protected] (404) 201-6133Legislative Affairs Bill Ruhsam [email protected] (404) 931-6478Life Membership Don Gaines [email protected] (404) 355-4010Marketing/Social Media Patrick McAtee [email protected] (404) 574-1985 Membership Sunita Nadella [email protected] (678) 969-2304Monthly Meetings Andrew Antweiler [email protected] (678) 639-7540Newsletter Vern Wilburn [email protected] (678) 423-0050 Past Presidents Todd Long [email protected] (404) 631-1021Public Officials Education Scott Mohler [email protected] (678) 808-8811Scholarship Betsy Williams [email protected] (770) 246-6247Southern Poly Liaison Bryan Sartin [email protected] (678) 518-3884Summer Seminar Marco Friend [email protected] (678) 333-0408Technical France Campbell [email protected] (404) 965-9738Web site Vamshi Mudumba [email protected] (770) 423-0807 Winter Workshop Jonathan Wallace [email protected] (770) 431-8666
42 GEORGIA EnGInEER
Control Technologies
Utilicom
Temple
Arcadis
Atkins
World Fiber Technologies
Kimley-Horn & Associates
Southern Lighting & Traffic Systems
Delcan
Gresham Smith & Partners
Grice Consulting
Jacobs
Parsons Brinkerhoff
Quality Traffic Systems
URS
Transcore
OUR 2013/2014 SPONSORS
The year 2014 was a year of purpose andaccomplishment for ITS Georgia. I wantto give special thanks to our many hardworking volunteers for making it a hugesuccess. Here are some highlights as pre-sented at the 2014 ITS Georgia AwardsBanquet:
From January through August 2014,we had eight outstanding monthly meet-ings. I want to thank Xuewen Le andDavid Smith for their efforts in lining upspeakers and arranging the venues.
In February, we had the LegislativeReception in partnership with ASCE andITE. We had a great venue in the AtlantaCity Hall atrium and the opportunity tohear from Mayor Reed. I want to thankWill Hurst, Yancy Bachman and WorldFiber Technologies for helping to make ita successful evening.
In March, the Board members had theopportunity to tour the AT&T Drive Stu-dio in Atlanta to see their concept of a con-nected vehicle. It was very interesting and
shed a lot of light on how the connectedvehicle will move forward outside of gov-ernment regulation. I want to thank ScottBailey for helping to set that up.
Then in September, we finally came tothe ITS 3C Summit in Mobile, Alabama.After 2 plus years of planning and hardwork by many of our members and thefolks at ITS Florida and Gulf Region ITS,it was an awesome event. In fact, it wasprobably the best conference that I havebeen able to attend. There were excellenttechnical sessions, cool technical tours anda BATTLESHIP! I want to give my per-sonal thanks to all the volunteers from ITSGeorgia and in the other chapters that putin so much time and effort to make theSummit a success.
News
ITS GEORGIA CHAPTER LEADERSHIP
President
Tom Sever, Gwinnett DOT
vice President
Grant Waldrop, GDOT
Secretary
Jennifer Johnson, Kimley-Horn
Treasurer
Ashlyn Morgan, Atkins
Immediate Past President
Scott Mohler, URS
Directors
Mark Demidovich, GDOTEric Graves, City of Alpharetta
Winter Horbal, Temple Inc.Keary Lord, Serco
David Smith, DeKalb County TransportationPrasoon Sinha, ARCADIS
Mike Holt, Parsons Brinkerhoff, Yancy Bachmann, World Fiber,
Kenn Fink, Kimley-Horn, Kristin Turner, Wolverton Associates
Elect - Derrick Crowder, City of RoswellElect - Alvin James of Kimley-Horn
Elect - Andy Phlegar, AtkinsElect - Eli Veith of Veith Traffic Services
State chapters Representative
Shahram Malek, Arcadis
Ex Officio
Greg Morris, Federal Highway Administration
Andres Ramirez, FTA
ITS Georgia missionWe believe that ITS is a valuable tool forimproved management of any trans-portation system, regardless of the in-herent complexity of the system. ITS canhelp operate, manage, and maintain thesystem once it has been constructed.
We believe that ITS should be sys-tematically incorporated into the earli-est stages of project development,especially into the planning and designof transportation projects.
We believe the best way to achievethis systematic incorporation into theprocess is through a coordinated, com-prehensive program to ‘get out the word’on ITS to constituencies that might nototherwise consider the relevance of ITSto their transportation system.
