 Welcome to this week's edition of this week in civil engineering, also known as TWICE, a weekly news show focused on providing civil engineering professionals with the most important and relevant industry updates. I am a host for this episode, Luis Duque. I am a practicing structural engineer at Foothills Bridge in Boulder, Colorado. I work doing engineering bridge dismantling retrofitting and temporary structures. I am also the founder of the Engineering Hour Future blog and podcast, where I share my experiences with other students, international students and other young engineers to help them succeed in their careers. You can find all the episodes of this week in civil engineering at TWICE.News, that's TWICE-TWICE.News. Reference to all the news stories covered in this episode will be in the show notes. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to subscribe to the TWICE playlist so you don't miss future episodes. Now it's time for what's happening this week in civil engineering. Now it's time for this week's news. You're about to hear excerpts from the stories referenced. Links to all of the full articles can be found at TWICE.News. First, let's cover the biggest breaking news stories from this past week that may affect civil engineering companies and professionals. Firstly, near deadline, Trump signed spending bill with one-year highway transit extension from Tom Ichnowski, ENR.com. A stopgap spending bill was signed on October 1st by President Trump, avoiding for a full year a shutdown of several federal agencies extending to federal highway and transit programs. The Senate passed the bill on a September 30th with an 84 to 10 vote. The continuing resolution, or CR, will continue appropriations through a 72-day period. The construction industry is glad that agencies and their government-wide construction programs will stay operative. The 2015 Fixing America Surface Transportation or FAST Act that was to lapse on September 30th was also extended for a year, giving a lease to off-life to surface transportation programs. The Highway Trust fund got a $13.6 billion boost from the general fund, with the highways getting a $10.4 billion and its transit account $3.2 billion. The technical hitch is that the extension applies to federal highway contract authority but CR limits highway obligations authority spending a 72-day pro-rate share. The real uncertainty will come if Congress was pursuing a 72-day extension of the FAST Act and a 72-day CR. A one-year extension was still a victory. Brian Thurmel, an associate general contractor of America's spokesman, said. However, the extension does not fully meet the expectations of construction and transportation groups, who have been asking for a multi-year highway and transit legislation for a long time. It's unfortunate that the civil engineering construction industry, already burdened with the effects of COVID-19, has also faced the challenges of bureaucratic hurdles as part of our projects. Next up, let's look at the biggest civil engineering stories in the United States. Firstly, ASC salary reports reveal a strong profession, possibly trends. Ben Wappel, news.asc.org. The civil engineering industry reveals strong fundamentals in spite of the pandemic according to the 2020 ASC civil engineering salary report. The annual pretax salary increased to a median of $115,000 in 2019 from $109,000 during the previous year following a five-year trend. The ASC president, K.N. Gunalan, said that while in general the economy had taken a hit, the civil engineering sector continued its services of transportation, roads, bridges, ports and airports. Communication and wastewater systems keeping us connected to the physical world while most of us move our jobs and businesses to the virtual world. It revealed that the civil engineering profession is essential to maintaining public health, safety and quality of life. The demand for the services and skills of civil engineers is showing an upward trend in spite of COVID-19. The article which can be found at news.asc.org goes on to discuss civil engineering salary figures. This is encouraging news to all civil engineers that even in the wake of various disasters, the CE industry as a profession remains strong. Next up, California's first vehicle of cable state crossing debuts, a linchot, enr.com. The Jaldes Mountain Bridge at Long Beach Port has a 2,000 foot long mainspan, 6,400 feet of approach man with a 205 feet vertical clearance. It was built by SFI, the design build team of Scheme Construction. Spain's FCC construction on E-List we build, formerly Salini in Pregilio, using a mobile scaffolding system. It will carry more than 15% of the country's inbound cargo by trucks. California's geologic survey will feed 2074 accelerometers on the on and around the bridge. 49 citizen towers, piles and cabs, 13 sensors will be on the ease approach and 12 at the different depths to measure the ground response. The real-time data will be shared with about 15,000 registered users of the agency's database. The bridge has 30 foot long, 3 feet diameter shock absorbers and joints that can accommodate 6 feet of movement and can withstand any expected earthquake according to Duane Kinaghi, capital of programs executive with the port. There are many different components to this project making an exciting one for civil engineering professionals. EMI is reaching out to the project team members for a potential interview on the civil engineering podcast which can be found at civilengineeringpodcast.com. Next up, B-Doc OK start of $3.8 billion Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel expansion, Jim Parsons, enr.com. The Virginia Department of Transportation has given a go-ahead notice to Hampton Roads Connector Partners, HRCP, a design build joint venture of Dragados, USA, Vinci, Dondin Campanon, Bernard, and Flatiron Construction to start adding twin two-lane tunnels parallel to existing tubes linking Hampton and Norfolk, Virginia. HDR and Mod McDonald are leading designers for the 9.9 mile project which has 14,000 feet of marine bridges. It replaces more than 24 existing bridges and lane additions to sections of I-64. The funds for the progress are coming from regional sales and fuel tax revenue and $200 million will come from agency funds. The tunnel boring machine will begin excavation in 2022. The 45 feet diameter tunnels will be 50 feet deeper than the 7,500 feet long immersed steel tubes which were built in 1957 and 1976. It is one of Virginia's most congested areas with more than 100,000 vehicles a day and power of commercial and naval traffic. It also serves as an excavation route in case of storms. Tunnel constructions of this size and complexity are not often available or studied by civil engineers. It will be interesting to know what design and construction challenges arise during construction. EMI plans to explore this project deeper through our podcast the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. Now let's take a quick break for the news for this week in civil engineering inspiration. As a very young structural engineer I like to tell all their