Getting Around Riyadh: A New Transit System Takes Shape
A new metro line in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will span 109 miles and include 85 stations and six rail lines. (Métro_de_Riyad_©_Avant_Première) The 100-mile-plus metro line will help ease congestion in the fast-growing capital of Saudi Arabia. Beginning in 2021, traveling in the city of Riyadh will never be the same. A new rapid transit system spanning 176 kilometers (109 miles) will help ease traffic congestion in the capital of Saudi Arabia. The $22.5 billion project will include 8...
Erosion-Control Success Stories: Position Your Business to Best Serve Client Needs
A HydroGrass Technologies worker applies GeoEarth erosion control with TerraMax equipment. (Hydrograss Technologies) California’s wildfire season is looming. Hurricane season begins June 1. Climate-change concerns are leading to strengthening infrastructure. Federal and state infrastructure spending is taking shape. People are heading back to work as pandemic-related restrictions ease up. These factors present opportunities for new infrastructure projects as well as rehabilitating exi...
How to Manage Routine Maintenance Work on a Busy Construction Site
With multiple contractors and disciplines working separately yet simultaneously, a construction site can be a hectic place. It can be difficult for a construction manager to keep up with everything that’s happening, including budget, schedule adherence, safety hazards, material inventory, labor availability and more. Maintenance may not always be at the forefront of a manager’s mind, but a poor maintenance program can sink a construction project. In fact, each of the worries previously listed a...
Dubai: Mapping the Smart Path to Happiness
The city of Dubai takes its smartness and its happiness very seriously. In fact, happiness is the stated end goal of all the ambitious and clever initiatives the city launched since the start of its Smart Dubai program in 2013. The all-encompassing strategy influenced the creation of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first-ever Minister for Happiness and Wellbeing, and it’s ultimate aim is to transform Dubai into the smartest and happiest city on Earth. A significant part of Smart Dubai has been...
Automation Is Coming to Your CMT Lab
In the field, technicians sample fresh concrete and cast cylinders to cure in the testing lab. Specimens tagged by hand. Results written on clipboards. Data entered, line by painstaking line. Materials testing has always been overly manual. Then COVID-19 happened. The traditional construction materials testing (CMT) workflow is, unequivocally, a human-dependent process. Humans write things down. Humans hand things off. Humans read what’s been recorded by other humans. Pretty much every st...
Digital Twins: Cutting Through the Hype From Concept to Operations
A digital twin of a pump room and its operations dashboard. (KCI Technologies, Inc.) The Future, Now In a brand-new highrise office building in the heart of Chicago, a facility-maintenance manager gets a notice on her cellphone that a pump is operating outside its normal parameters. After reviewing the pump specs on the mobile dashboard, she notes a failure is imminent and shuts down the pump. Viewing a 3D model of the pump room, she notes the location, model number and warranty informati...
Video Interviews: 2021 IECA Award Winners
The International Erosion Control Association (IECA) announced winners or a variety of awards during the virtual IECA Annual Conference and Expo held in February 2021. The IECA awards program recognizes outstanding achievements in the erosion and sediment control and stormwater industries. This year’s awards recognized young professionals under 30 and under 40, sustained partners, outstanding professional, sustained contributor and the environmental excellence award. Todd Danielson, the ed...
Dream Team Turns Challenges into Assets at 110 N. Wacker Drive
Image Credit: Ulivieri Stainless-steel panels originally part of the Morton Salt Headquarters (top) were installed at the lower level of the new building (bottom).Goettsch Partners When the development team of Riverside Investment and Development (Riverside) and the Howard Hughes Corporation made the decision to build a trophy-class skyscraper on 110 N. Wacker Drive in Chicago, they knew they would face several challenges. They also knew just the team who could solve th...
Identifying Problems with Post-Tension Concrete
Photos show debonded grout over an anchor pocket (top) as well as removed grout revealing corroded wedges and anchors due to water intrusion at the grout pocket (bottom). Post-tensioning is a technique for reinforcing concrete with steel cables typically referred to as tendons. Post-tensioning tendons, which are high-strength steel cables inside plastic sheathing, are positioned in the forms before the concrete is placed. After the concrete has gained strength and before service loa...
Alpine Engineering: Ramcharger 8 Continues a History of Chairlift Innovation
Big Sky Resort’s Ramcharger 8 is the first eight-seat chairlift in North America and one of the most technologically advanced chairlifts in the world. (Big Sky Resort) The most modern chairlift ever built in North America now is open at Montana’s Big Sky Resort. Montana’s Big Sky Resort, where wide-open spaces meet dramatic peaks to provide world-class ski experiences, is the second-largest ski resort in the United States by acreage. Opened in 1973 and founded by Montana native...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
