Category Archives: Municipal Services
Posted in Codes & Regulations | Municipal Services by Steven M. Beattie, RLA (Senior Project Manager) on January 9, 2012
With the New Year usually come new laws. Finally, a highly anticipated regulatory revision takes place in 2012, which will likely lower the cost of doing business for many local governments, municipal authorities and school districts. It’s an adjustment of limits for advertisement requirements for bids in Pennsylvania.
Act 84 of 2011, effective January 1, will increase the minimum dollar amount to advertise and seek bids for purchases and contracts from the current threshold of $10,000 to $18,500. In addition to increasing the current bid threshold, Act 84 will makes changes to the minimum amount necessary to seek telephone quotes for purchases and contracts to between $10,000 and $18,500. Any purchase a local government, municipal authority or school district makes that costs less than $10,000 will not be subject to the state’s bidding and advertising requirements. Smartly these minimum bid amounts will be adjusted annually based on changes in the Consumer Price Index. The PA Department of Labor and Industry will issue an annual change to the minimum bid amounts by January 1 of each year.
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Posted in Bridge Design | Communities | Municipal Services | Project Management | Structural Engineering | Sustainable Design | Transportation by David J. Johnson, PE (Project Engineer, Structural-Bridge ) on September 6, 2011
On July 12, 2011, a historic truss was set in its new location at 4th Street over the Allegheny River in Coudersport. The truss had spent the past 127 years three blocks upstream at 7th Street, carrying traffic to the Borough’s northeast corner and recreation park facilities. The historic bridge will now continue its service life as a pedestrian bridge at its new location.
The 7th Street Bridge was built in 1883 by the King Bridge Company of Cleveland, OH. The bridge is unique because it is one of the first bridges to be built entirely of steel and to still be in service. The bridge was retrofitted in 1983 with the addition of the steel arches. The decision to replace the bridge was made by the borough because it was functionally obsolete. The bridge was a one lane bridge that lacked adequate vertical clearance, proper barriers, or a sidewalk to provide access for pedestrians using the park.
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Posted in Bridge Design | Communities | Education | Employees | Leadership | Municipal Services | Professional Development | Structural Engineering | Transportation by Quentin D. Rissler, PE (Structural-Bridge) on August 24, 2011
At least once a year, I participate in middle school career fairs to talk about being a bridge engineer. While I have many stories I find interesting and enjoy my career and the challenges of each day, I do not want to bore the students. So I developed a fairly simple exercise that I have been doing with each group of students.
I ask for 2 volunteers to help me design the best bridge for this location – which is just a box but could represent any of the thousands of bridges that need to be designed. See photo 1 for the working materials which includes various sizes of wood, a steel tube, a brick, and a cardboard tube.
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