The City of Highland Park has found a new more improved way of tracking Capital Improvements. Historically, Capital Improvements were tracked by the Public Works Engineering Department and were mapped out on a request as needed basis. A static map would be sent to Engineering for their viewing and distributed as desirable but now a virtual map with additional mapping options can be viewed through MapOffice™!
The Capital Improvements are spatially viewable through a Custom Overlay and when the improvement is clicked on in the map, more information appears in a pop-up box. Furthermore, a weblink is available to view PDF’s of the project. This keeps all of the Capital Improvements information stored in one easy to access location and with all the other capabilities of MapOffice™ on hand. This tracking shows that GIS is continuously enhancing and building upon itself. What was once a simple mapping project has developed into an all in one information location system. With just a click of the mouse, Highland Park staff is able to access all of the Capital Improvements, view information on that project and the PDF associated to it. MapOffice™ has become the go to location for spatial information.
All municipal governments face the challenge of how to prioritize infrastructure maintenance work. Everything from road repairs to sewer lining to water main upgrades have to be itemized in the annual budget, and as such tend to be managed as unrelated projects. Unfortunately, this method can result in inefficient project planning because a particular component might be repaired in one year, only to be dug up again the next year to complete a different project.
GIS is well-suited to assist local governments with this challenge, as the Village of Lincolnshire can illustrate. First, the Village paid outside contractors to collect data on its road infrastructure and a portion of its sanitary sewer. Next, it used GIS to conduct an in-house analysis of the spatial distribution of water main breaks. Finally, GIS was used to combine all of the findings to pinpoint locations where multiple problems are occurring. Some clear patterns emerged, which made it easy for the Village engineers to prioritize their project plans for the coming year.
This analysis led to a larger discussion with the Village board about infrastructure management. Using maps and statistics, Village staff members were able to demonstrate to the trustees how the road and sanitary surveys augmented their decision-making abilities. Further, the presentation justified the planned studies on storm water retention and more of the sanitary system. Once all of the studies are completed, GIS will be used to aggregate the data and look for spatial patterns throughout the Village. The findings allow for a holistic approach to infrastructure management, avoiding needless waste of time and resources in areas that have multiple issues to address.
The Village of Morton Grove’s engineering department recently called upon its geographic information system (GIS) to support its 2013 street light bidding project. This year the Village is looking to contract out more than 300 of its street lights along Dempster St, Waukegan Rd, Ferris Ave, and Lincoln Ave. GIS was used to provide supporting materials to contractors bidding on the project.
To assist in the bidding process, GIS first inventoried all of the street lights within the contract boundaries on each respective street. Each boundary is defined by a street light controller that provides power to all of the street lights on its grid. Additionally some Village owned parking lots were included. The next step was to assign a unique identification number to each street light based off of original plans as well as the physical address of the controller. This provides a way for contractors to easily distinguish which light they are performing work on and will assist in managing the plethora of street lights in a given area.
Without the use of GIS there would be no quick and efficient way to not only display the street lights spatially but to maintain a multitude of attributes for management purposes. Keeping these two paired together is where the strength of GIS really is.
In local government, preparing a department’s budget for an upcoming fiscal year can be challenging considering all the unknown variables that determine the available funds for both operational and special project work, such as tax revenue and unexpected capital expenditures. This planning process can be complicated further if information on the quantity and quality of the assets being budgeted is incomplete, unknown, or inaccurate. To assist with developing a more accurate supply budget for pavement marking maintenance, the City of Des Plaines, IL Engineering Department asked the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to assist with developing a database that could be used to track the actual location of the pavement markings that the city is responsible for maintaining in order to more accurately track the amount of materials needed to conduct maintenance on each marking.
The city did not have an existing inventory to work with, either in digital or paper form, so the GIS department was free to develop a solution that could be tailored to the information requested for collection by the Engineering Department. To this end, a file geodatabase was setup which contained information on the type of marking being collected (i.e. stop bar), the color of the marking (i.e. white), and the length of the marking, which was measured automatically within GIS. To collect this information, internal Engineering Department staff already familiar with how to use the desktop GIS software was trained on how to enter information into the database, while using resources such as the city’s aerial imagery and recently updated Google Street View imagery, to determine where each marking was located and what type of marking it is.
By systematically going through the city and drawing in these markings, the Engineering Department staff was able to develop a comprehensive marking inventory that could be easily analyzed and reviewed in a spatial environment. Viewing and managing the information this way gives context to where the marking is located, allowing for better coordination between marking maintenance and other department projects, such as road reconstruction or utility system improvements.
Sidewalks are an important part of any neighborhood, especially one that is heavily urbanized. Residents need to have a safe option of getting around locally without always relying on something that has four wheels. At a recent Village Board meeting, the issue of some local streets not having sidewalks was brought to the village’s attention. A study was then requested to locate areas of the village that were missing sidewalks, and GIS was the tool selected in order to locate these sidewalk gaps.
For this study, only village owned streets were used. Carriage walks were considered existing sidewalks and treated as such. Using a variety of spatial queries based on existing GIS data, locations were found that contained sidewalk gaps on these local streets. The data was then broken down into three possible categories; The street could have sidewalks on both sides, a sidewalk on one side, or no sidewalks on either side. There also was a pattern of sidewalks existing in front of one house but not the next. Intermittent sidewalks seemed to be common throughout much of the community. Finally, the total number of linear feet of sidewalk gaps was calculated and a map was created for use at the next Committee of the Whole meeting. By using GIS, tedious and time consuming work by village staff of going block by block looking for sidewalk gaps and then calculating the total number of linear feet of those gaps was avoided.
The Village of Oak Brook and the local Butler School District have been diligently working over the past few months to determine the feasibility of adding a new school on Oak Brook Sports Core property. In order to determine whether or not it would be possible, there was a considerable amount of analysis pertaining to the amount of available property, ease of access, available detention, and determining the general layout of the actual school grounds. The majority of the preliminary analysis was done in house between Village Engineers and GIS staff in order to keep cost down before entering the actual planning phase. As a result there were multitudes of general site layout maps generated. But as the planning process moved further along, the required maps and statistics became more advanced because the property was determined feasible for development. One of the final phases of analysis that was done internally, prior to the hiring of an architecture company, was the determination of required detention for new development.
At this point in the project a general site plan had been proposed, which included the calculation for approximate impervious surface area. By taking the calculation of impervious surface area, Village Engineers and GIS staff were able to determine the amount of detention area that will be required for new development, based off of the elevation statistics from an already existing detention area. Once the approximate required detention area was determined, the GIS specialist was able to use lidar elevation data to determine an already existing area, which would require the minimum amount of earth being moved to support the required detention. As shown in the image, the blue area is the required detention area, which is surrounded by a red line representing the total amount of area including the surrounding retention burm. By using GIS we were able to complete this analysis in less than two hours at the cost of day to day staffing. Had a consultant been used, it would have required them to spend extended time in the field, which would then require additional time to process the data and development maps and statistics.
Lake Cook Rd and Waukegan Rd, two of Deerfield’s busiest roads, will be undergoing construction this year as part of the Lake Cook Road Construction Project.* The Waukegan Rd portion of the project will feature three stages of construction, with alternating lane closures and changing traffic patterns. Likewise, the Lake Cook Rd portion of the project will feature lane closures and changes to traffic patterns during its four stages of construction.
Due to the high traffic volume and abundance of businesses along these roads, the Lake Cook Road Construction Project will affect many motorists and business owners alike. Thus, the Village has asked the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Department to create a series of maps depicting not only the extent of construction, but also the lane closures and temporary traffic patterns that will take effect throughout each stage of construction. The creation of these maps through GIS allows the public to have a better understanding of how they will be impacted throughout the duration of the construction project.
*Construction is slated to begin in the spring of 2013. At this time, all phases of construction are proposals and subject to change.
Having the largest business park in the nation provides Elk Grove Village, IL many benefits as a community and initiating improvements to make it even more desirable to current and future business owners is an ongoing objective of Village staff. In 2011 the Village began planning for a major drainage system improvement program. In many ways they have utilized their geographic information system (GIS) to support those efforts.
With GIS the Engineering and Public Works staff was able to identify the location of existing storm sewer infrastructure and open ditch locations, generate statistics and measurements, trace the flow of runoff from any point along the system, map the connectivity and extent of each drainage basin, and produce maps for the business park as a whole and each basin within that area of town to its exit point. Using the GIS gave staff the tools to thoroughly understand the existing conditions and plan a program budget to prepare future improvements and to maintain the existing system.
The City of Highland Park now tracks Road Jurisdictions with the use of GIS! Originally, this data was only visible to staff through a paper map that was printed and delivered to each department. If a resident would call into the Highland Park office asking who maintains there road, they would need to pull out a large paper map with a street index and manually look through the street list to find its jurisdiction. They may have also needed to contact an Engineer for further information. These road maps could also be lost or damaged from use. This process was time intensive and left the resident waiting on a response. With the use of GIS, this process has been drastically improved. No longer does the staff of Highland Park staff need to rely on a large paper map!
Through MapOffice™ Advanced, all Highland Park staff can access the “Road Jurisdiction” layer and visually see who maintains each road. This data was accessed through GIS and brought into MapOffice™ Advanced for Highland Park staff use. Now there is a new custom layer within the “Layers” drop down called “Road Jurisdiction” that when turned on will show the jurisdictions by color code. Red is Highland Park, Purple is Cook County, Green is IDOT and Blue is Private. When a road is clicked on a pop-up window will appear with information pertaining to that road. It is now easy and clear to see who maintains each road.
With GIS, Highland Park staff is able to dramatically cut down the time it would have taken to locate this information on a paper map. With this new change, the residents are benefit from finding out the information faster and with much ease. Finding a Road Jurisdiction is now just a click away for Highland Park!
In 2011, Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) collected a community-wide inventory of the Village of Glenview’s road signs. As a result, Public Works now has an inventory of just over 9,000 signs mounted on 5,500 posts throughout the Village. Yet this is only the first step in the process. Public Works is now responsible for maintaining this database so that it continues to be an accurate, reliable source of information. Plus, they want to be able to share this information with other staff members quickly and easily. Since the inventory is in a format easily consumed by GIS software, the logical first step was to load it into MapOffice™ Advanced.
In this easy-to-use web-based program, the sign inventory is available to all Glenview staff by turning on a custom overlay. Sign locations are represented on the map by a point, which is symbolized according to the sign’s function (regulatory, warning, guide, or other). To get details on an individual sign, the user clicks on the point to pull up an information box. For locations with multiple signs on the same post, the user simply clicks a link in the information box to toggle through all of the options.
While a final decision on how to maintain the sign inventory has not been made yet, one option for Public Works is to use the “Request an update” tool in MapOffice™ Advanced. This tool allows the user to send updates directly to the GIS staff, along with a map and any markups that the requestor draws in. With its easy-to-use interface, MapOffice™ Advanced allows people of any technical skill level to help maintain a complex inventory with ease.
