Despite ongoing news reports of a down economy, at least two states pledged last month to spend big in FY’ 2012 to upgrade their infrastructure including roads, highways and mass-transit systems. California Transportation Commission (CTC) recently announced it has allocated $825 million in new funding for upcoming infrastructure projects. The expense is being touted as a way to create jobs and improve transportation for Californians. Part of the funding is allocated specifically for projects using a design-build project management system that offers a change from the traditional construction projects to create a single point of responsibility and reduce risk and cost. This process is currently being utilized in 32 other states, and many other countries.

The ongoing flooding in North Dakota has presented a monumental challenge to all parties affected by the natural disaster. From residents living in the affected areas to the state and local government agencies in charge of coordinating sandbagging efforts and other preventative measures. Not to mention the relief and recovery efforts that will likely continue long after the water has receded. However technological developments are making it easier for public works departments and emergency services to better anticipate and plan for, and hopefully prevent such devastating consequences as we are seeing in North Dakota.

It’s very rare that the public sector gets the attention it deserves for its innovations and achievements in the field of digital design. Whether it’s saving tax dollars by using computer aided design (CAD) software to introduce efficiencies in waste water management or helping the war fighter with precision weapons design and simulation - the examples, across federal, state and local government are endless. Well, with the newly announced [acronym] Magazine Public Sector CAD Awards, finally these agencies have the opportunity to share the creative ways they have used digital design/CAD software to improve the performance of their agency and enhance the delivery of citizen-centric services.

Attention CAD designers, managers and drafters! Has digital design changed the business of government in your city, county or agency? Have you put new ideas into practice that you want to share with your government peers? Now’s your chance. The [acronym] Magazine Public Sector CAD Awards is a new innovation contest that challenges the public sector, and the contractors that support it, to share the creative ways they have used digital design/CAD software to improve the performance of their agency and enhance the delivery of citizen-centric services.

In a recent guest article, Bryan Cowles, an Applications Specialist at IMAGINiT Technologies, observed that while more and more government agencies are moving ahead and incorporating Building Information Modeling (BIM) into their workflows, “…some are yet to be convinced of the benefits that an intelligent model can provide.” In his article - Teardown or Retrofit: A BIM Evaluation Gives the Answer - Bryan goes on to provide an excellent example of the time and cost savings achieved by retrofitting two existing structures into one larger structure, as opposed to going the demolition route – thanks to a BIM-based feasibility study. A study which also won over a team of doubtful engineers who thought demolition was the best option.

This blog was written by guest blogger, Eliot Danner, Principal of Reperio Concepts The steady pace of innovation in geospatial visualization has given rise to a new problem: the need to geocode increasing quantities of data and the corresponding need to manage and search this data. In this article, I am going to discuss a new way to bring data into geospatial environments and a new way to search and manage this data. A popular maxim in the geospatial community is “80% of all data contains geospatial information” (or something to that effect). True or not it is certainly the case that a great deal of information can be geocoded and, more importantly, that having this information geocoded, that is to say, visible on a map, can be of value to decision makers.

With a population that is expected to reach 7 billion in 2011, it is fascinating to contemplate that there are still reaches of the earth where humans have never set foot. However, thanks to the proliferation of satellites and ever-improving satellite imagery, there may come a time when we will have virtually set foot on every part of the earth’s surface. The planet’s poles are prime candidates for exploration via satellite. The harsh climates make physical exploration difficult, dangerous, and expensive. But thanks to advances in GIS technology, scientists of every discipline will have the opportunity to research previously unknown facts on an unimagined scale.

We all know the nation’s infrastructure is desperately in need of investment and overhaul (our own Tiffany Diehl sheds light on some of the worrying facts in her article Are Bridges in the U.S. Making the Grade? State Rankings Reveal a Grim Reality.) But when the infrastructure in question resides on one of the most seismically active metropolitan areas in the country, state transportation departments have an imperative to up the ante. Such is the case with one of the biggest engineering projects in California history, the replacement of the current south access road to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Known as Doyle Drive or Route 101, the route is structurally and seismically deficient and, built in 1936, it’s also come to the end of its useful life.

Numerous government agencies are moving ahead by incorporating the Building Information Modeling (BIM) process into their workflow, but some are still yet to be convinced of the benefits that an intelligent model can provide. Recently, we assisted a public sector client faced with a unique challenge; they had to decide whether to retrofit two existing structures into one or demolish both and build a new structure. Using the BIM process, we were able to help them identify substantial cost and time savings by changing the direction of the project from demolition and rebuild, to a retrofit.

This article was guest-written by Nancy Mann Jackson City and county budgets have been slashed over the past few years, but residents still expect the same level of service they enjoyed during more prosperous times. Public works departments still must pick up garbage and recyclables, repair potholes, and maintain other services, but with less money. In some cities, public works departments are finding ways to go beyond the status quo, creatively using technology to improve services in an affordable way. For instance, a new city administration in Chicago recently initiated a 10 percent budget cut across all departments, but services continue to improve, thanks to creative solutions implemented by Thomas Byrne, commissioner of the Department of Streets and Sanitation. One ward supervisor oversees each of the city’s 50 wards, and those supervisors once spent many hours driving around their wards, keeping up with the sanitation trucks assigned to them and making sure they stayed on schedule. Byrne and his staff recently installed GPS devices in each sanitation truck, and connected those devices to Blackberry devices provided to the ward supervisors. “Now a ward supervisor can go to the [Chicago Mobile Asset Tracker] CMAT database with his Blackberry anytime and it shows him where each truck is that is assigned to him,” Byrne says. “They know exactly where all their trucks are all the time.”