The pedestrians in the Lalor Street area need a safer route across the 129 highway. The Senior Housing is on one side of 129 and the Shopping center that includes a grocery store, a Dunkin Donuts, a bank, a pizza restaurant are on the other side. Crossing guards are on duty during the day but I believe the time has come to look toward a safer and more permanent solution for both the safety of pedestrians as well as ...more »
Understanding the effectiveness and optimal timing of bridge preservation, maintenance and repair activities are pivotal for bridge asset management. Although extensive resources are dedicated to these activities annually, their impact on the long-term performance of bridges is not well documented and/or understood. One reason for this lack of understanding is the sheer complexity involved. The effectiveness of bridge ...more »
From India and Scotland, to Texas USA, plastic additives are utilized in patching potholes, repairing cracks, and could be mixed with bitumen to create full paved roads. This action could help with a reduction of plastic waste, a decrease of material cost, a stronger durability with roads, and done without causing leeching or harm to the environment.
A Bump Integrator, a mechanical device for measuring road roughness, is a response-type roughness meter that is imbedded in a small trailer attached to the back of a vehicle. This is a mechanical instrument that measures the relative displacement of a vehicle's suspension in relation to the body of the vehicle. It is equipped with sensors to monitor the "bumps". If SSP and other applicable NJDOT vehicles were equipped ...more »
In service fatigue fracture of highway signs and signal support structures due to wind induced oscillations is the primary concern for cost-effective life cycle performance of these structures. Recognizing the impact of potential life and property damage from structural failures and economic burden of inspecting, maintaining and replacing the sheer volume of these structures in the inventory, the American Association ...more »
Research has shown that exposure to nature has emotional and physical benefits. Exposure of as little as ten to fifteen minutes can help to lower blood pressure, elevate mood, lower cortisol levels, and have other physiological benefits. These benefits only increase with the prolonged exposure to not only large natural areas but even smaller simplistic natural settings and even technological simulations. Each rest stop, ...more »
Concrete-steel composite girders combine the advantages of concrete and steel and have been used in a number of bridges worldwide. However, concrete cracking and shear connector damages affect the long-term durability of the conventional concrete-steel composite girders. In recent years, high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) that have high mechanical strength, crack resistance, workability, ...more »
Landslides in New Jersey occur in geologically weak regions with moderate to steep slopes, which has been a big concern for transportation safety. Typical landslides mapped by New Jersey Geological Survey include rock falls and rockslides. Rock falls, very common in roadway cuts and steep cliffs, refer to the abrupt movement of rock and boulders detached from slopes or cliffs. Rockslides indicate the movement of rock ...more »
To reduce congestion, we can build a monorail over Rt 1 and other highly congested highways. This can be done within the existing right of way, possibly over the median. The end points need to connect to common destinations such as commuter parking lots, malls, airports, train stations, etc. It Is a big undertaking, but it can get cars off the road. And, of course it has to be terrorist-proof. The monorail can host ...more »
Green streets use green infrastructure practices within the public right-of-way to manage stormwater while preserving the primary function of a street as a conduit for vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders. In a densely populated state like New Jersey, the management of stormwater runoff is an important consideration for developed areas as impervious surfaces like roofs, roads and parking lots prevent ...more »
Many concrete transportation infrastructures in New Jersey such as pavements, bridge decks, and girders are suffering from exposure to successive frost actions and deicing salt. The number of freezing days in New Jersey leads to various premature to long-term distresses such as salt scaling, D-cracking, random cracking, and joint deterioration since water on freezing expands by 9% in volume, raising the internal pressure ...more »
When SRIs and mileposts are updated in the Straight Line Diagram (SLD) due project completions or re-designations, this information is not generally shared with other NJDOT systems and databases. Also, errors in typing in SRIs, mileposts and other location information are not usually identified and corrected. SRI and mileposts can be verified against the current SLD databases and additional location information including ...more »
In cases when a bridge cannot be easily rated using simplified analytical procedures or due to a lack of information, transportation agencies will often opt to rate the bridge using field assessment and engineering judgement. Given the potential for unreliable ratings, there is a desire to both minimize the use of this rating practice and to develop a more formal and reliable methodology to guide such ratings when no ...more »
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have shown great potential for health monitoring of civil infrastructure. UAV provides a platform to seamlessly integrate advanced sensing, communication, and machine learning for structural health monitoring. For example, UAV carrying a camera has been used to image damages in bridges, in particular, for the locations where people have limited access, such as the bottom of the bridge deck ...more »
The engineering characteristics of subgrade materials are important to the integrity and serviceability of pavement. The most critical characteristics include load bearing capacity and volumetric change. The subgrade must be able to support loads applied on pavement without excessive deformation, and able to maintain its volumetric structure under severe temperature and groundwater level variations. To enhance the shear ...more »