Innovation Quarterly Vol. 2

INNOVATION QUARTERLY

Caltrans District 11 Innovation Newsletter | APRIL 2022

PAG 9

FEATURE INNOVATION Blending Multiple Survey Methods to Deliver a Comprehensive Topographical Survey & 3D Photo-Realistic Model

PAG 12

INNOVATION FAIR 2021 Innovation Fair Recap

PAG 17

TROPHY CABINET Awards won by District 11 in the last three years

CONTENT IN THIS ISSUE MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

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INNOVATION TEAM SPONSOR’S CORNER

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CALL FOR INNOVATIONS

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BLAST FROM THE PAST Use of Hygroscopic Salts as A Dust Preventive on Northern California State Highways

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CALL FOR AWARDS

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BLAST FROM THE PAST CURING CONCRETE Curing with Calcium Chloride Recent California Experiments

–January 1925

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FEATURE INNOVATION Blending Multiple Survey Methods to Deliver a Comprehensive Topographical Survey & 3D Photo-Realistic Model

–February 1925

INNOVATION QUATERLY NEWSLETTER SUBCOMMITTEE TOURE NETTERS / DAVE OLANDER / SEANA URQUHART / YADIRA WHITNEY / WAMEEDH TOZY 2 | THE INNOVATION QUARTERLY

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2021 INNOVATION FAIR RECAP

DISTRICT 11 TROPHY CABINET

2021 Best Focus Presentation

Awards won over the last three years by

2021 Best Poster Presentation

the Divisions of District 11

2021 Innovation Focus Presentations 2021 Division Poster Presentations 2021 Vendors, District Committees, & Professional Organizations

INNOVATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS Lima Saft – TMC Mike Hank – Surveys, Sponsor Rajpreet Singh – TMC, Sponsor Dave Olander – Surveys Leila Hajalilou – Engineering, OE Abu-Bakr Al-Jafri – Engineering, Utilities Engineering Harwell Ontoy – Maint Eng Ty Sterns – Traffic Ops, Permits Dave Cortez – Engineering Sam Amen – TMC Oscar Aguilar – PPM

Clint Peace - PPM Dan Stuhr - Maintenance Yadira Whitney – Admin, PIO Brian Miller – Planning Seana Urquhart – Design Wameedh Tozy – NCC Gus Silva – Construction April Lucchesi – TMC Toure Netters –Planning

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WELCOME TO IQ MESSAGE FROM THE DISTRICT 11 INNOVATION COMMITTEE CHAIR

W

elcome to the Innovator Quarterly, District 11 Innovation Team’s Newsletter, Spring 2022 edition! Our team of District Innovation enthusiasts, supported by our Sponsors on the Executive Team, Rajpreet Singh and Michael Hank, is hard at work to bring you information, share district innovations and act as the catalysts for innovation and change.

We draw on our team members’ creativity, outof-the-box thinking, and collective energy. It is not by chance that innovation is one of the Caltrans Priorities. It is the engine that moves us toward sustainability, prepares us for the future, and channels our creativity. I encourage you to continuously look for improvements, large and small, in your professional and personal lives.

I am sure you already do that without calling it “INNOVATION.” Share your innovations with others, share them with us at D11.Innovation@dot.ca.gov, and we can post them for the District and the State to see. If you would like to get involved, please let us know. We always welcome new members, fresh ideas, and progressive collaboration!

Lima Saft Ph.D., PE, PMP Chair of D-11 Innovation Team

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Innovator Quarterly is the production of the Newsletter subcommittee, consisting of Toure Netters, Dave Olander, Wameedh Tozy, Seana Urquhart, and Yadira Whitney. I salute their dedication, inspiration, and imagination!

INNOVATION TEAM SPONSOR’S CORNER

I

nnovation is the fuel that enables District 11 to successfully plan and deliver a world-class transportation system for the customers we serve.

Positive changes call for innovation.

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. Large and small, simple, or complex, our incredible employees use their creativity, diversity, and tenacity to overcome the challenges we face each day.

We want to thank the District 11 Innovation Team for inspiring and supporting our employees who seek to enhance safety, efficiency, and quality by implementing innovative ideas.

Rajpreet Singh Transportation Management Center Sponsor

Successful innovations only happen when you aren’t afraid to do things differently.

We salute your courage!

Michael Hank Land Surveys Division Sponsor

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MICRO INNOVA

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ATIONS

G N I H T OME

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E L P M I S K

IC & QU

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micro-innovation is something simple that someone can do right away that doesn’t require acquiring hardware, software, or special training.

It can be a shortcut, a change to a process, or anything quick and easy to implement while also having a meaningful and beneficial impact on work, cost, productivity, or quality.

