All Aboard the St. Louis MetroLink: Big Block, Hollow Core Retaining Wall System Protects Trains in Beautiful New Digs
The St. Louis MetroLink serves as a lifeline for commuters and visitors alike, with routes extending through downtown to the city’s international airport, near Washington University, and out to Scott Air Force Base near Shiloh, Ill. One of the busiest light-rail lines in the Midwest, MetroLink carries more than 53,000 passengers daily along its two lines with 38 metro stations. It’s a vital component of the St. Louis transportation infrastructure, so the Bi-State Development Agency sought...
Increasing Profits and Winning More Work: GMF Industries’ Journey from Traditional to Model-Based Estimates
Estimating is inarguably one of the most-important and challenging aspects of any project, especially in today’s market in which the pressure is high to deliver competitive estimates in tight timeframes. At the same time, errors during takeoff, the volatility of material prices and complexities of predicting labor requirements increase the potential for risk. Traditional estimating processes, which have evolved from hand-written documents and spreadsheets to on-screen digitizing takeoff, can be...
Bentley Systems Announces Winners of Year in Infrastructure 2020 Awards
All Year in Infrastructure 2020 Award winners, finalists, and nominees will be featured in the 2020 Infrastructure Yearbook, which will be published in early 2021. EXTON, Pa. – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, (Nasdaq: BSY), the infrastructure engineering software company, has announced the winners of the Year in Infrastructure 2020 Awards. The annual awards program honors the extraordinary work of Bentley users advancing design, construction, and operations of infrastructure throughout th...
A Rise in Urgency: Impacts of Rising Waters and Waves/Erosion on Great Lakes Infrastructure
A summer home falls into Lake Michigan. (Image Courtesy: Patrica Gancer) On New Year’s Eve 2019, the summer home belonging to Patrica Gancer was “rocking and rolling,” but this wasn’t due to end-of-year festivities or excessive partying. The house literally rolled down the embankment to the rocks below as the shoreline on which it was built collapsed, sliding into Lake Michigan. The home was a complete loss, leaving the owner unsure if insurance will cover the costs. The home was...
Mobile Technology Drives the Need to Change Heavy Civil Construction
SYNCHRO Field allows users to alert the team to an issue from the jobsite, automatically adding map coordinates and linking the project issue directly to the model view with a simple workflow. Heavy civil infrastructure projects are getting larger and more complex. As a result, more than 50 percent of projects fail to meet budget and schedule. Many factors drive such complexity, including the following: • No two projects are the same. Each project has its own set of circumstances....
Shoreline Stabilization: Teamwork and Technology Tackle a Growing Concern
The team at GZA—a Massachusetts-based firm providing geotechnical, environmental, ecological, water and construction-management services—had their work cut out for them. They were tasked to design a stabilization project for 1,500 linear feet of coastal shoreline to protect a 14-acre 350-unit residential waterfront development—North Harbor—in Lynn, Mass. The project (a partnership initiated in 2016 between the Minco development firm and property management company Dolben) had inherent challenge...
Design Assist vs. Delegated Design – Industry Experts Release Recommended Guidance
CHICAGO - Over the past few years, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) have worked together to study design collaboration techniques commonly used in the construction industry. As a result of this joint effort, the AIA and AISC have published a paper titled "Design Collaboration on Construction Projects. Delegated Design, Design Assist, and Informal Involvement – What Does it all Mean?" Along the way, the AIA and AISC discovered t...
The Great Reopening: Architects and Engineers Help Schools Envision Safe Designs for COVID Era
K-12 schools now have a range of immediate, short-term, and future design options they can use to create safer buildings and still serve most of their regular student enrollment. New York – The most contentious debate of the COVID-19 era is unfolding this summer as elected officials, administrators, educators, parents, and students all grapple with how to safely open schools for the coming academic year. And schools are discovering that – alongside public health directives and revised cu...
Central Park Tower Pushes the Limits of Skyscraper Design
New York City’s Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world, reflects state-of-the-art engineering techniques and environmentally conscious construction. For more than a century, New Yorkers have found space by building upward. Now Central Park Tower, a new sky-piercing megastructure soaring 1,550 feet above Manhattan, is the latest in a series of super-slender residential towers to appear on the New York City skyline, as developers seek to drive value from small...
Restoring and Reinforcing Slopes in Houston’s Hurricane Country
By using a green solution, the city of Houston was able to save money and prevent future damage to slopes along Buffalo Bayou. The video at the top of this page is an interview with Charlie Penland, P.E., senior principal for Walter P. Moore & Associates, the project’s engineers of record. By Adam Dibble, CPESC, CESSWI, and Matt Skinner, CPESC Houston’s Buffalo Bayou runs through downtown and right along the theater district—home to some of the most popular entertainment venu...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