The Village of Oak Brook is currently looking into solutions for a problem with traffic congestion in an area of town that gets very busy during rush hour. As a result, Village engineers have been tasked to develop various ideas to provide some relief to the high volume of traffic in the area. A few ideas have included widening the road, adding traffic lights, and creating a roundabout at the affected intersection. Being that there is a bridge to the south of the intersection, the idea to widen the road is not feasible. Additionally, the Illinois Department of Transportation denied the idea of an additional streetlight at the intersection. That left the idea of a roundabout still on the table, which is somewhat unconventional in this area, but still a very effective means of controlling traffic.
In order to get a better idea of how the roundabout would look and work, the Village hired an outside consulting company to come in an provide a plan for what the roundabout would look like, how big it would be, and what it would cost. In order to facilitate their research, the GIS specialist provided them with the necessary layers for their analysis, some of which included; contour lines, property boundaries, imagery, and all utility systems. Once their engineers were able to draft a drawing in CAD it was provided to the Village in both paper and digital formats.
Once the Village received the CAD drawings they wanted to know how it would affect current property boundaries in case the Village would need to acquire new land or an easement. As a result the GIS specialist was tasked with converting the data to a compatible format and analyzing the total area affected. By intersecting the roundabout proposal and current property boundaries, they were able to determine the amount of land affected and who owned it. This information was will now be taken into consideration when ultimately determining whether or not this roundabout will be constructed. Without GIS, this type of analysis would not have been possible and the consulting company would have charged considerably more to develop the data which provided the concept plan.
During the past year, Glenview’s GIS program has been working closely with Capital Projects staff to develop a comprehensive inventory of its roads. In the past, GIS has assisted by weighing a range of criteria that influence the priorities for annual resurfacing and reconstruction projects. This annual project created opportunities for a careful review, reorganization, and expansion of the existing GIS data. In turn, Glenview reached a point this summer where it was able to easily share the inventory with the rest of the Village staff.
In August, GIS released a new custom overlay for MapOffice™ Advanced called “Road Inventory.” When staff members turn on this layer, they get a quick view of the relative age of every road in the Village. Warm colors (reds and oranges) represent older roads in the Village, while cool colors (yellows and greens) depict roads that were constructed or reconstructed more recently. If users want more information, they can click on a specific road segment to pull up its surface and overall ratings (as assessed in 2011by Infrastructure Management Services) as well as a known history of work completed.
The next step for Glenview is to integrate data on its Minor Area Resurfacing Strategy (MARS), pavement patching, and crack sealing projects. The staff also plans to make this data available to the public via MapOffice™ to increase transparency in how the Village manages its more than 167 miles of roadway.
In an effort to encourage municipalities to go above and beyond the minimum requirements set by FEMA for flood mitigation, NFIP (National Flood Insurance Program) offers a voluntary program that provides incentives for municipalities to reduce flood risk. In order to receive the offered discounts on flood insurance premium rates, Village staff must provide proof that they are actively analyzing, managing, and mitigating flood events on a regular basis. Much of the report consists of paper work and spreadsheets proving that Village staff has been actively responding to flood complaints, planning for future events, and maintaining infrastructure that prevents flooding. Additionally, there is a series of maps and datasets that are managed in GIS, which assist Village engineers in flood mitigation. Therefore the CRS report requires specific map and datasets displaying the information that supports flood mitigation.
Since the Village has been actively managing and analyzing the floodplain, it was quite easy to merge a bunch of existing datasets into a single map in order to show the way in which GIS supports flood mitigation.
As shown in the image, the Village’s GIS maintains layers such as flood boundaries, building drip lines, parcel data, elevation data, and impervious surface data amongst many other things. All of these features allow for analysis on past flood events, which in return provides information to mitigate future flood events. For example, by referencing this data the Village engineers can quickly find out which homes are in the floodplain, what the drainage situation on their property consists of, and what the odds of a major flood event occurring on their property might be. This information is then used to plan future development and fix issues in current problem areas. Without the use of GIS, the engineers would have to rely heavily on outdate maps, manual calculations, and extended research in the field.
Traditionally the City maintained benchmark locations in binder containing individual sheets of benchmark locations. Whenever there was a question about the location of a benchmark, an Engineer would search through the binder. The process was slightly improved when the sheets were scanned as PDFs and saved to a directory. It was quicker to search for images in the directory but it was still a manual process to locate a specific image.
The GIS Office suggested that the benchmark locations be converted to a point a file that hyperlinked to the PDF files. The GIS office used the coordinates from the PDFs to create a location for each benchmark. The benchmark points contained a field that links to the correlated PDF. Once the benchmark layer was created, it was added to MapOffice™ Advanced as custom overly. Now the Engineers had a tool where they could type in an address and easily locate the nearest benchmark.
The benchmark overlay was well received by the Engineering Division and they requested that it also be added to the Public Map Office site. This will allow people who need to locate a benchmark to find it themselves without contacting the City. The benchmark layer made The City’s employees workflows more efficient for the City Engineers. Once the benchmarks are on the Public MapOffice it will also make it easier for residents and other users to quickly locate a benchmark.
Every year the City of Lake Forest requests a map to illustrate roads that are being planned for resurfacing. These maps help manage the spatial distribution of where these resurfacing projects are occurring. Poor road conditions are an issue for all communities and by ensuring residents that these conditions are being recognized can assist in exceling the government-public relationship.
The requested map illustrates the proposed 5 year pavement resurfacing program ranging from 2012 to 2016. The engineering department provided a spreadsheet defining all road segments that were planned for surfacing along with their proposal data. Line features were then created based on the spreadsheet specifications. Being able to visualize areas with a high resurfacing occurrence allows engineering staff to determine if their past replacements were effective, as well as to target new resurfacing areas in the coming years. The proposed pavement resurfacing routes were grouped together by fiscal year, each year being symbolized by a different color.
The City of Lake Forest hopes to continue their resurfacing initiative to help ensure the yearly CIP funds are meeting the needs of the residents and city infrastructure.
The Village of Glenview approached GIS to collect the locations of outfalls throughout the Village for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program. NPDES controls water pollution by regulating sources that discharge pollutants.
The Village decided to use a new method of collection, called Open Data Kit (ODK), using cellular phones. ODK allows the use of GPS on cellular phones along with the creation of forms to collect attribute data. Collected during the process were the GPS locations, photos of each outfall, and a unique ID of each. This data was then transferred off the phone to a staging location on the internet that allows exporting of the data to be used in GIS. GIS then used this data to create a series of maps to show the locations of the outfalls.
The Village found this process to be very cost effective while maintaining the accuracy that they were seeking.
Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators (JULIE) is a not-for-profit corporation that provides homeowners and professional excavators with one place to call for safe digging. JULIE serves as a message handling notification service for underground facility owners, taking information about planned excavations and distributing this information to its membership. It is then the responsibility of each facility owner to mark the location of their underground facilities at the excavation site. In Norridge, this means that every time JULIE receives a call, the Public Works department has to go out and do all the locating. JULIE bases the calls (and the facility owner) off of a series of boundaries that are based off of Township Quarter sections. If an underground facility is just barely within a quarter section boundary, the facility owner receives a phone call every time utilities need to be located within that quarter section, even if the location is not near the owned facilities. JULIE allows communities and other facility owners to submit their own boundaries to reduce the amount of calls each facility owner receives.
To create a new JULIE boundary, the GIS department took all the village utility data and created a 300 FT buffer around the utility dataset and the village boundary. This made sure that all the utility information within the village boundaries was included, and allowed for any unaccounted utility information just outside the village limits. The new boundary was then approved by both the Engineering and Public Works Departments, and then uploaded onto the JULIE website. It was then approved by JULIE and implemented into their call system. Now, whenever the Public Works department gets a call to locate utilities, they know that the location will be within or very close to their jurisdiction.
In 2011, The Village of Wheeling hired MDS Technologies to drive around the village and collect data related to the village streets and sidewalks. A few months back, the Village used Pavement Condition Index (PCI) numbers that were part of the data delivery, to determine what street sections in the village were in the most need of repair. Another part of this data delivery, which was received at a later date, was as series of images taken for each section of the Village owned road. The Capital Projects department was interested if there was a way to associate the images to their exact location and for them to be able to select each location and see the corresponding images.
MDS Technologies provided the Village of Wheeling with over 100,000 GPS points, each with a link to an image using a unique ID number. All of the points were mapped in MapOffice™ Advanced; the village’s in-house mapping software. Each of these points then had a hyperlink, that when clicked, opened up the corresponding image from the village servers. This allows the Village’s Capital Projects department, as well as others, to click on a section of Village owned road and then view the associated pavement image. Without an interactive map and GIS, the village would not be able to view the images without having to search through the system folders to find each image based off an ID system.
The Village of Oak Brook has ordinances in place that require a certain amount of area on each property designated for storm water drainage. Typically the Village requires a certain percentage of a given property to be a pervious surface in an effort to reduce overland flow of storm water. If the property is not able to meet this level of pervious surface, then they are often instructed to create detention on the property to hold excess water in the event of heavy rain. When existing or new developments want to create or expand their impervious surfaces, the Village must verify that they are doing so within the set regulations. Typically these approvals are done by reviewing the proposed building plans, or as-built. But recently there was a discrepancy brought up by a property owner over the proposed addition of new parking on his neighboring property. In order to give the complainant proof of his neighbor meeting the impervious surface regulations, GIS was brought in to analyze the total area and provide a map and statistics displaying the results of the analysis.
By using the planimetric data that the Village acquired in 2009, the GIS specialist was able to get measurements of all pervious and impervious surfaces that fall within the property. These surfaces included: parking, sidewalks, green areas, and the building itself. Once these statistics were gathered, the planned parking improvements were added to the current statistics, resulting in the total proposed impervious surface for the given property. Once these numbers were reviewed by Village engineers, it was confirmed that the property met the regulations set by the Village and construction could move forward. Without the use of GIS, valuable time would have been spent in the field gathering these measurements and analyzing them in a non-spatial format. GIS allowed for the quick and accurate gathering of all information, with the added benefit of graphic representations to support the findings.
The Village of Oak Brook is currently reviewing the proposed flood insurance rate map (FIRM) for the new 100 year flood plain. The last time the FIRM was updated was in 2004 and it is necessary to review and prepare for any changes that may occur within the boundaries provided by the County. In order to get an idea of what properties and homes will be added or removed from the floodplain, it is important to do in depth analysis and comparisons of the 2004 FIRM to the proposed 2012 FIRM. It was determined by Village engineers that the best method to do so would be to use GIS to perform spatial analysis on both boundaries and their intersecting buildings and properties.
The first step to analyzing the change was to obtain both the 2004 boundary and the proposed 2012 boundary in GIS format and figure out which buildings and properties each boundary intersected. By using the County provided property identification number (PIN), we were able to compare what has changed from 2004 to 2012. We were then able to join this information to the zoning layer in order to determine the type of buildings and properties that are within each floodplain. This information has proved quite valuable to the Village when determining which areas of the proposed floodplain need to be objected to before being made official. Without GIS this type of spatial analysis would be virtually impossible, and certainly couldn’t be performed in the time frame and with the limited personnel the Village was able to commit to.