ITS Georgia
Tom Sever, P.E.
ITS President
43DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
To cap off 2014, we were recognized as the2014 Outstanding Chapter of the Year byITS America at the World Congress. Ingranting the award ITS Georgia was citedfor “a superb level of programming, foster-ing the highest qualities of leadershipamong its members, advocating for ITS so-lutions at the state and regional levels, andproviding outstanding value overall to itsmembership.”
Our 2014 Awards Banquet, held No-vember 6, was a great success with an en-tertaining program and recognition forthose deserving professionals and projects.You can read more about our winners onpage 26. I want to thank outgoing ITSGeorgia Board members Kristen Turner,Eric Graves, David Smith and PrasoonSinha for their invaluable service to the or-ganization over the years. I want to wel-come new board members DerrickCrowder, Alvin James, Andy Phlegar andEli Veith.
That sounds like a pretty good yearand we could have coasted until January.But, at the request of ITS America, weworked with them to host the CompleteStreets Symposium in November. Again,we have had members step up to take lead-ership roles and make presentations. I willtake this opportunity to thank Eric Gravesand Shahram Malek for being our co-chairs on the planning committee.
As we moved through the year, wecontinued to look to the future. The Boardof Directors is looking at ways to increasethe value of ITSGA membership to ourmember organizations. We have selectedthe Jekyll Island Club to host our 2015 ITSGeorgia annual meeting in late September.I am confident that the folks that will beinvolved with the planning of that meetingwill make it both a great learning and en-tertaining event.
ITS Leading the Innovation in Future
Transportation – A Look at the big
Picture
ITS is poised to transform transportationinto a connected, dynamic component ofthe city-as-a-system. Perhaps more impor-tantly, the greater ease in moving about willhave a positive impact on quality of life andcommerce for residents, visitors and localbusinesses.
“Cities are struggling with transporta-tion today and will struggle even more inthe future,” said Bill Ford, Jr., executivechairman of the Ford Motor Company,while addressing the ITS World Congressin Detroit in September 2014. “We need toredefine what mobility is for the comingcentury.”
According to Ford, it is incrementaltechnological advancement that will oneday lead to driverless cars.
“By the time we get to full autonomy,the last step won’t seem like such a bigdeal,” he said. “Even as we put in a lot ofthese features the driver still has to be vig-ilant and in control.”
“Instead of a bunch of independentsystems on the local, national or even globallevel, ITS creates a transportation networkthat works like the Internet, where every-thing is connected, but also open for stan-dards-based communication, whichreduces costs and creates value for every-one involved in managing traffic,” saidDavid Pickeral, who leads the IndustrySmarter Solutions Team for Transportationat IBM.
“The connected vehicle technologiesare ready,” said Suzanne Murtha, seniorprogram manager for intelligent trans-portation initiatives at Atkins Global.“Now it’s a matter of governments captur-ing and sharing data about real-time, on-the-street traffic conditions so drivers canmake better choices.”
To support deployment of connectedand autonomous vehicles, agencies need toplan for the associated infrastructure re-quired (fiber-optic and supporting net-works, traffic management centerequipment, and roadside equipment), ad-dress staffing needs, and consider datamanagement and privacy concerns. Con-nected vehicle systems using DedicatedShort Range Communications (DSRC)are specifically designed to protect privacyby not associating data with any particularvehicle or driver; however, privacy advo-cates are already raising objections. Agen-cies need to be ready to effectivelycommunicate privacy details and policies.
In a recent Governing Institute survey,78 percent of respondents indicated lack offunding was the key barrier to developingITS, well ahead of the 45 percent who citedan aging infrastructure as the key barrier.
One of the recurring themes of theITS World Congress was that we’re on thecusp of an extraordinary revolution intransportation, one that may save govern-ment billions of dollars by facilitating farbetter utilization of existing transportationinfrastructure. v
44 GEORGIA EnGInEER
SAME Atlanta Post presented theSHARE Military Initiative at the Shep-herd Center with a donation for $28,000at our Shrimp Boil in September. The do-nation to the non-profit will help formerservice men and women recover fromPTSD and traumatic brain injuries.
The shrimp boil is our young mem-bers’ signature annual event and we arepleased that over 100 people came to Mon-day Night Brewing on September 23, 2014for a mini-tradeshow, networking, bar-beque, low-country boil and beer.
