Highways

HWY-P Welcomes Three New Employees

By: Rachel Roper

He has done computer modeling of hydraulics, water pollution, and sedimentation; lab and field research and data collection; development of underwater surveying technology, and scientific diving during his first engineering career on the mainland.

From left: Jonathan Lott, Maveric Abella and Richard Wollenbecker Jonathan is now returning to engineering after doing other things since moving to Hawaii almost 25 years ago, including working as a full-time public school science teacher for most of that time.

More recently he worked as a commercial tour bus driver, substitute teacher, stagehand, tour guide, and Waikiki Hospitality Ambassador.

The Highways Division, Planning Branch recently welcomed three new employees. Maveric Abella and Jonathan Lott join the Planning Survey Section and Richard Wollenbecker joins the Systems Planning Section.

Abella graduated from Kamehameha High School and recently graduated from Columbia University with an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering.

She is looking forward to becoming the new Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) coordinator in Planning.

Maveric was born and raised here on Oahu, and is excited to be back home doing her favorite things: surfing, hiking, SCUBA, and pretty much anything outdoors.

Lott graduated with a BSCE from the University of Maryland with a concentration in Water Resources and a MS from the University of Florida in Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering. His hobbies include bike riding and racing, running, and surfing.

He is “retired” from triathlon racing and hopes to spend more time on and in the ocean.

Wollenbecker graduated from Maryknoll in 2010 and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2014 with a BS in Aerospace Engineering.

His hobbies include sailing, rocketry and video games.

During the summer you can usually find him sailing around Kaneohe Bay on Friday evenings from Kaneohe Yacht Club.

The largest successful rocket he’s launched was the Barber Pole, which flew to 5000 feet.

During college he designed several experimental rocket motors up to I class, with only one dramatic failure.

Highways

Transportation Performance Management: What Does it Have to Do with Me?

Transportation Performance management is what the federal government uses to measure how Hawaii is performing in terms of meeting the stated goals of safety, system preservation and mobility in our state.

By: Maaza Mekuria

has signed on to “Vision Zero”: a goal of zero fatalities.

The statistics are grim at this time (average of 103 fatalities per year over the five years that data is available.) No one wants a life to be taken away due to preventable crashes.

A few years ago the terminology was changed from “accidents” to “crashes” to reflect that these sad events are truly preventable if all the parties acted carefully and responsibly.

Our responsibility in preventing these crashes is to design, maintain and operate safe, and efficient infrastructure.

The three measures are like the three legs of a stool, which if not properly balanced, makes it difficult to remain properly seated.

Similarly, a good travel experience is dependent on safety, roadway infrastructure quality and travel time. We need a well-designed and maintained infrastructure to arrive at our destination safely, and we need to get there in a reasonable time.

Check out how Hawaii stands up against all the states in these three areas at the Federal Highway Administration website at https:// www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/reporting/state/state. cfm?state=Hawaii

The data is part of the annual submission that HDOT Highways provides to the Feds. Our collective efforts make for quality travel experience to our customers. We have a long way to go but setting our eyes on that prize helps us move in that direction everyday.

One of my favorite Proverbs is “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Setting our “eyes on the prize,” with the goal to eliminate roadway fatalities, is one way to say we are committed to making a difference in the lives of about a million and a half residents who call Hawaii home and also millions of visitors that come to enjoy their favorite destination.

In the coming year, each of us in HDOT can make a difference in Transportation Asset Management by striving to improve the critical infrastructures to deliver the best performance and travel experience, to every person in Hawaii.

Data courtesy of FHWA website (visited at Dec. 23, 2019 7PM) In order to improve Hawaii’s road safety, HDOT

Highways

Hawaiian ‘Green’ Concrete: Recycling Byproducts from Local Power Plants By: Kurt Sanehira

Dr. Lin Shen, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and research assistant, Reza Mirmoghtadaei, Ph.D. Candidate, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, have conducted innovative research on geopolymer concrete, a type of sustainable concrete, which provides ways of recycling byproducts from Hawaiian power plants and mitigating carbon dioxide emissions.

Geopolymer (inorganic polymer) concrete is a new type of concrete materials that utilizes industrial byproducts such as “fly ash,” as a substitute for Portland cement, the most commonly used materials after water on our planet.

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) manufacturing is a significant contributor to CO2 emissions, and it was estimated that 5% to 8% of all human-generated atmospheric CO2 comes from the cement industry.

Worldwide production of OPC is presently

From left: UH Professor Lin Shen, UH Research Assistant Reza Mirmoghtadaei and Project Sponsor Brian Ikehara, HWY-LS

surpassing 2.6 billion tons per year and growing at a rate of five percent per annum.

Geopolymer concrete has the potential to significantly reduce CO2 emissions, provide a durable and sustainable substitute for OPC, conserve thousands of acres of land currently used for landfilling of coal combustion products, and protect aquifers and surface

See GREEN CONCRETE page 12

Data Sharing Platform Helps Enhance Efficiency

Hawaii DOT is improving efficiency through data sharing.

Among the tools used to enhance efficiency is a web-based data sharing system called Socrata.

By: Kevin Murata

Watch the stories of DOT employees who have found the Socrata Data Platform beneficial on this YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=UoyBC8o8WyM&feature=youtu.be).

If you have any comments or need more information please drop an email to Kevin Murata or Gina Belleau in HWY-A.