engineers and even students to continue pursuing their passion and continue pursuing their careers as an engineer and not forget to always be curious always be asking questions and most importantly don't be afraid to make mistakes. As young engineers we think our career and profession needs to be perfect but in reality we need to learn from those mistakes early on in a career and those are the mistakes and the lessons that are going to shape the future of our career. I was able to learn this very early on in my career with volunteering and my own job so I want to give that back to all of you today. Don't forget to always be curious and do not be afraid to make mistakes in your careers. I hope you find that inspirational now let's jump back into the news. Next let's move on to some international news in civil engineering from this past week. First up we're headed to the home of twice co-host Danny Lu. Two billion British pounds needed to keep major London road bridges and tunnels open from Rob Horgan new civil engineer dot com. A transport for London also known as TFL report investment to get London and the UK moving again released recently warns that as in case of Hammersmith bridge many more routes could be shut down in absence of long-term funding. Businesses all over UK will be adversely affected as 90% of all fried use road transport. It warns that several key routes like A40 westway, router high tunnel and gallows corner flyover already face speed and weight restrictions and face closure for major repairs. This is a major barrier to economic recovery. A two billion pound investment from now to 2030 will help renew key road assets. Maintaining safety and renewal of aging assets is a challenge in many locations as they are often reliant upon government funding. The ability to call for and influence funding as well as use funding wisely is certainly a responsibility that falls on several parties but on them is the civil engineering professional is working on these projects which is why our job as civil engineers often goes beyond engineering. Next up over to Southampton sustainable engineering technologies to be advanced in 14 million pound future towns innovation hub southampton.ac.uk. A new high tech innovation center is being built at the University of Southampton Science Park for helping local towns and their businesses address environmental and sustainable challenges for modernization. The future towns innovation hub will have specialist laboratories workshops and facilities for business to collaborate with researchers. Enterprise M3-LEB is supporting this 14 million pound project which will take two years to complete with 3 million pounds from the government's local growth fund and 1.5 million from Research England. This will help towns in the region recover from the economic impact of the pandemic according to Professor Paul Kemp, the innovation director of the future towns innovation hub. Professors Mark Spearing vice president of research enterprise at the University of Southampton said that he looked forward to working with the town and businesses towards innovation to modernize. If all goes well and the project leaves to fulfill its promises it could be a model for future projects of this kind. On that note let's cover a few infrastructure related stories starting with 500 million water infrastructure investment plan for Michigan ChenaRothMlive.com Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced the Michigan clean water on October 1 after decades of underinvestment in Michigan's infrastructure will help protect our public health environment and economy she said. It will be funded from federal dollars for lead service line replacement in low income communities and by bounding authority for water quality protection, general fund from drinking water infrastructure and innovation and various grants for projects like non-lid drinking water infrastructure drinking water asset management correcting combined sewer overflows and removing direct and continuous discharge from raw sewage from surface or groundwater would also support the project. Taxes will not be raised for investment and will provide over 7500 jobs. Mike Sreberg with the National Wildlife Federation and Chuck Lipschrow president of the Michigan Agribusiness Association welcomed the move. Michigan State adopted in July the new PFAS drinking water limit limits for toxic chemicals in Michigan's public drinking water. U.S. Department of Environmental Quality announced another 95 million investment for Michigan communities to borrow money for water infrastructure improvements and $681,000 to the Michigan Water and Environmental Great Lakes energy from voluntary lead testing of drinking water in child care programs. Clean water is a huge worldwide challenge and it is good to see investments like this being made to maintain and improve this precious resource. And last but not least the 284 foot ascent could break mass timber tower height record from Nadine M. Post ENR.com. The world's tallest hybrid mass timber tower ascent is under construction in Milwaukee. Ascent's Jason Korb principal architect for Korb Associates Architects stated that 184 foot tall timber building project framework that was permitted but never built in Portland, Oregon, designing but lever architecture was used for ascent's design. The results of the fire test done for the unbuilt framework funded by a $1.5 million U.S. tall wood building price were also useful. Ascent has a 19-story hybrid timber and concrete structure resting on a six-story reinforced concrete parking podium with post tension slabs. It is a fat L in plan with a full high reinforced concrete core near each end of the leg. Above the podium, there are glue laminated columns and a floor of one-way glue lamp beams with cross-laminated timber framing in the other direction. Ascent got its permits on July 24. Construction was started on August 10 but the joint venture general contractor of Catalyst Construction and CD Smith, the timber framing starts next May and completion is expected by the summer of 2022. Ascent will be four feet higher than the current world's tallest mass timber building near Starnett in Norway. As a structure engineer myself, I appreciate seeing the continued research, development and use of different materials in structural engineering. To wrap up, here's an inspiration quote to motivate you for the rest of your day. What civil engineers do is novel and really matters, but why you do it, it's what's really important. That's from Ronald Berg from our previous episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast. There you have it, that's what's happening this week in Civil Engineering. You can find reference to all the stories mentioned at twice.news and all episodes are also published in video on EMI's YouTube channel at youtube.com slash engineering careers. Remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and of course on YouTube for the video version. This is Luis Duque signing off. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, go and be the best civil engineering professional you can be.