For years Elk Grove Village has been maintaining a database to track roadway pavement history and ratings. With their Geographic Information System (GIS) they have been able to integrate the database information into a geographic representation on their roadways which allows for maps to be generated showing the results of a query for specific surface material, base material, maintenance frequency, etc. Using the flexibility of their interactive mapping program the GIS staff has made the pavement history available to all staff. Simply clicking on any road segment will list the years in which maintenance was performed and specifics about each maintenance activity saving staff time to gather the desired information.
The Village of Oak Brook has ordinances in place to ensure that no significant change in land use or elevation is done without having to go through an approval and permit process. Recently there has been a discrepancy between a resident and their neighbor because of alleged land change. A resident believes that water accumulation in their backyard is the result of a neighbor increasing the slope of land where the two yards meet. As a result of the discrepancy, Village engineers had to come up with a way to determine whether or not there was a change in land by reviewing elevation data spanning from 2002 to 2011.
The Village only has 1 foot elevation data that was captured in 2011 and needed a source of similar quality dating back at least 8 years. By searching through various plat books the engineer was able to locate a survey that included 1 foot contours, dating back to 2002. In order to compare the two sets of elevation data, the GIS specialist was able to scan and trace the elevation data from the plat dating back to 2002. Once the data was converted into a GIS format, the specialist created a map displaying both the 2011 and the 2002 elevation data layered over each other. The engineer was then able to review any significant changes in elevation that would cause a drainage problem in the neighboring yard. By using GIS, the Village was able to determine and display the fact that the elevation between the two yards has not significantly changed over the past 9 year, and any further discrepancies would have to be held privately between the two neighbors.
The Village of Glencoe is home to three ravine systems that drain into Lake Michigan. The property owners along each ravine enjoy scenic views of wooden areas with free-flowing streams at the base of steeply sloped bluffs. These bluffs are at risk for degradation if careless development by a private landowner occurs. Recognizing the inherent risk to life, property, and the local ecology, the Village proposed a new ordinance in the fall of 2010 to encourage best practices in steep-slope development. The “steep slope ordinance,” as it came to be known, encouraged the use of building techniques that would reinforce and stabilize the ground. However, many property owners felt that the ordinance would infringe on their personal property rights. In response to their objections, the Village board tabled the ordinance indefinitely.
To address resident concerns, GIS is being used to illustrate the impact of the proposed ordinance on a property-by-property basis. Once the map is complete, Village staff will meet with the affected residents individually and use a custom overlay in MapOffice™ Advanced to show the ordinance’s impact on each property. This overlay will show that the proposed ordinance will not limit private property development any further than the current geography already does. Dashed lines are used to depict the approximate limits: the orange line shows the threshold for using caution when developing, and the red line indicates the point where any proposed development will be required to use specialized building techniques that mitigate the risk of landslides. This use of GIS should help educate the public so that the ordinance can be enacted to protect the local ecology as well as life and property.
The City of Lake Forest recently began a project to help determine the costs and effects of water main construction projects in relation to water main breaks. Water main breaks are an issue for all communities, and ensuring residents that the most needed areas are being repaired is an important part of government-public relations.
The GIS department used existing data for water main breaks over the past ten years, and coupled that with previous Capital Improvement projects for water main replacements. Being able to visualize areas with a high occurrence of main breaks allows engineering staff to determine if their water main replacements were effective, as well as to target new water mains to be repaired in the coming years.
To take the project one step further, main breaks and CIP projects were grouped together by fiscal year and associated to their respective wards. Costs per ward could then be determined to ensure there is a fair distribution of funds and necessary repairs among the City’s four wards.
The City hopes to continue this type of project in the years to come to ensure yearly CIP funds are meeting the needs of the residents and City infrastructure.
The Village of Oak Brook regularly experiences a large number of drainage complaints during the rainy seasons. As a result a lot of time and man power is allocated to researching and resolving the cause of drainage complaints. In an effort to stay ahead of the complaints, Village engineers and the GIS specialist came up with a method of mapping out overland flow paths on private property, along with identifying low lying areas that may potentially gather and hold water accumulation.
As shown in the image, the GIS specialist used a digital elevation model (DEM), along with 1 ft. contour lines to determine the direction in which water will potentially travel through residents’ back yards. By following the contours of the earth, the water will most often lead you to the street, a water body, or a low lying area. By pre-determining the most likely direction of travel, engineers can plan new installations of storm sewer utilities or advise a resident on possible solutions for low lying spots within their yard. This information is valuable to Village engineers because they can not only plan for future capital improvements, but can also research and resolve drainage issues much easier and sometimes without even having to go into the field.
In 2011, The Village of Wheeling hired MDS Technologies to drive around the village and collect data related to the village streets and sidewalks. Pictures were taken of each village street using a special vehicle and each street was assigned a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) Number. The numbers range from 1, which is the lowest and correlates to the street needing a lot of work, to 100 which is the highest and means that the street is in perfect condition. The village received a report giving a PCI rating to each street, or section of street that they owned. Although the ratings are helpful to see what individual streets are in most need of resurfacing, the engineering department wanted to see which neighborhoods needed the most work.
Using village subdivisions, the streets were clipped and then combined into different groups based off the subdivision boundaries. Instead of just taking the average of all the PCI ratings in each subdivision, the engineering department wanted to get a weighted average based off the area of pavement for each street within the subdivision. This would give the department a better idea of which subdivisions would have the most pavement to resurface as opposed to one small street with a very low PCI rating bringing the average down. By using GIS, the Village of Wheeling was able to compile a lot of data from an outside source and turn it into a way of determining which subdivisions in the village need the most street resurfacing.
Pozzolan is a material, when combined with calcium hydroxide, exhibits the properties of cement and is commonly used as an addition to concrete mixtures for road base. During the late 60’s and early 70’s, The Village of Wheeling used pozzolan in many of its roads that were built or reconstructed at that time. Eventually, the roads that were built with pozzolanic material started to crack and break apart due to the amount of moisture that pozzolanic material retains. Even when the roads were resurfaced, the material would cause it to crack and shift after a few years. This resulted in the roads having to be resurfaced more frequently. The Village decided that it would eventually have to rebuild the base of all roads built with pozzolanic material that haven’t been rebuilt already.
The engineering department requested that a map be created showing the locations of all roads known to still contain pozzolanic material. The department also requested that the area of each road surface be calculated so a replacement cost could be estimated for all the pozzolanic roads. Using existing base data, the roads were mapped out and then using the area of the road surface, replacement estimations were made. By using GIS, the Village of Wheeling was able to quickly map out the locations of roads built with pozzolanic material and then create an accurate cost estimate for replacing the material.
Most municipal governments don’t have a local water source they can access directly to supply their residents and businesses, so, as a result, they are forced to purchase water from surrounding municipalities that do have access or regional utility management agencies who pump it in from outside locations. As the economy continues to struggle, the fees and costs associated with managing a government, including those used to purchase and distribute water, continue to rise. For the City of Des Plaines, IL, which receives its water from the City of Chicago, this rising cost of purchasing water has lead the city’s Public Works and Engineering Department to start examining alternative supply sources to ensure it can adequately supply water with the same amount of funds moving forward.
To assist with reviewing the available alternate water sources, the Public Works and Engineering Department asked the city’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to create a map showing both the source location of the water, as well as proposed distributions systems for supplying the water to the city and its neighbors. While the initial analysis of where the water would come from was done before the map was created, being able to visualize all the proposed sources and their associated system enhancements provided the department with a tool for presenting each supply option to the city council in an engaging and easy-to-understand format that allowed to council to better understand the options available to the city. Without using GIS to design the water source scenario map, discussing the water supply information, while still possible, would have been more time consuming for the department staff to prepare for and, potentially, more difficult for the council members to understand.
Every year, the Village of Norridge has a set amount of money, based on different sources, which they can use for repaving streets. For 2012, the Village has determined a list of what streets they would like to pave with the option to modify the list based on actual costs. The list was based off of a variety of factors such as age, pavement condition, and location. The Village of Norridge used maps created by the GIS department to help with their decision.
In the past, the GIS department has created a series of maps showing which streets in the Village have been paved, and in which year. The map has each year, from 1993 onward, as a different color highlight. This allows any user to quickly determine when a street was last paved. By using this map, in conjunction with field checks, the Village was able to determine a list of the ideal streets to repave. A new map was created showing the previously paved streets, as well as the proposed streets for 2012. This map allows the village board to see what is planned and if any changes need to be made. By using GIS, the Village of Norridge was able to visualize pavement projects from the past and use it to help determine future pavement projects.
Being able to get access to useful information at a moment’s notice is something of a common trend these days. The only problem that really arises is when the information you are searching for is not yet created. As technology advances, so do the amount of portals that are created to store mass amounts of information. One type of portal that has been around for a long time is a Geographical Information System (GIS). This type of information portal does not only store tabular data but it also represents this tabular data in a spatial environment so that correlations can be made between the different types of data on the ground.
The City of Park Ridge, IL has been using a GIS for many years now but they always seem to find new information that is worth adding to the system in order to answer everyday questions or conduct detailed analysis. One of the newer additions of data to the GIS is the collection of relief sewer locations. This data is important to the Engineering Department in order to understand where these relief sewers are located in relation to other sewer lines as well as how they are helping the overall flow of storm water in a certain area. Older methods would have usually required the City Engineering Department to dig up and review old as-builts and document where these lines are located. Now the information is stored in the GIS and is as easy as looking at a map for their review and analysis. A once labor intensive process has now been made more efficient with the help of GIS.
The Village of Oak Brook has recently sparked interest in developing more sidewalks throughout the Village, specifically within subdivisions controlled by home owners associations. The idea is to develop a shared cost program in which the Village and the home owners association split the costs of adding new sidewalks in subdivisions where they did not previously exist. Before the proposal can even be brought to the home owners association, the Village needed to create a rough design and calculate approximate costs so that further discussions can be had. In an effort to maximize cost and time efficiencies, Village engineers requested that the GIS department create a map displaying the locations of the proposed sidewalks, along with the approximate square yardage and costs for the entire project.
Using already existing driveway, parkway, parcel, and road data, the Village’s GIS specialist was able to design the layout of the proposed sidewalks to scale. And by using various GIS tools, a calculation of the total square yardage of concrete needed, as well as the total area of driveway and turf repair or replacement was developed. Then by using the current going rate of concrete, asphalt, sod and labor, the total cost of the sidewalks were calculated for the entire subdivision. By staying in-house and using the Village’s GIS, they were able to get this project done quick and efficiently in comparison to hiring an outside engineering consultant or drafting the design by hand. This was especially important when considering the project and design are not final and face the possibility of not being approved by the home owners association.
To continue efforts to understand and help manage flooding in The Village of Riverside the history of permits for flood mitigation devices for residential properties were extracted from The Village’s permitting system. Using the Geographic Information System (GIS) the locations of the private property mitigation permits were mapped. Combining this information with other flood related data such as backyard ponding reports, improved surfaces, contours, and sewer infrastructure that The Village has been accumulating and mapping gives a more detailed picture of all factors involved in the ongoing flood mitigation efforts and provides for more effective solutions.
