 Welcome to the very first episode 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'm your host for this episode, Khamni Fenley. I'm a practicing civil engineer focused on land development work in New York City. You can find all of the episodes for This Week in Civil Engineering at TWICE.News. That's TWICE, T-W-I-C-E.News. References to all the news stories covered will open the episode show notes, and if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to the TWICE playlist for weekly episodes. Now it's time for What's Happening This Week in Civil Engineering. First let's cover the biggest breaking news story from this week that might affect civil engineering companies and professionals. States received $4.8 billion in a bonus federal fiscal year 2020 highway fund. The federal highway administration FHWA has distributed to states about $4.8 billion in uncommitted fiscal year 2020 highway aid, which State Departments of Transportation's DOTs will use to build road and bridge projects. According to Susan Howard of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, AASHTO, the Program Director for Transportation Finance, the $4.8 billion redistribution is a quote all time high, last year's and the 2018 figures being $4.2 billion respectively. There was a strong demand again from states this year. They requested for $7.2 billion as compared to the available $4.8 billion. California was the biggest recipient at $493.7 million, followed by Texas at $470 million and New York at $280.5 million. Florida and Pennsylvania were fourth and fifth at $226.9 million and $210.3 million. The states are required to contribute typically 20% of the project costs to qualify for the August federal funds. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, state DOTs have had severe reductions in receipts from gasoline, diesel, and other transportation linked to taxes and fees. How might this funding affect the work in your location? Panama calls for bids on a $2 billion water shortage project from apnews.com. The Panama Canal Authority has put out a call for bids on a $2 billion package of water supply projects aimed at combating a drought that affects the freshwater lakes that supply the canal's lots. The project will seek alternatives for the water currently being supplied by the Gatun and Olofuela artificial lakes. Ideas suggested in the past include building dams, transferring water from other lakes to Gatun, or building desalination plants. This year, the canal began collecting a freshwater surcharge from ships transiting the inter-oceanic waterway to address the scarcity of rainfall after the surrounding watershed recorded its fifth driest year of the last seven decades in 2019. The new fee took effect on February 15 and has no expiration date. It applies to all vessels over 125 feet in length and consists of a fixed charge of $10,000 per passage plus another variable charge that will depend on the water levels at Lake Gatun at the time of crossing. Might your firm get involved with the project included in this $2 billion package? Or how might droughts like this affect the projects you work on in the future? Now let's look at the biggest civil engineering stories in the United States. The Federal Highway Administration announces availability of tribal projects grants from Eleanor Land at TTNew.com. The Federal Highway Administration announced the availability of $70 million through the nationally significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects Grants Program on September 8. The purpose of the program is to assist with efforts to construct and repair roads and bridges serving tribal and federally managed lands. This round of funding marks the second series of grants awarded under the program. The nationally significant Federal Lands and Tribal Projects Program was established by Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015 as a way to fund construction, reconstruction, or rehabilitation projects that provide access to or are located on federal or tribal lands. Large-scale projects with estimated construction costs of $50 million or more are given priority consideration in the selection process, but the program also accepts projects with estimated construction costs of at least $25 million. Under this program, the federal share of the project can be up to 90% and can be used to improve the condition of a critical transportation facility. The first notice of funding opportunity for this program issued in 2018 garnered 39 applications requesting a total of about $2 billion in construction costs. During this round of funding, some $321.4 million was ultimately awarded to support six projects. The US DOT has placed an emphasis on the needs of rural and tribal communities in recent programs. Rural roads make up 70% of America's road miles, according to the DOT. MDOT Research finds better alternatives to steel and building bridges from Next Star Broadcasting Incorporated. The Michigan Department of Transportation, also known as MDOT, and university researchers have subjected a high-tech material to trial by fire and ice in their search for better bridge components. Steel has historically been the default material for reinforcing and pretensioning concrete for highway bridges. Steel adds strength, but it's vulnerable to corrosion and deterioration under assault from extreme temperatures, water, and de-icing chemicals. Preventing corrosion repairing damaged areas requires maintenance, time, and resources. MDOT and Lawrence Technological University or Lawrence Tech in Southfield have pioneered an alternative to steel and critical bridge applications using carbon fiber components. Carbon fiber strands have a tensile strength comparable to steel, but they resist corrosion and require less maintenance over time. Under the direction of Nabil Grace, Dean of College of Engineering at Lawrence Tech, the School Center for Innovative Materials has been researching carbon fiber reinforced polymers, CFRP, since 1988, funded through multiple research awards from the National Science Foundation and MDOT. Carbon fiber components lack a track record in transportation infrastructure. Also, engineers lack the technical specs they needed to optimize the CFRP design process to encourage more widespread use of the material. So beginning in 2013, MDOT again collaborated with Lawrence Tech, this time to test the short and long-term