We were happy to host the newSAME Executive Director, Brig. Gen.Joseph ( Joe) Schroedel, PE, F.SAME,USN (Ret.) at our October luncheon.Schroedel discussed the future plans for thenational SAME organization and empha-sized that the organization will focus on allwork within the public sector, including thenation’s infrastructure and security.
Marvin Woodward, Deputy StateProperty Officer, Acting Deputy Directorwith GSFIC was our speaker at the No-vember luncheon and reviewed many ofthe on-going as well as upcoming projectsat the Capitol and throughout the state.
LTC John ( Jack) Seibert III USA(Ret.), PE, F.SAME received a specialhonor at the November luncheon. Re-gional Vice President (RVP) Capt. BillBersson USN (Ret.), PE, F.SAME pre-sented Jack with an RVP Medal for his
President
Pamela Little, PE, LEED AP
vice President
Beth Harris, CPSM
Past President
Ray Ramos, PE, RRC
Secretary
Sherri Smith, CPSM
Assistant Secretary
Beth Roby, RID, LEED AP
ID+C
Treasurer
Brian Dance, PE, SE
Assistant Treasurer
Ronnie Davis
Regional vP
Bill Bersson, PE, F.SAME
2013-2015 Directors
Howard Ayers
Phil McHugh, CP, CMS,
GISP
Steve Poole, PE
Cindy Miller, PE
2014-2016 Directors
Bob Marbury, PG
Candice Scale
Kaysie Glazer, PE
Ray Willcocks, PE, F.SAME
James Lucas
Emeritus chairs
Sy Liebman, PE (1994)
Jim Gilland, PE (1996)
Jack Newhard, PE (1997)
Roger Austin, PE (2000)
Jack Seibert, PE (2003)
Dick Scharf (2006)
Steve Premo (2009)
Scotti Bozeman, PE (2011)
Bill Bersson, PE (2011)
Ben Glover, PE (2012)
SAmE Atlanta News
dedication to and work on behalf of theExploring Engineering Academy. TheExploring Engineering Academy is a one-week overnight camp managed by the BoyScouts of America, Atlanta Area Councilthat introduces high-school age studentsto STEM subjects. Jack has been workingwith the program since its inception in theearly 2000’s.
SAME Atlanta Post was proud toaward $15,000 in GEF Scholarships thisyear. Stephen Todd, Ophelia Johnson,and Peter Emmanuel each received a$5,000 scholarship from the Atlanta Post.
Awards were made at the November 18GEF Banquet. An additional $5,500 wasawarded from other SAME Posts in Geor-gia. John Kaffezakis and Matthew Bectoneach received a $2,000 scholarship. RobertWainwright received a $1,500 scholarship.
Please join us on the second Tuesdayof any month (except May and September)at Dunwoody Country Club at 11:30 toenjoy our 2015 programming. We will beholding our annual golf tournament onMay 4, 2015 at St. Marlo Country Club.More details on the tournament will becoming soon!v
Pamela
Little, P.E.
President,
SAME Atlanta Post
SAME Regional Vice President for the South
Atlantic District, Capt. Bill Bersson USN (Ret.),
PE, F.SAME, presents LTC John (Jack) Seibert
III, USA (Ret.), PE, F.SAME with an RVP Medal
on November 11, 2014
April Hodge and Jen Fischer from the Shepherd
Center SHARE Military Initiative accepted a
$28,000 donation from SAME Atlanta Post pre-
sented by Beth Harris and Pamela Little (r-l).
Fall was a very busy season for WTS At-lanta. In September, WTS Atlanta hosteda Women’s Empowerment Breakfast,where 45 attendees got up early to comehear moderator, Malika Reed - Wilkins,and panelists Wendy Butler, Monica Glass-Thornton, and Sophia Duncan. All thosepresent at the breakfast enjoyed the topicand were enlightened by all the speakers.
At the end of October, WTS Atlantahosted another record breaking scholarshipluncheon program at the Georgia Aquar-ium. Over 360 industry professionals werein attendance and there was not one emptyseat in the house. The purpose for theluncheon was to celebrate another year ofsuccess and to recognize and honor thosewho have helped to make them happen.We also honored several leaders, both in-dividuals and organizations, who havemade marks in the transportation industryand who have lived our mission of advanc-ing women in transportation. But the mostimportant purpose of our luncheon was toaward scholarships to five well deservingyoung women.