This edition’s micro-innovation is about de-cluttering plan sets (quality) and saving drafting time (cost/ productivity).

Mike Nichols and Tom Guerrini share a process they developed that allows design engineers to eliminate alignment annotation significantly on specific projects.

This innovation saves hours of drafting time per sheet (scales to days of work) while still providing the necessary information to bid, build and inspect a project.

For more information, please click on the image.

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SUBMIT YOUR AWARDS HAVE YOU OR YOUR TEAM WON AN AWARD WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT?

If you have an award related to innovation that you would like to share by featuring it in future Volumes of the Quarterly Innovator Newsletter, please submit them to the Innovation team email by clicking on the link below and typing a brief explanation of the award and attaching a copy of the award and any pictures related to the award that you would like to share.

Thank you in advance, and we are looking forward to seeing what outstanding awards we can immortalize in our D11 Virtual Innovation Trophy case!

D11.Innovation@dot.ca.gov

Hello Caltrans family!

If you have a Micro-innovation that you would like to share by featuring it in future Volumes of the Quarterly Innovator Newsletter, please submit them to the Innovation team email by clicking on the link below and typing a brief explanation of the Micro-innovation that you would like to share.

Thank you in advance, and we are looking forward to seeing what great Micro-innovations your division can share with D11 and the Caltrans family!

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D11.Innovation@dot.ca.gov

SR-186

FIELD SURVEY BLENDING MULTIPLE SURVEY METHODS TO DELIVER A COMPREHENSIVE TOPOGRAPHICAL SURVEY AND 3D PHOTO-REALISTIC MODEL STATE ROUTE 186, IMPERIAL COUNTY, CA

BY ANTHONY LEIMEISTER

Proposed alignment

sUAS photo centers (top balls); lines show cross-ties

Historical Marker On-site

Terrain Lines on Ortho-mosaic

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It was forecast to rain heavily in San Diego the week before New Year’s. Not a common occurrence, that’s for sure. When it comes to Transportation Surveying, this poses a challenge.

Construction sites are muddy, and progress slows to a crawl.

Working on the shoulder of the highway system is dangerous when slippery conditions exist.

Fortunately, Caltrans District 11 (D11) covers two counties, Imperial and San Diego. This gives our field survey crews the flexibility to shift to projects in the Imperial County desert to stay task-focused when the weather prevents working along the coastline.

D11 Survey Team: Anthony Leimeister, Al Medellin, Ned Salman, Chris Dunn, Diego Alvarado, Jacob Ardis.

Location: State Route 186 is a short 2-mile piece of state highway in the southeast corner of District 11, at the confluence of the Colorado River, Quechan Indian Reservation, and the borders of Mexico, California, and Arizona.

of the proposed location in previous page). To facilitate this investigation, topographical data is needed in an area of over 20 acres.

To accomplish this task, D11 Surveys leveraged multiple technologies such as: Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) mounted on a Tahoe; static LiDAR scanner mounted to a tripod; Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) aerial photogrammetry; Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS); leveling; & conventional surveying with robotic total staROUTE 186 tions.

The highway provides the only access to the Andrade/Algodones Port of Entry at the US/ Mexico border, with a few thousand pedestrians and vehicles passing through each day. Approximately ½ mile south of Interstate 8, STATE a check-gate for the IS A SHORT 2-MILE PIECE All-American canal Links to information on incorporates the OF STATE HIGHWAY IN THE each of these highway on top of it. technologies are at the SOUTHEAST CORNER OF This was built in 1938, end of this topic. the same year as the DISTRICT 11 canal, and the US This allowed us to acquire Bureau of Reclamation is coninformation about the cerned that the decades of increatopography, property rights, and sing vehicle traffic may be contributing geodetic control, guided by standards to the deterioration of the structure. and specifications outlined in the Caltrans Project: Caltrans is investigating options to sustain the state highway and bureau of reclamation facilities, including the possibility of building a new bridge over the canal just west of the existing bridge (picture

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Survey Manual.

The work: Quality engineering work begins with accurate topographical, asset, surface, subsurface, and other data.

Multiple ties using GNSS were used to determine horizontal values on Survey control and ground control targets for the sUAS and MTLS surveys. 8,500’ of Level loops were run from existing benchmarks to determine elevations for all control points and targets.

Statistical analysis showed the estimated error of all ground control to be within 0.03’ horizontal and 0.00’ vertical. Boundary measurements had the same estimated horizontal error.

Since elevations are not critical for these points, they were not leveled through and had a less than 0.05’ vertical error estimate.