performance of the CFRP strands and beams under a wide range of conditions. The data from this research confirmed what proponents of CFRP have long theorized. Investigators found out that CFRP strands held up well to conditions that simulated Michigan's harsh weather. Moisture, rain, freezing rain and extreme temperature swings did not significantly affect the material strength or mechanical properties over time. In addition, test results show that some of the currently accepted parameters for CFRP are conservative and can be updated. The research-generated criteria guidelines and recommendations to make MDOT's design and construction of highway bridges using CFRP more efficient. Additionally, researchers prepared design examples, a valuable reference tool for bridge designers. What's the future outlook for carbon fiber and MDOT bridge design? One barrier to wider adoption is the cost of materials. Quote, cost is always an issue and this is why we only do a few bridges per year, said Matthew Chinowith, MDOT bridge engineer and director of MDOT's Bureau of Bridges and Structures. Quote, however, one of our main suppliers, Tokyo Rope, built the fabrication facility in Michigan, which is cut down on some of the costs and delivery times for CFRP. A summary of the report of CFRP and bridge designs is available on the MDOT website, as well as the full final report. It's always exciting to see opportunities for new materials being brought into the world of civil engineering. Virus turns up the virtual volume in the AEC sector education from Bruce Buckley, Deborah K. Rooting and Stephanie Lauder of ENR.com. Among many other pandemic impacts, United States construction management programs and engineering schools have scrambled to continue preparing students for future careers as college campuses nationwide have had to cut back capacity or send students home since last spring. Traditional classroom settings are being replaced by a broad mix of real-time remote learning, recorded classes, and limited in-person instruction interaction. Some professors seek ways to make classes feel as normal as possible, while others disassemble their established teaching methods and rebuild curricula. With unique challenges, including state and local health guidelines that change with every up-and-down virus statistics change, each school is creating new education deployment for their near-term and for many further ahead. Quote, What's missing in the online environment is so much of the relational nature of construction management. We must provide a connection point and opportunities to work with others, said Ben Farrow, Associate Dean of Auburn University College of Architecture, Design, and Construction, and President of the Associated Schools of Construction. Regardless of class modality, one concern is overarching. How can schools work with virus protocols while continuing to prepare students for jobs in one of the most inherently hands-on and collaborative professional fields? That question is also core for employers who know the importance of skill develops from group project interactions on campus and off and one-on-one mentoring. Employers are watching closely. Ted Lauer, a former design firm's CEO and now an industry leadership development consultant and lecturer, points to resulting shortfalls in students quote, in witnessing how things come together and some of the latent variables that create unexpected risks and how to mitigate them. Although he said, students quote will offer great resourcefulness in using technology. Milo Reverso, CEO of design firm STV, says that while many schools offer remote degrees quote, this is not traditional for ABC careers and poses a radical shift for professors in this area. He says one concern is whether faculty quote are fully equipped with the skills and tools needed to not only teach students how to test in a virtual environment, but also provide meaningful feedback to students. Limits on field exposure quote may affect how quickly students can hit the ground running when they officially join the workforce, says Gregg Dunkel, STO building group chief administration officer quote. They may be visiting a real job site for the very first time, which will certainly lengthen the learning curve. Adds Mike Ostendorf, co-founder of the Co-founder and CEO of AOA, a Florida construction management firm quote. The use of virtual or hybrid instruction does provide a foundation for students in understanding and navigating how to work remotely. The key will be to address and teach the transition from virtual to on site, as it is critical to understand when working remotely is affected and one is not. You can find the entire article with many more quotes and thoughts at enr.com. How do you think the current remote learning strategies may affect future civil engineers? I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge how different the world looks today. Perhaps you're listening to me in your home office, or maybe you're taking a walk to break up your day. As professionals, we need to remember that self-care and prioritizing mental health is so important to making us better engineers. With all that's looming in the world, problem solving and technical design can seem like more of a challenge than normal. Don't be afraid to take a step back, walk away, or you can sleep on a challenge you can't seem to get past. A little bit of mental clarity always helps to see the bigger picture and find solutions. Now let's get back to the news. Now let's move on to some international news and civil engineering from this week. YVR terminates major infrastructure project due to COVID-19 from Kristen Clark at Richmond News. With 525 million already spent, the Vancouver Airport Authority is halting a large-scale infrastructure project due to the impact COVID-19 has had on the aviation industry. The airport announced Wednesday it is putting an end to its core program, part of a multi-capital program, just a day after letting the construction company know of its intentions. The core program was designed when YVR was experiencing double-digit growth. The program included a central utilities building, which would have housed one of the largest geo-exchange systems in Canada, slated for completion by 2022. geo-exchange is a heating and cooling system that uses the earth's renewable energy found just below the surface. It would have been