Dr. Gail Ervin of The Ervin Consulting Group, a long-time friend and collaborator of NCE, is joining forces with NCE to better serve her clients and communities with a team of exceptional professionals that share her values and commitments. She is a consulting principal with over 30 years of experience in environmental assessment and planning, facilitation, and public dispute resolution, specializing in downtown commercial and housing development, municipal infrastructure, adaptive reuse of historic buildings, military base closures, and brownfield development, with special expertise in downtown and neighborhood revitalization and CEQA/NEPA compliance for both the private and public sectors. Her professional experience, uniquely complemented by her active civic involvement, provides a thorough understanding of project analysis, public dispute resolution, public policy development, project management, public outreach, and development review from all perspectives. Gail and NCE embody an ethic of collaboration, integrity, and service. NCE is honored to combine forces with her. Gail can be reached at NCE’s Richmond office at (510) 215-3620, at her mobile at (916) 764-2498, or at gervin@ncenet.com.

The 2016 California Statewide Local Streets and Roads Needs Assessment Report was released last week. No surprise to any of you, the 2016 Report found continued decline in pavement condition, bridges and essential components that make up the local street and road system. The average condition has dropped from a 66 on the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) [a scale of zero (failed) to 100 (excellent)] to a 65 which is in the “at risk” category. While this drop may not seem significant on its own, consider that since the inaugural report in 2008 the number of counties with an average PCI in “good” condition has dropped from 16 to 6 in just 10-years.

Since 2008, NCE has performed the Statewide needs assessment study of 539 cities and counties in California and has updated it biennially in 2010, 2012, 2014 and the most recent report in 2016. The scope of work includes collecting data on over 143,000 miles of local streets and roads, or over 80% of the state’s publicly maintained roadways.

The major tasks in this study include data collection from all cities and counties. These data is reviewed, summarized and evaluated. A methodology for standardizing the comparison process (converting all “apples” and “oranges” to “strawberries”) was developed in 2008 and continues to be utilized. This considers agencies with old data, missing data or no data. The results are presented to a variety of audiences including the California Transportation Commission, the State Legislature, Regional Transportation Planning Agency Planning Group and industry representatives.

Please visit www.savecaliforniastreets.org to download a copy of the report.

NCE’s Tom Van Dam will be presenting at the Nevada Infrastructure Concrete Conference. His presentation will focus on Best Practices for Local Pavements: Utilities, Saw Cutting, Striping and More Panel Discussion. Make sure to stop by our booth in Reno to meet with Tom and the NCE team.

The FHWA launched the Sustainable Pavements Program in 2010 to advance the knowledge and practice of sustainability related to pavements. The overall objective of the program is to increase the awareness, visibility, and the body of knowledge of sustainability considerations in all phases of the pavement life cycle. Under that program, the FHWA has completed the technical resource publication “Towards Sustainable Pavement Systems: A Reference Document” (FHWA-HIF-15-002), and is now delivering a series of five webinars to help implement and promote key elements of pavement sustainability.

NCE’s Principal, Thomas Van Dam, PhD, PE, will be co-presenting the webinars which are scheduled from 1-3PM (EDT). The schedule and topics are listed below:

June 25th – Sustainable Strategies for Concrete Pavements: Materials, Design, Construction
August 20th – Maintenance, Rehabilitation, and End-of-Life
September 9th – Use Phase, Livable Communities, and Path Forward

For more information, click Sustainable Pavements_Webinar Flyer.

NCE will be presenting on a variety of topics throughout the course of the conference. For a complete list of sessions and locations, please click on this link for more information.

TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report S2-R23-RW-2: Guide to Using Existing Pavement in Place and Achieving Long Life provides guidance for selecting, designing, and constructing long-life pavements using existing pavement structure has been published. The guide is intended to complement the design tools developed by SHRP 2 Report S2-R23-RR-1: Using Existing Pavement in Place and Achieving Long Life. This project also produced Addendum 1 and Addendum 2 to update and expand the information presented in the guide. The NCE Team authored the guidelines, best practices, pavement evaluation manual, and construction specifications.

http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/171517.aspx

Check out this segment from 60 Minutes about America’s neglected infrastructure – why our roads, bridges, airports and rail are outdated and need to be fixed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/falling-apart-america-neglected-infrastructure/

NCE is working with the University of Michigan to advance the innovative method for calculating curl and warp from measured longitudinal profile demonstrated in the study of a PCC Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) project in Arizona (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/infrastructure/pavements/ltpp/12068/), and for estimating the portion of roughness that can be attributed to curl and warp each time the profile is measured.  This methodology permits the study of roughness progression over a long monitoring history without the confounding influence of short-term changes in roughness.  In addition,  the potential for expanding the utility of FWD data with regards to curl and warp will also be explored.  Any strong relationships demonstrated will add a new tool to pavement designers’ toolboxes.