MTLS scans were completed as planned, with added runs to densify surface data in undulating terrain. A static scan was conducted with a Trimble SX10 robotic total station from the highest location in the center of the site. This is to provide comparison points to the MTLS points (see picture,

left, showing MTLS extracted linework in TopoDot combined with SX10 scan data).

deviation from the mean. This was typical across the site, with some areas showing sUAS point

QUALITY ENGINEERING WORK BEGINS WITH ACCURATE TOPOGRAPHICAL, ASSET, SURFACE, SUBSURFACE, AND OTHER DATA

A 3D mapping sUAS flight was conducted (see photo above) over the entire project area using DJI Phantom 4RTK sUAS “drone.” Point clouds generated from this sUAS operation were used to fill in gaps in surface data collected by other means sUAS data across the site agreed within a tenth of a foot vertically with other methods.

Static scan data was decided within a few hundredths of a foot compared with the MTLS point cloud.

In the cross-section, you can see the SX10 & MTLS scans coincident, but the sUAS cloud has a wider

The massive amount of 3D geospatial data we collected will be stored and mined for future information as the project progresses to increase efficiency by negating a 6-hour round trip drive to the site.

This project will involve various Tribal, Local, State, and Federal stakeholders. The rich geospatial data collection will facilitate interactions with these partners and the general public.

cloud generation above the other two by a tenth of a foot or less. Upon processing the MTLS data, there were three gaps in the surface, particularly a large area at the southwest and northwest ends of the site, which were inaccessible to vehicles.

These areas utilized the sUAS point cloud data.

This project seeks to facilitate international and interregional movement of people, goods, and services, preserve the canal check-gate and improve motorist and pedestrian safety. This site has been a major transportation route for centuries, and this project will help ensure it will continue to be so.

Summary: The combination of multiple complementary data collection methods and technology resulted in a quick turnaround for our clients and reflected greatly on Caltrans Land Surveys.

Links: • Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) • small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) • Trimble SX10 • Caltrans Spatial Reference Network

Section view of different point clouds

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2021 INN FAIR R

THE D11 INNOVATION COMMITTEE WOULD LIKE TO THA DISTRICT 11 DIVISIONS, COMMITTEES, VENDORS, AND P FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE DISTRICT’S FIRST VIRTUAL I

T

he SR-11 Segment 2A & Segment 4 Project features an unconventional and innovative Diverging Diamond Interchange design involving Caltrans collaborations in partnership with the Federal Government and SANDAG. The novel Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) intersection design promotes intersection safety for pedestrians and bikers

while meeting the conflicting demands for increasing capacity, decreasing congestion, and negatively impacting air quality. Added Benefits of this innovation includes minimizing the cost of multiple infrastructures and supporting economic sustainability via more efficient movement of good throughout the country.

Division South County & Trade Corridor

Best Focus Presentation

STATE ROUTE (SR) 11 - ENRICO FERMI DIVERGING DIAMOND INTERCHANGE

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NOVATION RECAP

ANK AND RECOGNIZE ALL THE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS INNOVATION FAIR.

Submitted by Nikki Tiongco, Senior Transportation Engineer

C

altrans and SANDAG Build North Coast Corridor will be piloting temporary orange lane striping on Interstate 5 (I-5) in Fall 2021 as part of the Carlsbad to Oceanside Carpool/ HOV extension.

The orange lane striping will be used within construction zones as construction crews extend one Carpool/HOV Lane in each direction on I-5 from Palomar Airport Road to State Route 78

Best Division Poster Presentation

ORANGE LANE STRIPPING

(SR-78). Build NCC is the first project in California to use orange lane striping.

Its purpose is to alert drivers of the construction zone and reduce speed limits to ultimately protect motorists and the Build NCC crews who work close to fast-moving traffic.

District Divisions Traffic Safety & Operations and North County Corridors Submitted by Brian Hadley, Senior Transportation Engineer, NCC Construction THE INNOVATION QUARTERLY | 13

2021 INNOVATION FOCUS PRESENTATIONS District Division: Transportation Management Center Innovation: Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology Speaker(s): Rajpreet Singh, District Division Chief, Traffic Safety & Operations (TMC-Kearny Mesa)

District Division: North County Corridors Innovation: Social Pinpoint Speaker(s): Kareem Scarlett, Senior Transportation Engineer

District Division: Transportation Engineering — Utilities Engineering Innovation: Caltrans Utility Database Speaker(s): Abu-Bakr Al-Jafri, Senior Transportation Engineer; Dan Scheel, Transportation Engineer

District Division: South County & Trade Corridors Innovation: State Route (SR) 11 - Enrico Fermi Diverging Diamond Interchange Speaker(s): Nikki Tiongco, Senior Transportation Engineer; Mario Orso, Corridor Project Director, South County & Trade Corridors