The City of Lake Forest recently began a project to help determine the costs and effects of water main construction projects in relation to water main breaks. Water main breaks are an issue for all communities, and ensuring residents that the most needed areas are being repaired is an important part of government-public relations.
The GIS department used existing data for water main breaks over the past ten years, and coupled that with previous Capital Improvement projects for water main replacements. Being able to visualize areas with a high occurrence of main breaks allows engineering staff to determine if their water main replacements were effective, as well as to target new water mains to be repaired in the coming years.
To take the project one step further, main breaks and CIP projects were grouped together by fiscal year and associated to their respective wards. Costs per ward could then be determined to ensure there is a fair distribution of funds and necessary repairs among the City’s four wards.
The City hopes to continue this type of project in the years to come, ensuring yearly CIP funds are meeting the needs of the residents and City infrastructure.
For local governments, updating and replacing components of publically funded services, such as utility systems and roads, is critical for maintaining the overall well being of the community and the happiness of its residents. One example of how a community can determine which component of a system may need to be replaced is by tracking breaks that occur within the water system mains. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Water and Electric Department, tracking this information is critical when developing a construction budget from year to year and for highlighting potential problem areas that may require future improvements. To assist with determining which water mains should be considered for replacement in the most recent budget year, the village Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to generate a map highlighting all the mains in the village that had recorded breaks over the past 25 years.
Using previously mapped water main data and the recorded water main break locations, the GIS department was able to link individual main break records to specific water mains. Once the break records were linked to the main data, the number of breaks per main could be calculated and used for mapping across the village. An additional component that needed to be considered as part of the budgeting process was past water system improvements that were not captured by the raw main break data. By factoring in system mains that were already replaced or repaired during previous years, the GIS department was able to filter out numerous main breaks that would have otherwise been included in the analysis, thereby providing a more accurate product that reflected the true number of breaks within the system.
Using GIS to analyze the water main break information tracked by the Water and Electric department provided a powerful analysis and visualization tool for viewing this information across the entire village. Providing a spatial, easy-to-understand final product allowed department staff to make more informed decisions regarding the next year’s construction budget, leading to more responsible fiscal spending and better resource management.
The Village of Riverside has been coordinating with the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) since the summer of 2010 to plan removal of the Hofmann and Fairbank Dams along the Des Plaines River in Riverside. The Village has utilized its Geographic Information System (GIS) to create maps that express their desired alignment of access roads and seeding paths to minimize the impact of construction activities on the landscape and existing infrastructure. Using GIS, The Village’s tree inventory and other important data could be shared with the ACE and IDNR to ease design efforts for regarding of Swan Pond Park, also located along the Des Plaines River in Riverside.
The Village of Lincolnwood recently began collecting a village wide sign inventory. This inventory looks at satisfying a federal mandate requiring communities to establish and implement a sign inventory by January 2012. Using the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) software installed on a Toughbook laptop, Public Works employees have been able to collect 75% of the Village’s signs in less than one month while only working on this project part time. Advances in software have allowed the Village to “check out” software that could not be used in a disconnected environment in the past. Additionally, only a couple hours of training and map setup were required for this project. The Village is collecting data including sign location, type, size, condition, visibility and much more.
More information about the federal requirements can be found through the Federal Highway Administration’s website.
For local governments, updating and replacing components of publically funded services, such as utility systems and roads, is critical for maintaining the overall well being of the community and the happiness of its residents. One example of how a community can determine which component of a system may need to be replaced is by tracking breaks that occur within the water system mains. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Water and Electric Department, tracking this information is critical when developing a construction budget from year to year and for highlighting potential problem areas that may require future improvements. To assist with determining which water mains should be considered for replacement in the most recent budget year, the village Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to generate a map highlighting all the mains in the village that had recorded breaks over the past 25 years.
Using previously mapped water main data and the recorded water main break locations, the GIS department was able to link individual main break records to specific water mains. Once the break records were linked to the main data, the number of breaks per main could be calculated and used for mapping across the village. An additional component that needed to be considered as part of the budgeting process was past water system improvements that were not captured by the raw main break data. By factoring in system mains that were already replaced or repaired during previous years, the GIS department was able to filter out numerous main breaks that would have otherwise been included in the analysis, thereby providing a more accurate product that reflected the true number of breaks within the system.
Using GIS to analyze the water main break information tracked by the Water and Electric department provided a powerful analysis and visualization tool for viewing this information across the entire village. Providing a spatial, easy-to-understand final product allowed department staff to make more informed decisions regarding the next year’s construction budget, leading to more responsible fiscal spending and better resource management.
Any storm event that disrupts day to day operations can often spur local government to investigate solutions to help mitigate future problems. After a major emergency event that occurred on July 23rd 2011 caused significant flood damage to the Village of Winnetka, IL, the village’s Public Works Department began looking at options for improving its storm water utility system to help reduce the impacts of future flooding. As part of the investigative process, department staff is required to present all options under consideration to the general public as a way to show progress. To assist with these presentations, the village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to create a map showing all project locations to help provide the public with a tool for visualizing the proposed improvements.
After working with an engineering firm to determine areas of need and design the new storm water system components, the Public Works staff provided the GIS department with each project location and requested a map product that was easy to understand in order provide the public with a preview of the changes without confusing things with too many details. Using a basic street map of the community, the project streets and the surrounding areas impacted by the proposed construction were highlighted and color coded based on the projected impact they would have on the village’s flood mitigation plan. Showing the information this way provides context for how each project will improve flood control in the village and help to reduce the risk of future flood damages.
The Village of Oak Brook handles dozens of drainage complaints annually, many of which involve multiple properties or even entire subdivisions. A few causes of these drainage problems vary from sump pump backup or failure, heavy rains, damaged storm utilities, and river or stream flood events. In order give the highest degree of service to its residents, the Village does its best to review and provide a solution for all of the drainage complaints and issues. One issue that has been affecting approximately 8 homes within single subdivision has been hot topic as of recently. The issue has to do with a pond overflowing during heavy rain events into a street and across residents’ backyards. Multiple scenarios have been brought forward as to why this pond has a tendency to overflow, but no solid solution could be found during a drainage study of the 4 contributing watersheds. Although no single solution was found, it was determined that the storm utilities were clogged or damaged and the overland flow of water was one of the results.
As shown in the image, 1 foot contours and lidar elevation points were used to determine the areas that the water crested over the road and then traveled through the backyards. Once the direction and area of flow was determined, village engineers were able to walk the path of overland flow and develop ideas as to how and where drainage swales could be added of modified. By cleaning out the storm utilities and modifying the land that the water flows over, the Village hopes to alleviate some of the excessive flooding that has been occurring in the backyards of these residents. Without GIS and lidar data the Village would have needed a land survey which would have cost into the thousands of dollars without a guaranteed solution.
Home owners are almost always looking for ways to change their home in order to make it a better fit for them and their family. At times it is a simple fix within the home and at other times it is more complex, for example, constructing an addition to the existing building footprint. Most of these types of upgrades require permits and inspections to be done by the local government in which the home resides. More serious upgrades may at times may require a full review of the property setbacks that are normal for the block on which the home is located. In the City of Park Ridge, IL one case in particular regarding an appilication for the rights to construct a garagae required this type of review.
The property under inspection was applying to have a garage installed in the back of their house which had an entrance off of a major road and not an alley. In keeping in compliance with city standards, the Community and Preservation Devlopment Department had to determine what the average home setbacks were from the road on one particular block in order to ensure that the applicant was not breaking the rules. The normal workflow is to measure the setbacks of each house on that block and decide if this new applicant is within compliance. The problem that arises is how to display this information properly to the Board of Appeals so they can understand the scenario first hand rather than just being told facts from a piece of paper. For this instance the use of the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Department was implemented to help map out the scenario as it is out in the field so that the reviewers of this specific case could easily decipher if the applicant was worthy of acceptance. Now, instead of trying to envision the problem at hand, the reviewers can see each property with its driveway and setback distance from the road. Thus making decisions easier to come by as well as highlighting the effectiveness of GIS mapping.
During the major snowstorm of February 2011, the Village of Norridge Public Works staff needed to start plowing the alleys so that residents could get their vehicles out of their garages. Unfortunately, the amount of snow prohibited staff from plowing them. The Village wanted to send notices to all residents along the alleys to assure them that they would be cleared of snow as soon as possible. The village did not have a current list of the addresses along the alleys and asked the GIS department to create a list that could be added to the village’s CTY Reverse 911 system.
First, the village staff, using aerial imagery and local knowledge, highlighted all the alleys within the village limits. Then, all the addresses with access to the alleys were added to a specific table. This table was then added to the village’s notification system allowing the village to contact just residents who live on the alleys to let them know of any specific events that only concern them. By using GIS, the village was able to quickly select all the residences that were attached to the alleys and add their addresses as a group, therefore eliminating the need to pick out each individual address anytime a notification had to be sent out.
When repaving village streets after maintenance or a repair, the Village of Wheeling typically has to take in account the amount of curb that has to be rebuilt or repaired. The price of the repairs depends on the length of the curb and the different types of aprons that feed into the street i.e. driveway, parking lot, sidewalk, etc… The engineering department wanted to know if there was an easier way to calculate the amount of curb length for each village owned street and get a count of the number of aprons along the roadway as well.
Using the base map data provided by Ayres Associates, all the curbs in the village were split by their respective roads. The amount of curb length split by the road boundaries was added to the road data table along with a count of any sidewalk, driveway, or parking lot that intersected the original road data. With the data all divided and organized, a map was created allowing an engineer to select a section of a road and then view a table showing the length of curb for that section and the number of aprons along the road. By using GIS, the Village of Wheeling was able to cut down the amount of time it would take to manually calculate curb length as well as provide a quick way to make estimates on the cost of repaving certain streets.
When people think about moving to a new neighborhood they almost always consider the aspect of safety for them and their family. Whether it is the speed of the local streets or whether or not there is a neighborhood watch group, safety is on every families mind. One item of safety that also tops the charts is how well a street is lighted. For if a street light is out or not functioning properly people are more likely to feel unsafe for they cannot see their surroundings. Additionally, they are likely to call their community’s Public Works Department and complain about the broken light.
From here the Public Works Department is going to send someone out to the field to fix the problem. For the Village of Morton Grove, IL they decided to make sure that the employee that will report to the broken light is amply prepared by knowing what control boxes operate which lights in case there is a need to close a circuit temporarily. The Village decided to use their Geographic Information System (GIS) to publish this information on their local interactive web mapping site so that any employee can locate the street lights and their connecting parts. Additionally, having these street light locations and underground lines mapped out allows other people to be notified of their whereabouts if they are to be digging in that area.
It is easy to see that GIS was able to help by creating a centralized location to access street light information rather than digging up old paper maps. Not only is this process efficient, it also helps in times of need.