We were very excited and honored tohave Ms. Michelle D. Livingstone with usdelivering the keynote speech. Ms. Liv-ingstone is Vice President – Transportationfor The Home Depot. She leads a highlytalented team that oversees the movementof all inbound and outbound shipmentsinto and within The Home Depot‘s multi-
channel supply chain, including imports,exports, and store deliveries. She came toHome Depot in 2007 with more than 25years of transportation supply chain expe-rience. Prior to joining The Home Depot,she served as the Senior Vice President ofTransportation for C & S Wholesale Gro-cers, Vice President of Transportation forJCPenney, and the Senior Director ofTransportation for Kraft Foods NorthAmerica.
The WTS mission of transformingthe transportation industry through the ad-vancement of women can be realized byencouraging students to further their ca-reers as leaders in the transportation in-dustry. WTS recognizes thattransportation is more than simply movingpeople and goods from one place to an-other. It is a driver of growth, and an inte-gral part of communities throughout theworld. The leadership, skills and perspec-tives of women are essential to ensure thatthe transportation systems of the future re-spond to the needs of all. WTS Atlanta,striving to advance women in transporta-tion, gave away five scholarships at theluncheon.
In memory of Helene M. Overly, thefirst Executive Secretary of WTS, thescholarship is awarded to women pursuinggraduate studies in transportation or a re-lated field. The Helene M. Overly Grad-uate scholarship, valued at $2,000, wasawarded to Atiyya Shaw, a first year grad-uate student in the School of Civil and En-vironmental Engineering at Georgia Tech.Her current research is focused on model-ing the visual search patterns of drivers incomplex roadway environments in an effortto inform and impact roadway design. Hergoal is to improve the overall safety andstability of transportation systems and in-frastructure through interdisciplinary ap-proaches to safety research.
Margaret-Avis Akofio-Sowah thenwon the other graduate scholarship, Lead-ership Legacy Scholarship. Through the
Leadership Legacy Scholarship, WTSseeks to motivate and reward women whodemonstrate leadership in the transporta-tion industry to bring ideas, innovation andnew approaches to transportation chal-lenges in the US and beyond. Margaret-Avis is a doctoral candidate in civilengineering at the Georgia Institute ofTechnology with a focus in transportationsystems engineering. Her interest in trans-portation stems from a desire to under-stand some of the flaws of thetransportation system in her home city ofAccra, in Ghana, and to investigate howtransportation improvements can be lever-aged for increased development and eco-nomic growth. Margaret’s current researchis in the area of transportation infrastruc-ture asset management and asset manage-ment implementation in transportationagencies, as it relates to strategic planningand policy. Outside her research, Margaret is passion-ate about actively encouraging female andminority participation in STEM fields,driven by her own experience as one of thefew females in her high school STEMcourses. She is actively involved in theGeorgia Tech Student Chapter of WTS,having previously served as President andVice-President, and is currently the Co-Chair of the WTS Atlanta TransportationYOU Program.
The Sharon D. Banks MemorialScholarship, awarded to women pursuingundergraduate studies in transportation ora related field, Kelly Smulovitz is a senior atGeorgia Tech majoring in Civil Engineer-ing. She is currently co-oping at JMT inBaltimore, Maryland in their bridge designgroup for 2 semesters and constructionmanagement department for 1 semester.Last summer, Kelly got the opportunity towork at GDOT in their research depart-ment.
Part of the WTS goal of fostering thedevelopment of women in the transporta-tion field can be realized by encouraging
45DEcEmbER 2014 | JAnuARy 2015
Angela
Snyder, P.E.
President, WTS
Atlanta
WTS Atlanta News
46 GEORGIA EnGInEER
bright new professionals to undertake ca-reers in the area of transportation. TheMolitoris Leadership Scholarship isawarded to women pursuing undergradu-ate studies in transportation or a relatedfield that demonstrate leadership skills,ability, and interest, and that is why BrandieBanner was the recipient of this scholar-ship. In May of 2015, she will graduatefrom Georgia Tech with a Civil Engineer-ing degree and certificates in internationalaffairs and social psychology. During hertime at Tech, Brandie has served as studentbody vice president and as an executivemember of Tech's orientation program.This past summer, she was in Kenya im-plementing a sanitation project throughfunding from the Georgia Tech InventurePrize competition. Upon graduation, she isinterested in pursuing a career in publictransportation.
