Blogging

Support Mike in the Great Cycle Challenge

I have registered for the Great Cycle Challenge and my goal is to pedal 300 km this June and raise $500 to fight kids’ cancer! And my challenge starts NEXT WEEK. Why am I doing this? Because over 1,400 children are diagnosed with cancer in Canada every year. It will be tough, but it’s nothing […]

Simple Solutions

How often do you feel that the world is unnecessarily complex? Here are some simple products and solutions I’ve enjoyed using recently. Sugru I’ve used Sugru for a couple of years now. It’s not an everyday product, but it has provided lasting solutions to a number of problems in our house, from a broken toilet […]

A Disturbing Trend in Local Government

The resignations of over a dozen mayors and councillors in British Columbia over the past two years is “a disturbing trend,” according to a veteran of municipal politics. Source: CBC – “A Disturbing Trend” “Long hours, low pay and increased complexity cited” as the main reasons. In the decade that I’ve worked for local government, […]

Sustainable Civil Engineering

Earth day is just around the corner, and it is important that we make sustainable choices in the areas that we have influence in. I’m a big advocate of sustainable #engineering, and it is an area that I have some influence in, to the point where almost all of the major projects I work on […]

UrbanWorkbench on Facebook

Check Urbanworkbench out on Facebook. We update engineering and urban planning content on Facebook and Twitter regularly, check us out on social media.

Happy New Year!

As we prepare to welcome in 2016, I’d like to thank all our readers. 2015 has been a tough year for writing, but you can always follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Evening #snow at the #Revelstoke #Nordic #Ski club A video posted by urbanworkbench (@urbanworkbench) on Dec 3, 2015 at 10:15pm PST

Complexity and Obsolescence

“The chief cause of problems is solutions” – Eric Sevareid “Solutions are not the answer” – Richard Nixon [Tweet “”Solutions are not the answer” – Richard Nixon”] In my role at the City of Revelstoke, I am confronted with years of amassed data, much of it in the City’s GIS system, but occasionally, questions asked […]

CNAM Annual Conference 2015

After a great first day of presentations at the connference, I’m ending the night running through my presentation for the 2015 Canadian Network of Asset Managers conference in Vancouver for tomorrow. I’ll be presenting on infrastructure decision-making and the Envision Sustainability Rating System and how this ties to traditional concepts of asset management. https://twitter.com/urbanworkbench/status/598340551742660609 I […]