Impervious surfaces are typically artificial structures, such as roads, sidewalks, driveways, etc… that are covered by in impenetrable materials like asphalt, concrete, and rooftops. These surfaces can become environmental concerns because they eliminate rainwater infiltration and groundwater recharge, resulting in a significant impact on flooding. The Village of Wheeling calculates the impervious surface area for each parcel whenever there is a plan for new construction. If any amount of new impervious surface area is planned, an equivalent amount of water retention area has to be created. Typically, the Village engineers would make these calculations by measuring the impervious surface area using engineering drawings. This process can take a significant amount of time and effort to get an accurate measurement. The Engineering department requested that something be created that would allow them to quickly get amount of impervious surface for each lot in the Village.
To create an impervious surface area, existing base data such as roads, driveways, sidewalks, and buildings were combined to form one impervious surface area feature. This feature was then clipped by the Village lot lines to separate the impervious surface area by each lot. The amount of impervious and pervious surface area was then calculated for each lot by comparing it to the overall square footage. By combining all the data and then doing one mass calculation, the engineering department does not have to spend time calculating each lot by hand. By using GIS, the engineering department can reference the calculations faster and with more accuracy.
On July 23rd, 2011, the Chicago, IL metropolitan area was hit by a storm system that resulted in extensive damage across numerous communities. As a community that received heavy flooding damage and experienced utility management issues due to the intensity of the storm, the Village of Winnetka needed to track where flooding was being reported and the nature of each report to help get a village-wide view of the total damage. To assist with this effort, the village Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department was asked to store and manage the flooding location data and develop a series of maps showing different aspects of the damage accounts as needed for reporting and analysis.
The primary sources used to develop the damage assessment database were field checks by village staff and damage claims submitted to Cook County by the residents. Using these sources, an extensive list of flooding locations, and the nature of each flooding event, was compiled and made available for mapping. Some of the products generated from the data were a basic map showing flooded properties, a map showing properties with debris piles stacked on the curb, and a map showing the extent of the flooding in one of the hardest hit areas of the village.
By storing and managing this information in GIS, the village now has the ability to develop powerful visual tools for examining the impacts of the storm, assisting with the development of future mitigation strategies, and providing the village council with evidence of how extensive the damage was in an easy-to-understand format.
Providing adequate accessible parking spaces for local businesses is an important legal concern for many communities. Failure to meet State and Federal requirements can lead to law suits or having fines accessed against the City. The City of Highland Park Intra-City Parking Committee was concerned that some the parking lots might not contain enough spaces designated as accessible parking spaces.
The GIS Office was contacted to create a series of maps showing the location of accessible parking spaces in the Central Business District and the Ravinia Business District. Using existing data, the GIS Office quickly creates aerial and base map showing all the designations of parking spaces in both business districts. The maps were used to identify parking lots and on-street parking areas that did not have enough accessible parking spots. During the review it was determined that two parking lots required additional accessible parking spaces.
By using GIS the city could quickly review the number of accessible parking spaces with minimal amount of field work. The maps were used by the Committee to make the case that additional accessible parking spaces were needed. Once the additional spaces were created in the field, new maps were created displaying the updated field conditions. Without GIS this parking study would have taken much longer. Each parking lot and on street parking area would need to field surveyed. The information from these field surveys would not be as easy to use or as cleanly displayed as the information in the GIS maps was.
During the cleanup from damage caused by emergency events, such as severe storms or flooding, there are often numerous issues that a local government needs to deal with in order to successfully recover. After a recent storm that occurred on July 23rd, 2011, the Village of Winnetka, IL was hit hard by residential flooding and other water related problems. This forced the village’s Water and Electric Department to take an inventory of all properties in the village with electric meters installed in basements to help identify areas where restoring power service might be difficult in the future if that same property floods.
Using an existing database containing all the basement electric meter addresses, and a list of flooded properties collected during the July 23rd storm event, the village GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Department was able to map out the locations of each meter and spatially compare that to the flooded property locations. Doing this helped to identify where homes with both basement electric meters and potential flooding issues were located, allow the Water and Electric Department to assess the potential risk for these meters being inaccessible during a similar storm event.
Without GIS, analysis would have been very time consuming and would have required significant man-hours to complete. Comparing the flooding and electric meter locations spatially allowed for a quick and efficient analysis of the data, which provided the Water and Electric Department with an easy-to-use tool for assessing future risk.
The Village of Skokie started maintaining street signs over 30 years ago. Over time, the inventory evolved from strictly paper/mylar based to eventually incorporate an Excel spreadsheet with ID’s of signs on the paper maps. While this has worked in the past, current technology provides a much better solution for managing the Village’s signs. By using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Village can utilize a technology that is already used throughout the enterprise. This is especially helpful considering the Federal government has set dates for compliance for three (3) major traffic sign maintenance requirements. The U.S. Department of Transportation requires the following:
January 2012 All agencies will have to establish and implement a sign maintenance program that addresses the minimum sign retroreflectivity requirements
January 2015 All agencies must comply with the new retroreflectivity requirements for most of their traffic signs they have installed, including all red and white or white and black “regulatory” signs (such as STOP signs and Speed Limit signs), yellow and black “warning” signs, and ground-mounted green and white “guide” signs (except street name signs)
January 2018 All agencies must comply with the new retroreflectivity requirements for overhead guide signs and all street name signs
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
In order to meet the requirement for January 2012, the Village began conducting a sign inventory in August, 2011. Once the inventory is complete, the Village will maintain the data using GIS and will publish the data internally for planning, analysis, and maintenance purposes.
Local governments often get requests from residents for localized public improvements that fall outside the scope of yearly budgeted projects the community has planned for. To help fund these localized improvement requests, the property owners can become part of a Special Service Area (SSA), which is a legal mechanism used to fund projects for contiguous residential properties through a local property tax levy. Through a Special Service Area, the property owner pays back the community for the project work over a predetermined amount of time through an additional fee on their yearly property tax bill. To help track these areas, the City of Des Plaines IL asked the city’s GIS (Geographic Information System) Department to locate each SSA so maps could be quickly generated showing the improvement areas.
Using a list of active and proposed SSAs provided by the city’s Engineering Department, the GIS Department was able to locate and map each area using the city’s existing parcel and address data. With this information added to the GIS system, maps of specific SSAs can be generated and included in things such as city council packets and departmental reports for reference. Also, since payment for these improvements is based on property taxes, having the parcel data linked to the SSA integrates the county PIN (Property Identification Number) with the SSA designation, allowing the city Finance Department to accurately track all SSA related fees.
Using GIS to assist with tracking Special Service Areas provides a quick, easy-to-understand reference tool for multiple departments that can be applied to numerous applications.
In August, Lake Forest College worked with the City to determine the names and addresses of residents that shared property boundaries with the College and were along the Bloodroot and Withchazel Ravines. Lake Forest College is planning on working to preserve the ravines, and contacting the owners provided two solutions- notification of work being done near their property, and asking if the property owner would be interested in joining the College in their efforts.
Management requested that GIS create a map showing the properties and listing the owner information to aid in this project. In addition to producing a map that showed both ravines with their adjacent properties and owner contacts, more specific maps were map for each ravine. These maps included topographic lines that will help aid in determining if the ravine floor is on College or private property. If there is indication that the bottom of the ravine is mostly on a private parcel, more notification or permissions may be needed to continue with the project in these areas.
After the Village of Wheeling had its scheduled review for the CRS program (A review of the Village’s flood safety infrastructure), the independent reviewer left a list of items that needed to be completed in the next month to receive credit in specific categories. One of these items pertained to storm system drainage, specifically the locations of known problem areas in the storm drainage system and which features, such as ditches and streams that the village maintains. The engineering department asked the GIS department to put something together that would meet all the requirements and could be submitted to the reviewer.
For the submission, a map was created showing the water features that the village maintains, as well as locations of drainage trouble areas designated by the village. Without GIS, the village would have had to create the map in a different program, such as AutoCAD, due to new regulations specifying that all maps submitted to the CRS review have to be done in a computer program. By using GIS, the village was able to submit a required document in the short amount of time required.
Monitoring contaminated soils in right-of-ways and a major concern of local governments. The cost of disposing of contaminated soil is significantly more than dealing with non-contaminated soil. Furthermore, if contaminated soil is accidently mixed with clean soil, the entire pile of soil is considered contaminated and thus the cost of disposing of that soil becomes more expensive.
In the State of Illinois, contaminated areas within right-of-ways are tracked through Highway Authority Agreements. (HAA) These agreements are site plans showing the business that caused the contamination and the location of the area included in the Highway Authority Agreement. The document provides a lot of information, but the document is not referenced with other spatial information. Thus there is no obvious association between the HAA areas and things such as city owned utilities. Therefore, it might be possible for the city to accidently dig up soil in an HAA area without realizing it until after the fact.
Public Works requested that the HAA be added to the existing GIS layers. This way if the City was planning to excavate an area, they could quickly determine if there was HAA area in the planned area of excavation. The GIS Office also added the layer to MapOffice Advanced to provide a quick reference layer. Now, when the City is planning to excavate an area, they no longer have to hunt for an HAA document. They can quickly reference MapOffice Advance or the GIS database to determine of if there is a risk of contaminated soil where they are planning to dig
To promote healthy living and the use of alternative travel, many local governments have started to design and implement projects related to cycling, such as bike route signage and dedicated bike lanes along local streets. To assist with promoting the projects they’ve worked on to the general public, the City of Des Plaines, IL asked the their Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to create a series of mapping products that display a wide-range of features from the city’s bike network, including the existing route locations and planned improvements.
As the result of several years of planning and design, the city’s bike network is slowly beginning to take shape. Using maps to convey the work that’s already been done, along with future project locations, helps to promote these efforts to both city residents, and those interested in biking through the city, by providing a visual tool to see how each route connects to each other. By seeing the routes within the context of the city, riders can plan out their trips more effectively and decide the safest path to take. These map products make the bike project information more accessible and transparent, which helps to promote rider safety, and, overall, makes the city a more bike-friendly destination.
OakBrook Center is a large outdoor mall located in the northern part of Oak Brook. It is a very popular shopping destination throughout the greater Chicago land area and contains almost 150 unique addresses. Because of the high amount of activity and visitors to this particular area, it more susceptible to emergencies such as; crime, traffic accidents and medical related issues. The high density of addresses in such a small area makes it even more important for emergency responders know exactly which address to go to and which entrance provides the quickest route. It is also important to be able to communicate which general parking area and building they may be responding to. All of this information is provided in the fire pre-plans, but the pre plan does not contain a single map displaying every address in the area. Rather they must locate the address from an address list and refer to a separate individual building site map. This process takes time, which often times means the difference between seconds or minutes to respond to an emergency.
In a constant effort to improve emergency response, the fire department requested that an address map be created for OakBrook Center’s pre-plan. By using existing address data and updating it to the specifics of the fire department, we were able to create a clear address map for the fire pre-plan. Included with the addresses is parking lot names, buildings ID’s, major stores and entrance locations. By using GIS to create this map, not only were we able to make the map very quickly and accurately, but it is now permanently stored in a database that can be quickly updated as addresses and stores change.