Five years ago, President Obama madea call to the science and engineering com-munity to come together to commit tohelping build the STEM program in theUS (Science Technology Engineering andMath) because he recognized the need forour economy to be competitive within theworld. Shortly thereafter, WTS Interna-tional was called to the table by the formerSecretary of the US DOT, Ray LaHood, tojoin together both of our organizations tocreate a program that specifically reachesyoung women to encourage them to enterSTEM fields. WTS International organ-ized volunteers eager to help with this ini-tiative at the chapter level, and that’s whenTransportation YOU was formed. WTSAtlanta’s Transportation YOU program iscurrently working with Grady High Schoolin Atlanta to foster a mentorship program.That is where WTS Atlanta met AnyaLomsadze, freshman. Anya is the daugh-ter of Russian immigrants and speaks flu-ent Russian; however, English is herfavorite subject. She is an avid singer in herchoir and is a violinist. Anya is an attorneyfor her mock trial team, a builder in robot-ics, and a delegate of Model UN. She com-petitively swims, runs, and plays tennis.Anya was very honored to have won theTransportation You $1,000 scholarship.
After the scholarships were awarded,
four awards were given out: DiversityAward, Employer of the Year, Member ofthe Year and Woman of the Year.
The Diversity Leadership Award wentto Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Au-thority (MARTA), Office of Diversity andEqual Opportunity (DEO), responsible forthe full array of Diversity and Inclusion(D&I) programs and activities forMARTA. They rank as the 9th largesttransit system in the United States, withover 500,000 trips each weekday.
Employer of the Year went to the StateRoad and Tollway Authority (SRTA), astate-level, independent Authority createdby the Georgia General Assembly to oper-ate tolled transportation facilities withinthe State and act as Georgia’s transporta-tion financing arm. As the only tolling en-tity for the State of Georgia, SRTA isinstrumental in developing ways to providemore reliable travel times for Georgia mo-torists. SRTA Executive Director Christo-pher Tomlinson was awarded the firstWTS Atlanta honorary membership forhis support and innovation in the trans-portation industry in the Atlanta MetroArea.
Member of the Year was awarded toTonya Saxon, MARTA. Serving in manydifferent roles including Vice President ofMembership and Vice President of Pro-grams, Tonya worked to increase the num-ber of members that had declined in theyears during the recession. She workedtirelessly to plan, prepare and execute veryexciting and worth-while programs for theAtlanta chapter. She was responsible forleading her committee, maintaining pro-gram budgets, organizing speakers, coordi-nating logistics, representing the chapter atthe events, and following up after events todebrief on lessons learned. Tonya is verypleasant, positive and encouraging ofeveryone. She is a hard worker and lovesto make all feel welcome and appreciated.
Woman of the Year went to RebeccaSerna, Atlanta Bicycle Coalition’s Execu-tive Director since 2007. She works withleaders, elected officials and citizens fromacross metro Atlanta to create a healthier,more livable Atlanta region by making itsafer, easier and more attractive to bicycle.
She accomplishes this through advocacyfor safe and connected networks of bike-ways, better conditions for bicyclists, edu-cating bicyclists and drivers on safety,providing resources to overcome barriers tobiking, promoting the bicycle as a viabletransportation solution, and organizingcommunity-building events. Her reputa-tion and credibility have not only been crit-ical for women, but also for the success ofABC as a whole.
For everyone who attended the lunch-eon and supported the scholarship fund bymaking silent auction and raffle item pur-chases, thank you.
To all of our Corporate Partners,thank you for your continued support ofour mission to advance women in trans-portation.
As my 2-year term as President is end-ing, I would like to take one final opportu-nity to thank all of the current boardmembers that I have been honored to servealongside for all of their hard work andleadership. And I am pleased to announcethe upcoming Board for the 2015-2016term that begins on January 1, 2015:Regan Hammond, ARCADIS - PresidentOlivia Russell, SRTA – Vice President ofProgramsbeth Ann Schwartz, Michael BakerInternational – Vice President ofMembershipJennifer Lott, T.Y. Lin International -SecretaryKirsten berry, HNTB – TreasurerDirectors-at-Large: marissa martin,Wolverton & AssociatesTonya Saxon, MARTAHelen mcSwain, Atkinsmalika Reed-Wilkins – SRTA
Finally, thank you for allowing me the op-portunity to serve as President. v
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