Engineering The Future: Choose the ‘Yes, And’ Rather Than the ‘No, But’ Category
As we start a new year, we’re filled with hope and the promise of change. Our firms, agencies, universities and organizations look at our mission, vision and strategic plans to measure how we did in 2025 as well as what adjustments we need to make to ready for the future.In previous columns, I’ve discussed streamlining permitting and delivery, the reality of the workforce shortages that will get worse during the next decade, and the growing needs of U.S. infrastructure. With a $3.7 trillion back...
From the Editor: Are We Looking in the Right Places To Lower Construction Costs?
At Valparaiso University, our senior civil and environmental engineering students work together in teams on projects that involve structural, transportation, water resources and environmental engineering disciplines. Each team has a representative from each discipline. The first semester takes them through the proposal stage, some preliminary design and evaluation of alternatives. At the end of the semester, each team must come up with a cost estimate for their project based on general square fo...
Podcast with JMT Vice Presidents Nick DiPaolo and Nate Reck
Todd Danielson, Informed Infrastructure’s editorial director, interviewed JMT's Nick DiPaolo, Vice President, Digital Transformation, and Nate Reck, Vice President, GIS and Asset Management.They note the importance of defining the problem to solve first, and then see which technologies may be a good fit for that use case, rather than starting with a particular technology and trying to force it into a client's application.The discussion also unveils an important three-step progression from "proof...
Infrastructure Outlook: Optimizing the Value of Digital Transformation
The digital transformation taking place in cities and towns across the country is at the stage where the major barrier to adoption is no longer a lack of awareness or even a fear of the unknown. Rather, those municipal leaders who have yet to fully engage with digital asset management are most likely experiencing a condition that psychologists call “choice overload.” With so many systems, software and platforms vying for their attention, the fear of investing in the wrong solution has understand...
Transportation Troubleshooting: From Wishful Thinking to Urban Linking: Deck Lids are Transforming Cities
In the evolving landscape of urban transportation, highway deck lids—sometimes known as “caps”—are transforming how cities reconnect neighborhoods, create vibrant public spaces and unlock new economic opportunities. These innovative structures are increasingly recognized as transformative features for modern urban highway projects, which can reconnect communities that were severed when the highway system was initially built. Often, these marvelous features may go unnoticed by the untrained eye,...
Thoughts From Engineers: Looking to Nature for Solutions
The city of Madison, Wis., sits within a chain of five lakes, each connected to the other in a staggered linear formation via the Yahara River, which winds roughly 42 miles through south central Wisconsin. Lake Mendota, widely viewed by freshwater scientists as “the most studied lake in the world,” is the largest in the watershed, draining a 230-square-mile watershed, 60 percent of which is in agricultural use. Thousands of acres of wetlands surround the five lakes. Cherokee Marsh sits most ups...
Relief in Sight: South Florida’s Long-Awaited I-95/SW 10th Street Connector
This FDOT District Four project will enhance the safety and efficiency of the SW 10th Street and I-95 corridors as well as deliver congestion relief. (WSP in the U.S. rendering) For the team rebuilding the frustratingly congested Interstate 95 (I-95)/SW 10th Street corridor in Deerfield Beach, Fla., this is more than just another job: it’s definitely personal. “We all have encountered heavy traffic along this highway, and for some of us it’s a daily nuisance,” explains Santos Val...
Analyzing FRP’s Cost and Success in the Egyptian Theater Seismic-Retrofit Project
The Egyptian Theater was built in 1922, and its retrofit hoped to preserve as much of its history and aesthetic as possible while making it safe for a seismic event. The design-build field has continued to evolve and, as a result, various methods prove available to help engineers develop solutions to meet critical design criteria in an economically viable fashion. If the cost to produce the solution exceeds the budget, the engineer returns to the proverbial drawing board. A wave of inter...
World’s Largest Wildlife Crossing Nears Completion in Southern California
The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will span U.S. Highway 101 to connect the Santa Monica Mountains along the Pacific Ocean with the Sierra Madre Range to the north. (Rock Design Associates and National Wildlife Federation) The largest wildlife crossing in the world completed its first phase in June 2025, paving the way for restored ecosystem connectivity in the Los Angeles area. Sited among challenging terrain and over one of the busiest highways in the country, the Wallis Annenberg Wi...
When Routine Maintenance Finds Major Problems: Charleston Water System Turns Near Disaster into Opportunity
Because each half of the foldable isolation plug assembly weighed about 900 pounds, designers ended up installing manual cranks that could be used by divers when assembling. This photo was taken at the Petersen Products yard, where the dive team worked with designers to troubleshoot assembly procedure The Charleston Water System (CWS) Hanahan Water Treatment Plant set out to perform a normally routine maintenance task—take one 5-million-gallon clearwell (an approximately 220-foot-diameter b...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