Over the years local government entities gather a lot of information relating to properties and the characteristics they entail. This information may include property identification numbers (PIN), property owners, whether that property has an easement or not and much more. The hard part about all of this information is classifying and organizing it in a way that easily accessible and will stand the test of time. Current trends show that paper documents are being scanned into digitized files so that they are readily available and searchable in many different ways. One application that handles this type of inventory quite well is a Geographical Information System (GIS).
For the City of Park Ridge, IL, already owning and operating the GIS software has increased their potential for upgrading and maintaining their paper documents in an electronic data format. With the help of the GIS Department, the City is currently working on a beta program to scan all property variance documents into PDF files and then linking these files to a geographic space on a map. Future plans will come in the form of an interactive web mapping application where the user wishing to locate a property and its variance if it has one, could do so from their office chair rather than inefficiently spending time searching paper documents down the hall. Additionally, as the paper gets older and wears away, the City can feel comfortable in knowing that this important information will not only be preserved, it will also be in one centralized location. Just another way to improve an existing operation.
While it may not occur as part of the day to day operations, an unfortunate reality for all local governments is the need to coordinate response and cleanup efforts as the result of an emergency event, such a severe storm or other natural disaster. To assist with tracking reported incidents as the result of a recent severe weather event, the Village of Winnetka, IL used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to store and display the incident locations during the event, as well map their locations to assist with the extensive cleanup efforts after the event took place.
Prior to using GIS to store and display the emergency event data, village staff would store the incident information in a variety of different mediums, including paper post-it notes, scarps of notebook paper, and non-standardized excel sheets, just to name a few. As a result, trying to coordinate response efforts was difficult, as post-its would get lost, pieces of paper would get thrown away, etc. In addition, without having a visual way to organize each incident location, departments would often duplicate efforts and send multiple response crews to deal with one incident, instead of distributing the available resources to maximize efficiency.
To help reduce these inefficiencies, the village GIS department provided a Structured Query Language (SQL) database with a Microsoft Access form front end that allowed staff to enter the information for each incident location as it was received in a standard format that could be easily accessed and reviewed by everyone involved in the response efforts. From the SQL database, each incident could be extracted and mapped in the village’s internet browser-based GIS application for all staff to see. Using this visual platform, the nature of the incident and its current status could be shared quickly across all departments, reducing redundancy and maximizing the effectiveness of each response crew.
During an emergency event, the extent of the area affected and the number of issues occurring as a result of the event are just some of the factors that need to be processed, organized, and reviewed by local government staff to determine the most appropriate course of action. Perhaps the greatest challenge of any emergency response effort is controlling where information is coming from and determining which pieces of information are more critical than others. To help better organize information gathered during a recent storm event, the City of Des Plaines IL used the city’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to assist with mapping and prioritizing the storm cleanup efforts.
While the initial response to the storm event relied heavily on more traditional forms of data organization and presentation, an effort to streamline the cleanup efforts resulted in GIS being used to develop several mapping products that assisted city staff with visualizing the storm damage. These included a traffic signal outage map, a road closure and downed trees map, and a damaged property map that was developed using information gathered by city building inspectors during the initial damage assessment review. Using these products, city staff was able to better visualize the extent of the damage and, as a result, develop a more effective plan for cleaning up the city.
Besides the flood issues introduced because of the proximity to the Des Plaines River through and along the Village of Riverside’s Western and Southern boundaries, some reoccurring residential drainage issues have been identified. The Village has contracted to have drainage studies performed in these areas hoping to realize some solutions through infrastructure and/or grading changes. Through existing data sharing agreements with Cook County via its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program, Riverside was able to provide contour and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) elevation data to the engineering consultant. Using the GIS to prepare the elevation data for the areas of issue allowed the studies to advance quickly as compared to the alternative of field data collection.
On June 21st, 2011 a major storm hit the Chicago land area causing severe damage to trees, cars and homes. Winds speeds were measured near 80 mph, two F1 tornadoes were reported and thousands of people were left without out power. Many of the small municipalities in the area were left with no other options but to put their Public Works Department crews out on the streets to start the cleanup process.
Considering much of the time during this period was spent on the cleanup, it became hard for any local municipality to reflect on the catastrophic event and how much damage occurred overall. In Morton Grove, IL the Engineering Department decided to run a pilot program to track what they could of the storm’s damage and then store the data gathered in the field within their Geographical Information System (GIS). The purpose of this pilot was to see how easy or hard it would be to collect this information in the field and then map out in a format that would be easy to use by others within the Village staff.
The process was actually quite simple and consisted of the Village Engineer driving through areas that were reported as bad and recording these major damaged locations on a paper map as well as taking photographs of each site. Once back in the office, the map and photos were submitted to the GIS Department to be converted into digital data with hyperlinks to the photos that were stored on a central server. Information that may once be forgotten is now stored in the GIS and can be distributed to several users at one time. Additionally, this information can now be used in comparison with future storm events making it an excellent resource for analysis.
The Village of Lincolnshire recently finished its application renewal documentation for the FEMA Community Rating System (CRS). When municipalities analyze their land use within the floodplain and submit their findings, they are rewarded on a sliding point scale that translates into discounted flood insurance rates for their residents. Lincolnshire originally submitted a flood plain assessment in 2001 and is currently a Class 5 community.
Because GIS was used in prior submissions, the Village was able to quickly rerun the land use calculations using the most current flood plain data. Since the baseline work was done quickly, the GIS specialist had time to create two new maps that will strengthen the Village’s submission. These maps focused on the North Branch of the Chicago River and Indian Creek basins within the present and future Village limits. Additionally, each map displayed the land use statistics for the watershed depicted so that the reviewers could easily find the data that they need.
Without GIS, the CRS application process would require much more staff time. By reducing the initial workload by using past applications as a starting point, Lincolnshire was able to devote free time to creating new documentation to beef up its application. Undoubtedly, Village residents are happy to have more money in their pockets as the economy continues to fluctuate.
As the old joke goes, “There are only two seasons here: winter and construction.” As Chicagoland moves into construction season, local governments are tasked with rerouting traffic flow to make room for much needed repairs. In the Village of Glencoe, one project includes a complete overhaul of the commuter parking lots around the Metra station. This multi-week project requires Public Works staff to close different lots on different days, which disrupts the normal flow of commuter traffic.
With GIS, the Village was able to quickly create a map of the work site and include it on a poster to notify commuters well in advance of the project’s start. Once work actually began, GIS was able to quickly create maps of alternate parking sites so that commuters who missed the initial notification could find alternate parking places quickly. These maps were posted at the Metra station as well as online, providing multiple sources of information to the public in an efficient manner. Without GIS, Village staff would have to either rely on verbal explanations or create hand-drawn maps that were less accurate and showed fewer details to orient viewers.
The Village of Wheeling is currently preparing for the National Flood Insurance Program Community Rating System (CRS) review. The review takes into account various aspects of flood prevention infrastructure in the village and ultimately decides the percentage of savings a resident receives for flood insurance. One of the important aspects of the review is a village’s maintenance of a network of surveying benchmarks. By having a system of maintained benchmarks, surveyors are able to locate them and depend on their accuracy, while the village receives a higher score.
For the village to receive credit for Benchmark Maintenance, it must meet a list of requirements: It must be in the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) database or be a permanent monument with key data readily available to surveyors, such as the village website. There must be a note that it’s been recovered in the past 5 years and it must be a first or second order vertical control benchmark. Finally, each benchmark but have a stability rating of A or B and be within 1 mile of the community’s regulatory floodplain. In addition to the benchmarks meeting these requirements, proper documentation is needed, which includes a map showing the location of each benchmark.
By creating the map documentation for benchmark maintenance in GIS, the village was able to satisfy multiple requirements with one product. A series of small maps were created, each representing one of the benchmarks in the village. In addition, a large overview map was created showing the location of each benchmark at a large scale. The overview map was added to the village website, and when a surveyor clicks on a benchmark on the map, a PDF opens up with the smaller map representing the information for that specific benchmark. By having this map located on the village website, it meets the requirements of having it accessible to surveyors and the public as well as being a document of each benchmark’s location. By using GIS, the engineering department was able to create a product that met CRS requirements and was accessible to the public.
Each year, communities flush their fire hydrants and take note of flow rate, time flushed, and condition of hydrants. For 2011, the City of Lake Forest used GIS to aid in visualizing the locations of hydrants that were found to be in need to attention.
Notes from field work were grouped into subcategories to keep repair types to a manageable amount. From here, special symbology was given to each category to make it stand out from the other hydrants that were displayed on the map. The map was then divided into sections so it could be printed out at a readable scale on 8.5 x 11 paper, and when combined, formed a book that could be used in the field.
Having a visual aid to go with normal maintenance should prove to save time in locating the hydrants and planning of what kind of repairs will be needed. In addition to this, both the water and fire departments can see areas of concern where numerous hydrants may not be functioning properly, which can cause delays in the event that a fire needs to be put out in that area.
Part of the tradition within the United States every year is the celebration of the Fourth of July; many people choose to celebrate this event in their own way. Some may host a party or a picnic while at the local government level it may be a festival or a fireworks display for their residents to attend. Morton Grove has previously used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to help them map out and plan for such events. This year like previous ones, they have once again taken advantage of the technology to assist them in planning for the July 4th parade.
Because a parade is such a large event that affects traffic flow and public parking, it is important to have a good information source accessible to all departments involved in the planning of this event. For the Public Works Department it is matter of where the barricades and bathrooms are supposed to be located, for the Police Department its monitoring on-street parking so that the streets remain clear as well as managing vehicle traffic so that the parade remains a safe environment. To assure efficient operations a simple map for both of these departments to use as a reference during the event is provided. The more people referring to one resource for their answers the less chance that mistakes will occur and good decisions are made.
Although technology surrounds all of us it is hard to know what to buy in order to get what you need for your specific project. Sometimes you will want to keep the software light and easy to use and at other times you may need the most robust system that money can buy in order to function properly at high level operations.
For the City of Park Ridge the purpose was to purchase something in the middle of the road that could work for their upcoming sign inventory data collection project as well as any other future project that would require field data collection. The challenge for this equipment and software acquisition was to find something that would easily integrate into the city’s current Geographical Information System (GIS). Additionally, the City did not want spend a lot of time trying to convert certain data formats to fit the data model that already existed in GIS.
Because the City already knew that they would one day want to collect Global Positioning System (GPS) point data in the field the decision making process really came to which piece of software they would install on a (GPS) mobile device. The Trimble® TerraSync™ software was well respected in the industry and could work for this project but did introduce a lot of post-processing tasks to make it GIS compliant. After further research, the city decided that they would gain more by using the ArcPad™ application from ESRI®. The reason behind this decision was that after simple testing it was apparent that data could be checked out from the existing ESRI® platform GIS model, edited in the field on the mobile GPS device and then easily checked back into the GIS database; thus eliminating the man-hours that would have been introduced with the other option and potentially saving money on labor in the long run.
