The wonderful world of work

So what does a PEng do all day? At the moment I'm very busy with tendering and projectmanging construction projects. Edmonton has four seasons: Nearly winter, winter, winter nearly over and construction season. During all but the latter, the gound is frozen and covered in snow so no work can be done in the field. Therefore, once summer comes it is all systems go. Designs need to be finalized and contracts let. I am currently working on three main projects:

Drayton Valley - 2008 Street Improvements

Drayton Valley is a town of 7,000 people located 2 hour's drive south west of Edmonton. I am project managing the design and construction of various improvements including a couple of junction improvements, regrading and surfacing a car park and a couple of road realignments. It is under construction at the moment and will stretch over this year and next year.

Highway 22/50 Avenue. The junction is being realigned as it is at a skew angle and is hard for large trucks to negotiate.

Leduc - Black Gold Drive

The City of Leduc is a bit closer to home. It is located half an hours drive south of Edmonton, just beyond the airport. Black Gold Drive is one of the residential arterial routes and is currently a two lane road. I am project managing the design and construction to widen it to 4 lanes. It is currently out to tender, and there will be some construction work this year, but most of it is next year. Fortunately, over here there is the opportunity to plan ahead so when the original road was built, enough land was set aside to widen it at a future date. Also the crriageway was built so that it falls to just one side instead of being a balanced road, so the new lanes can butt up to the old ones, without the need for regrading the existing road. Smart.

Black Gold Drive

City of Edmonton Rail Crossings

Last summer I carried out a study of all 37 level crossings on arterial routes within the city to determine which are most in need of bridges. Factors such as numbers of trains, volume of traffic, physical layout of the crossing, importance of the railway line etc. played a part in coming up with a list of priorities. I am currently working on a concept plan for the highest ranking crossing, doing a preliminary design and assessing the impact and issues.



50th Street Rail Crossing