integrated throughout YVR to heat and cool the airport structure. The central utilities building was also being built on the airport's former value parking lot. That site was also earmarked for a ground transportation center, including a new parkade, both of which are also part of the core program. While it's sad to see projects like this get halted, it was nice to see concepts like geo-exchange being considered. The next phase begins for record-breaking timber bridge from the constructionindex.co.uk. The design phase has started for what is planned to be the world's longest bridge to use structural timber, the contract for the design, permitting, and further development of the E6-Molev Returne infrastructure project was signed on September 7th by Norway's Road Authority, Nere Vier, and Bernard Aans, which is a joint venture between Basics and Rizzani de Etcher. The project includes a one-kilometer bridge over Lake Mjøse, spanning more than one kilometer and an 11-kilometer section of four-lane motorway. Other companies involved in the project include Norwegian contractor AF Gruppen, designer and consultant, multi-consult, and architect Knut Selberg. This is an important step in the project we signed today, said Nick Derok, area manager of Basics in Europe. It allows us to move forward together towards the realization of a bridge that will be remarkable and unique, especially from a technical and environmental point of view. EMI is currently seeking a guest from the project team to appear on the Structural Engineering Channel podcast, which can be found at StructuralEngineeringChannel.com. On that note, let's cover a few infrastructure-related stories. Infrastructure stakeholders pressed Congress for a highway law extension, Eugene Malera at TTNews.com. Groups representing nearly every aspect of the country's infrastructure networks recently called on congressional leaders to approve a year-long extension of a soon-to-expire highway law. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, and the American Society of Civil Engineers are among dozens of stakeholders pressing for an authorizing extension of the Five-Year 2015 FAST Act, which expires on September 30. In addition to the extension, the groups asked the leadership on Capitol Hill to approve more than $30 billion in emergency funding for both state departments of transportation and public transit agencies, as well as a guarantee to the solvency of a federal highway funding account during the extension. The account, known as the Highway Trust Fund, relies on dwindling revenues from fuel taxes. If Congress is unable to advance a multi-year update of the FAST Act by September 30, alternatives besides inaction would be to either pass a temporary extension of the law or include such an extension in a must-pass federal funding legislation. Federal funding authority via appropriation also expires on September 30. To be sure, Congress is attempting to update the FAST Act. Over the summer, the House gave partisan approval to a massive infrastructure bill that included an update of the 2015 highway law. Last year, a Senate committee gave bipartisan backing to a Five-Year $287 billion update of the FAST Act. Neither party has announced negotiations to reconcile differences in the bill. Both measures stopped short of proposing a long-term fix of the Highway Trust Fund. The fund projected to run low in the months ahead and is backed by insufficient revenues from the 24.4 cents per gallon diesel tax and the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax. Those rates were set in 1993. You can find the entire article at TTNews.com, but no doubt that this issue is critical to all citizens, especially those working in the transportation sector. Now, over to Rhode Island. RIDOT pauses bridge project after a dip develops on temporary overpass from Lindsay de Lucia at NBC10 News. The aging bridge over Route 4 in East Greenwich will soon be replaced, but it's the temporary bridge alongside it that has drivers doing a double take. The metal has moved under the weight of a new road built on top of it. We have temporarily pressed the pause button to take a closer look at an issue. Rhode Island DOT director Peter Elvide told NBC News. Elvide says the state is looking at a dip at one of the arches. Before we put additional live blows on it, we want to have a number of questions answered and maybe a correction put in place. Elvide said, We think it's more prudent at this point certainly to take the time. Elvide said, The temporary bridge was supposed to open to traffic this fall. There are a number of inspections we conduct to make sure it's safe, and we've done that so far, and it is, Elvide explained. But the DOT doesn't want the deflection in the metal arch to get any worse, so it's waiting on some answers. Whether or not this deflection we see and have measured is within acceptable limits, and if not, what are the remedies, Elvide said? One remedy would be to remove the filling, let the arch rebound to its original shape, and refill it. Elvide said, They can simply go and demolish the existing bridges and rebuild without having to worry about traffic, so they get it done faster and cheaper that way, he said. The delay in this project could be about four weeks. The design-built team and contractor responsible for the cost of changes so any fixes don't fall on taxpayers. This goes to show how many moving parts there are in a civil engineering project and why our jobs are so challenging. Now here's a quote to motivate you for the rest of your day. The purpose of life is to have a life of purpose. Now, I'm not sure who said this exact quote, but what I do know is that you don't find your purpose one random morning when you wake up. Purpose is found in your daily commitment to your personal and professional life. As civil engineers, our work has so much purpose, and that's something we should all be proud of. And there you have it. That's what's happening this week in civil engineering. You can find references to all the news stories mentioned at Twice.News and all of the episodes are published on video on EMI's YouTube channel at youtube.com or slash engineering careers. Remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And also of course our YouTube channel. This is Komni Finley signing off. We'll see you next week. In the meantime, I hope your week ahead is full of purpose.