As the old joke goes, “There are only two seasons here: winter and construction.” As Chicagoland moves into construction season, local governments are tasked with rerouting traffic flow to make room for much needed repairs. In the Village of Glencoe, one project includes a complete overhaul of the commuter parking lots around the Metra station. This multi-week project requires Public Works staff to close different lots on different days, which disrupts the normal flow of commuter traffic.
With GIS, the Village was able to quickly create a map of the work site and include it on a poster to notify commuters well in advance of the project’s start. Once work actually began, GIS was able to quickly create maps of alternate parking sites so that commuters who missed the initial notification could find alternate parking places quickly. These maps were posted at the Metra station as well as online, providing multiple sources of information to the public in an efficient manner. Without GIS, Village staff would have to either rely on verbal explanations or create hand-drawn maps that were less accurate and showed fewer details to orient viewers.
The annual process of identifying the most critical locations for resurfacing projects is challenging. Unfortunately, there is never a shortage of roads in need of improvement, but always a lack of funding to cover the whole list. In an effort to make better informed decisions on how to use Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) funds, the Village of Lincolnshire decided to review its history for possible patterns. By comparing each year’s work, Public Works staff will be asking, “Are there any stretches of road that we have repeatedly resurfaced in a short period of time?” Rather than continuing to spend limited resurfacing funds to put a proverbial bandage over a bigger issue, the Village hopes to rule these locations out of the pool for MFT funding. Instead, these roads would be cataloged as better candidates for reconstruction.
To answer this question visually, the Public Works intern reviewed paper files and compiled a table of completed MFT projects dating back to 1980. This table was then mapped out in GIS to visually represent street segments that have been resurfaced. A graded color code was used to denote the year of resurfacing, with older projects in red and recent projects in green. While this analysis has not yet been completed for the whole Village, there are already locations emerging as possible candidates for more comprehensive repairs. By pulling these streets off of the master list, the Village hopes to make better use of public funds by identifying roads that would benefit the most from resurfacing.
It usually seems that most people who are disrupted by construction projects would be less upset if they had some warning that a project was about to happen. Early notification of disruptions can lead to route changes by commuters, later departure times or just the common acceptance of noise. So the normal question that comes after all of this is, “How do you notify the public about what is soon to happen?
One method that is very effective is the mailing of letters to each resident in and around the construction zone warning them of the work that is about to take place. Although this may be the preferred method, there are other options that can help get the word out. For the City of Park Ridge they decided it would also be beneficial to capture the resident’s attention by publicizing these projects in the form of a map and make it accessible via a link on the home page of the city’s website. This map would be generated in-house using the Geographic Information System (GIS) software and would be completed by an Engineering Department employee. Who better to create this map then a person who is well versed in the projects that are planned for the year? This map was designed to be simple so not to confuse the residents and would be color coded by project type. And since the majority of these projects were to start in the spring, the city decided to publish this map in February so that the residents would have time to prepare for what was about to come.
Not every resident uses the internet but since the trend is leaning towards more users than less, it is safe to say that the method described above is an efficient way to get information from the city’s desk and into the minds of the public.
At times it may be common for people to underestimate the interest a local municipal government has in maintaining an accurate inventory of their utility infrastructures. But to a public works employee, knowing what is out the field and where to go when a line needs repair is essential if any work is going to be done. Although there are various methods for collecting utility information including hand drawn maps or computer aided designs, the Village of Morton Grove is using a Geographic Information System (GIS) that not only holds the line work of the utility system but also handles the attributes of each structure as it is out in the field (i.e. 8 inch water main with a material of ductile iron).
More importantly though, are the efficient methods that can be used in order to keep this digital data up to date so that the field crews and engineers can have trust in the GIS. While most contracted projects are designed in some sort type of Computer Aided Design (CAD) format, there are times when a municipality only receives an image of this design in a PDF format. This format is not preferred but it is surely not to be seen as waste. The ability to convert a PDF image to a JPEG image and then spatially rectify this drawing using tools within the GIS is quite easy. Better yet, there is even technology that will convert a PDF into digital lines that can then be copied into your existing inventory and attributed properly. Either way you slice it, you now have an accurate representation of proposed design that can be used to make updates to your current utility infrastructure, much better than estimating the true locations of these lines. Talk about being efficient.
The Village of Glencoe is in the process of re-inspecting roughly five dozen private properties for compliance with regional storm water drainage regulations. These properties were initially identified during Village-wide testing associated with the Infiltration/Inflow Corrective Action Program (ICAP). Approximately 85% of all homes in Glencoe were found to be compliance with ICAP, and the remaining property owners were notified of what changes were needed to reduce or eliminate storm water infiltration into the sanitary sewer system. By re-inspecting these sites, Public Works can confirm that the private sector is in compliance with these regulations, which in turn leads to cost savings because the Village is not unnecessarily treating the storm water that was formerly leaking into the system.
Public Works decided to take a proactive role this spring by re-inspecting these remaining locations for compliance. GIS assisted in this process by creating individual comment sheets with maps of all 63 properties that inspectors could take notes on. When inspectors visit a particular location, they are able to sketch their findings on a map of the property and write down any relevant comments to pass back to the Village engineer. By working with GIS, Public Works had custom inspection forms ready to use in a few short hours, as opposed to using significant staff time and resources to manually set everything up.
When a street light is out in the Village of Norridge, staff members at village hall will receive phone calls from residents detailing where the outage is located. The office staff makes a note of the outage and then contacts someone in public works to investigate the issue. In the case of multiple people calling about the same outage, multiple notes would be made due to an insufficient way of tracking which outages have been reported. With the help of the GIS department, the village was able to implement a map using MapOffice™ Advanced that village staff can access that shows live data of the status of each street light outage.
By using the Business Intelligence feature of MapOffice™ Advanced, the GIS department was able to link an Excel database of the street light outages maintained by office staff with the map provided by the program. The Street Light Outage map shows the location of every street light outage reported and whether it has been investigated or not. The office staff can sort the data by numerous fields including date and work order status. By having up to the minute statuses of all the street light outages, the office staff can inform residents that call in whether a particular outage has been reported, eliminating the need to create multiple reports for the same outage. By using GIS, the office staff has removed a level of redundancy and allowed their office staff to communicate more clearly with residents.
Roadway improvements have been recorded for decades in one of Elk Grove Village’s community databases. It contains much useful information such as the base and surface materials of a roadway, years in which a road was repaved, and years in which a road received some form of maintenance. This data has been integrated into the village’s GIS (Geographic Information System) to provide an interface to visualize the roadway pavement history.
The GIS allows users easy access to pavement information that can facilitate planning and scheduling of improvement projects as well as evaluation of the effectiveness of certain materials when looking at the road condition assessments. Highly accurate construction quantities can be calculated for roadway surface areas, sidewalk squares, curb lengths, and more because the village invested in base data for the GIS.
Maintaining the cleanliness of a city’s sewer system can be time intensive and costly. There is the purchase of the sewer cleaning machine, the actual flushing of the sewer lines and the occasional cutting of tree roots. With all of this work there usually comes a need for a Public Works Department to track the locations of sewer lines that have been cleaned. Tracking the clean-up progress of these lines not only allows the Public Works Director to better plan for future sewer cleaning work, it also demonstrates to the city council the efforts that have come forth by the city to remedy an on-going problem.
For the City of Park Ridge they rely on the services of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department in order to take textual spreadsheet data and make it come to life in the form of a map. This concept is nothing new but it is something that usually tells a better story than the simply distributing handouts detailing the streets where sewer cleaning has taken place. For this project all sewer lines that were recently flushed were extracted from existing GIS sewer utility data as well as given the appropriate attributes as to when the sewer was last flushed and whether there were tree root problems or not.
Once this data was created it was then mapped out in conjunction with the city’s sewer system resulting in an end product that easily displayed the how much of the city’s sewer system had been cleaned in last six months. Additionally, the power of mapping this project out in GIS will allow the Public Works Department to track things going forward as well as retrieve statistical information on the lengths and sizes of all pipes being cleaned should they need this information at any given time.
The National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) is a voluntary incentive that recognizes and encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed the minimum NFIP requirements. As a result, flood insurance premium rates are discounted to reflect the reduced flood risk resulting from the community actions meeting the three goals of the CRS; reduce flood losses, facilitate accurate insurance rating, and promote the awareness of flood insurance.
The Village of Glenview is currently in the process of providing FEMA with the proper material and information that they will need in order to be awarded part of the Community Rating System incentives. They are using GIS to provide them with certain information requested by FEMA and this information is, a list of all publicly-owned, open, dedicated properties in the SFHA (Special Flood Hazard Area), provide calculations of the total acreage of SFHA and acreage of open space within the SFHA (subtract out all impervious surface), and provide a map clearly identifying all open space properties verifying they are in the SFHA. If it were not for GIS then this information would have probably been obtained through a consultant and cost the Village more time and money then necessarily needed.
The National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP) Community Rating System (CRS) is a voluntary incentive program that recognizes and encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed the minimum NFIP requirements. As a result flood insurance premium rates are discounted to reflect the reduced flood risk resulting from the communities’ actions. Each community is assigned a rating based off credit points earned in 18 creditable activities. This rating determines the percentage of discount the community would receive based on 5% increments. A Class 1 community, the highest class, would receive a 45% discount while a Class 9 community would receive a %5 discount. The Village of Wheeling is currently a Class 7 community receiving a 15% discount on flood insurance for its residents. The village has a review set for spring 2011 and is looking to solidify its Class 7 rating and possibly move into up into a Class 6.
The Village of Wheeling’s Engineering Department and GIS Specialist are currently working on ways to improve the village’s class rating by going through the 18 different activities and completing projects that the village did not receive full, or sometimes any, points during its last review. Some of the current projects include calculating flood plain and open space acreage, creating elevation benchmarks, determining impervious surface area, and creating an online flood plain map accessible to village residents. Before the village acquired a GIS program, many of these projects would have been too time consuming or not even possible to do. By using GIS, the village hopes to gain a significant amount of credit points that will translate into the residents seeing a reduction in their flood insurance rates and therefore paying less money.
The summer of 2010 brought multiple high intensity storms through the Village of Oak Brook, resulting in storm damage throughout areas of the village. The damage typically consisted of streetlight, tree, and flooding. Departments within the village wanted to see these areas mapped in order to plan response, classify the type of damage, and find trends in the areas affected. Points of reported damage were geocoded into a map, and then hotspot analysis was performed for both the wind damage from the June 23rd event, and the flood damage from the July 23rd event.
The image displayed is storm damage hot spot analysis in the northeastern part of the village, which was most strongly affected by the June 23rd event. The analysis allowed the village to see which areas were most affected in accordance to density, and the points were classified by the type of damage located at that point. The maps assisted village staff in locating the damage, planning repair, and will go towards planning for future events of a similar magnitude.