District Division: Construction Innovation: I-8 Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP) Speaker(s): Daniel Hernandez-Duarte, Senior Transportation Engineer; Michael Oreiro, (Acting) Senior Transportation Engineering; Ismael “Pye” Salazar, Senior Landscape Architect

District Division: Planning and Local Assistance Division Innovation: 2021 California – Baja California Border Master Plan Speaker(s): Jose Marquez, Senior Transportation Planner

District Division: TRAFFIC SAFETY and OPERATIONS Innovation: District 11 Pilot – Lane Alert Speaker(s): Troy Bucko, Transportation Engineer

District Division: Land Surveys Innovation: Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Speaker(s): Angel Murillo, Transportation Surveyor

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2021 DIVISION POSTER PRESENTATIONS District Division: Design Innovation: Decluttered Plansheets Division Branch: Design

District Division: Engineering Innovation: Micro-Trenching for Fiberoptic Division Branch: Electrical Design* Innovation: Smart Connected Lighting Division Branch: Electrical Design*

Innovation: Road Weather Information System — Remote Control of Portable Changeable Message Signs (PCMS) Division Branch: East Region Maintenance — Mountain Area

District Division: Maintenance Engineering Innovation: Cold-In-Place: Recycle Project Pilot Division Branch: Pavement and Bridge Asset Management

* Electrical Design is now a Division Branch under the Transportation Management Center (TMC) Division

District Divisions: Traffic Safety & Operations and North County Corridors

Innovation: District 11 Pilot – Roadside Signposts made from Recycled Plastic Products Division Branch: Signing/Striping Design

Innovation: Orange Lane Stripping Division Branch: District Traffic Safety & NCC Construction

District Divisions: Engineering & Environmental

District Division: North County Corridors

Innovation: District 11 Pilot: Real-world Study of Trash Capture for Storm drainpipe Screens Division Branch: Hydraulics Engineering & NPDES/ Stormwater Compliance

Innovation: Street Light Data Insight Division Branch: SR78/76 Project Development

District Division: Transportation Management Center (TMC) Innovation: Radar Detection Division Branch: Ramp Metering Operations Innovation: San Diego Regional Proving Grounds Division Branch: Traffic System Performance Innovation: Hybrid Power System Division Branch: Electrical Systems Innovation: Traffic Census Central Systems and Counters Division Branch: Ramp Metering and Traffic Census Innovation: Wireless in District 11 Division Branch: Electrical Systems Innovation Traffic Performance Measuring System Division Branch: Traffic System Performance

District Division: Right of Way Innovation: Right of Way Environmental Permit to Enter Process Division Branch: Acquisitions

District Division: Maintenance Innovation: Building Theft Prevention Division Branch: West Region Maintenance — Escondido Travelway

District Division: Planning and Local Assistance Innovation: California- Baja California 2021 Border Master Plan Update Division Branch: System Planning Innovation: Comprehensive Multimodal Corridor Plan Division Branch: System Planning Innovation: District 11 Caltrans Active Transportation Plan Division Branch: Multi Modal Programs Innovation: Using a Story map for the Build NCC Environs Application Division Branches: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Sustainable & Climate Action District Division: Structures Construction Innovation: Collaboration and Mobility Moving — Moving to Paperless Projects Division Branch: Structures Construction, Office B

District Division: Central County Corridors Innovation: Soundwall Retrofit Division Branch: 1-805 Corridor Innovation: Sharing CADD Files with Google Earth Division Branch: SR-94 Corridor

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SPECIAL GUESTS 2021 VENDORS, DISTRICT COMMITTEES, & PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Vendors Qualcomm San Diego State University i-Probe, Inc. Jacobs Kimley Horn

Committees D11 Employees Committee D11 Diversity/Disability Day Committee D11 Innovation Committee D11 Disability Advisory Committee (DAC) HQ Innovation Team (iTeam)

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Professional Organizations Professional Engineer in California Government (PECG) San Diego Section Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS) San Diego County American Public Works Association (APWA) San Diego and Imperial County California Land Surveyors Association (CLSA) Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) San Diego Section

D11 TROPHY CABINET

Unique Special Project Award

RECOGNIZING EXCELLENCE IN CONSTRUCTION Flatiron-Skanska-Stacy & Witbeck, a Joint Venture North Coast Corridor Segment 8, San Elijo Lagoon Restoration

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For more in please click o

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nformation, on the award.

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BLAST FROM THE PAST

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO READ THE FULL ISSUE 20 | THE INNOVATION QUARTERLY

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO READ THE FULL ISSUE

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