In June of this year it was requested by a Public Works Director that MapOffice™ Advanced provide the functionality to trace up and downstream flow of sewer and sanitary utility lines. The user identified that they would like to be able to click on a point and see all of the storm sewers that are tributary to that point. This month the "Sewer Tracing" task was added. This provides the ability of a community user to click on a utility line that is either part of the combined, sewer or storm system and trace it up or downstream with a single click. Along with visually seeing where the utility line flows there are two tables displaying information related to your query. The first is a table showing some high level summary information and the second details all the infrastructure from the affected pipe. This task puts a complex GIS process behind a single click of a mouse for local government users.
Although severe rain storms hitting Park Ridge have slowed in numbers recently, there still is a need to find ways to analyze past events in order to help with the future incidents; for being prepared with the proper analytical tools is never a bad idea and is something that is important to the city. With these ideas in mind, the city’s Engineering and Building Departments continue to turn to their Geographic Information System (GIS) Department looking for new ways to use technology as a mechanism for analyzing what might be happening in the real world.
Two recent projects that have shown potential to be everyday analytical tools for the city have come in the form of a flood complaint density study and a detailed drainage basin location map. The flood complaint density study was performed by taking data from the flood survey database, mapping it out and then using complex GIS tools to create density locations. The end product displayed a dark color where many flooding complaints occurred at a high density and a light color where the density of complaints was weak. What seems like a simple map can now be used as an analytical tool for identifying potential problem areas of flooding. On the other hand, the detailed drainage basin location map was also constructed using complex GIS tools but the end product details how water may flow from a high point of elevation to a low point of elevation. This map can also be used as an analytical tool giving the city staff a better idea of where the water may be flowing and will prove beneficial for when specific residents complain about flooding in their yard.
Both products leverage the power behind the GIS tools and thus take information that was once static and make it more usable, a good example of how to take data to the another level in order to help find solutions to everyday problems.
Although a Geographic Information System (GIS) is quite sophisticated, there are often times when its power is only needed to perform simple tasks. New to the Village of Morton Grove Public Works Department is the use of GIS to help map out all locations in town that are slated for street patching. While many streets get selected each year for a complete overhaul and resurface, many streets only require a few temporary patches to keep them off the list of failed streets for the year. Moreover, while locating an entire street segment that is selected for resurfacing may be easy, it is the pinpointing of where each specific street patch is set to occur that is harder to place.
For this reason alone the Public Works Department decided to use GIS to assist mapping out their street patching program for the current year. The program started by supplying the GIS Department with all of the locations that were proposed to be patched for the current year with plans to adjust these locations based on budgeting constraints and further field review. Because the base of GIS contains centralized data that is easy to edit, any submitted changes that were submitted during the patching program could easily be corrected followed by the generation of new maps. It is with this ease of data manipulation and new map creation that details while GIS can save time and money even on the simple tasks. Additionally, the labor of this project has now created data that can be archived for the future should anyone decide to inquire about a specific street patch that occurred this year.
Managing utility assets is a critical function of local government and can often encompass a significant portion of a Public Works department’s yearly operating budget. A specific component of utility management is addressing sanitary sewer backup issues that can cause damage to residential and commercial properties by creating standing water or sewage in basements and other areas. To assist with analyzing recent sanitary backup complaints from residents, the Village of Winnetka used Geographic Information System (GIS) to compare each backup location to village designated sanitary system maintenance zones.
The first step in this project was to map out the boundaries of each sanitary maintenance zone as determined by Public Works department staff. These zones, or sectors, relate to yearly maintenance and capital improvement areas and are used to divide the system up to help make it more manageable. By comparing these sector boundaries to the list of backup complaints, the department was able to identify neighborhoods within the village where more backups were occurring. This more refined view of the problem allowed department staff to develop more directed and efficient solutions specific to each system sector by determining if the issue was related to the age of the system in that area, poor drainage, etc.
Using GIS to analyze sanitary backup locations provided the Village of Winnetka with a powerful tool for better utility asset management. Instead of looking at the backups across the entire system, the Public Works department was able to identify specific problem areas and more effectively implement and manage proposed solutions.
Managing community assets is an important function of any local municipality. Often included in those assets are detention and retention basins, which are critical for storm water regulation and erosion control for local waterways. In order to effectively manage these local assets, an inventory of each basin’s location, ownership, and status is needed for maintenance and development planning. As part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), the City of Des Plaines conducted a full survey of all city basins using Geographic Information System (GIS) as the primary tool for storing and analyzing the inventory data.
Developing a basin inventory was a multi-step process and involved the city’s Engineering, Public Works, and GIS departments. Field checks by the city Engineers were required to gather the required attributes, but the preliminary process of locating each basin was done using contour data and aerial imagery to identify depressions, which were then traced and added to the GIS system for mapping. As part of the field checks, pictures of the basins, along with the location of the utility structures that flow in or out of each, were captured and integrated into the GIS data. Recently, this inventory was completed and is now available to assist the city with the NPDES required 5 year basin maintenance cycle.
The Village of Glenview currently has an ordinance that states the max allowable impervious coverage for each lot in the Village, which is based off a lot(s) square footage. For example, lots that are less than 10,000 sq. ft. are allowed 4,500 sq. ft. or .40 of impervious coverage and the larger the lot, the smaller the percentage of impervious surface(s.) Recently, the Village’s Development Department was tasked with determining what percentage of lots fell outside of their allowable amount and if this amount turned out to be relatively high, then there are thoughts of tighten up (changing the ordinance) the allowable space.
By using GIS (Geographic Information System) the Development Department was able to determine percentages for each lot category and for the Village as a whole, which now gives them the capability for future impervious lot coverage decision making.
The Village of Norridge has a street light system that contains lights owned by the village and lights owned and operated by ComEd. H&H Electric, which maintains the village owned lights, provided the village with multiple maps showing the ownership of each light, how they are all connected, and the control boxes for each system.
With this information, the village was able to start building an electrical system model that would be displayed on its in-house mapping software: MapOffice™ Advanced. This allows the village engineer to see the locations of all the street lights and how they connect to their corresponding control boxes. With this information, the village engineer and public works, can easily replace bulbs and determine where malfunctions they may be located on a circuit. Because the information is accessible from any computer on the village server, both departments can access the information without having to share hard copies of the information. By using GIS, the village is able to begin to put together a comprehensive street light/electrical model that will help the village with any incidents that may arise.
The village of Oak Brook has had requests from multiple organizations to bring new restaurants into the village. As a result the village has to plan and approve the locations requested by the organization. A part of the planning process required having maps made, which display the proposed location (with dimensions), wetland areas, and detention areas that will need to be relocated.
The image displayed with this article is a portion of one of the maps created for a planning meeting involving village staff and representatives of a restaurant. It was designed to give a good view of the area and dimensions in which they have to work with, along with possible conflicts with local wetlands. The map allowed village staff to compare similar sized sites with the new proposed site, in order to get an idea of where they can place entrances and exits, as well as parking and water detention areas.
The City of Lake Forest has begun using GIS to make a map and store data that shows current plans for their 10 year Capital Improvement program. In the past, employees would rely on spreadsheets and individual maps produced for that year to visualize projects and their locations. With the 2011 Capital Improvements plan being mapped this October, the city has also requested to begin keeping long term project data in a database feature class, which in turn will allow for editing and quick visualization.
Currently, the first draft of the 10 year plan has been created, and is currently being used to plan for upcoming conferences. Future plans include analysis on the planning data, as well as linking information regarding street condition and water main break density to help assist in project planning.
A contour line is a representation of equal points of elevation. Contour lines are displayed successively in a contour map to display the change in elevation over an area. The interval between lines defines the resolution of the elevation data.
Elk Grove Village recently developed a one foot contour dataset from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data collection to improve upon a two foot contour provided by Cook County. Other datasets can be derived from this elevation information such as a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and is simply another way to simulate the real world lay of the land. These elevation representations become very powerful decision support tools when overlaid with other infrastructure such as storm sewers in a GIS (Geographic Information System).
Elk Grove Village has recently purchased a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit to support data collection for its GIS (Geographic Information System). GPS data collection utilizes the GPS satellites in orbit around the Earth to calculate the x,y location of the GPS receiver as well as the time and elevation to a certain degree.
GPS is traditionally used to collect the location of infrastructure such as manholes, signs, fire hydrants, etc. After the data is collected it is downloaded, corrected, and then integrated into the GIS. The correction process involves an automated mathematical adjustment of the data according to records captured by nearby stationary monitoring stations.
Village staff will use this equipment annually to capture infrastructure from new construction projects and to initiate new projects which require intense data collection such as a parkway tree inventory or sign inventory. An added benefit of this device is that it can be used to locate facilities that may have been buried over time or that are covered by snow in the winter.
The City of Lake Forest has begun to take an inventory and place orders for signs throughout the city. GIS was able to provide accurate tables of sign counts for Public Works. Using these counts employees were able to categorize work zones by ward and know how many signs they would be dealing with from certain categories, such as regulatory and warning signs.
In addition to counting the signs, the tables helped employees by allowing them to know what kind of signs they would need to upgrade to meet the upcoming MUTCD standards for 2012. MUTCD stands for Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, and sets the standard on sign dimensions and visibility. The City met with a client to discuss upgrades and place orders, and having the tables and access to GIS for visual reference proved to be increase the work management of the project.
The Village of Oak Brook uses data collection units from a company called Aclara to monitor water meters throughout the Village’s service area. The data collection units are strategically placed throughout the village to read water meters and relay the data back to Village IT. The units were installed several years ago, and it is now time for Aclara to come back to the village and service all of the units. Some of the units are currently functioning up to standards, while other are either malfunctioning or are located in areas that are no longer serviced.
The image displayed with this article is a portion of the map that was created for Aclara staff to locate the units throughout the village. The map includes unit number and location, water mains, water towers, and basic features in the Village. It was designed to assist Aclara staff in locating the units, as well as a record of location that will be saved by the Village. GIS has streamlined made the process of replacement more efficient.
The Village of Wheeling currently participates in the Community Rating System (CRS) program which is a voluntary incentive program that recognizes and encourages community floodplain management activities that exceed the minimum NFIP requirements. One of the requirements of the program is to detail which areas are deemed “Repetitive Loss”, meaning the property has had two or more insurance claims over $1000 in a 10 year period. A secondary requirement of the program is to inform all residents that live within the repetitive loss area about their situation and provide them with flood insurance information. By using GIS, the village was able to create a list of addresses for all properties within the repetitive loss area so that letters could be sent to each resident.
Because the village already had an existing address database using a point as each address, creating a list of addresses just required selecting the points that fell within the repetitive address areas. The addresses were then exported into Microsoft Excel to be used in various mail merge applications. If not for GIS, the addresses would have had to be typed in manually by looking at the various repetitive loss maps created in another mapping type program. By using GIS, the village was able to quickly create a product that would have taken a longer time using previous methods.
Rear yard drainage is a notable topic in Riverside these days as the village is preparing to have some drainage studies performed. The village has been using its GIS (Geographic Information System) program to track drainage complaints over the past two years to realize where, away from the Des Plaines River, residents are experiencing flooding or drainage problems.
Imagery, elevation, and structural improvements data will be provided by the GIS for the drainage study locations and potential solutions will be provided by the contracted consultants. Hopefully some economically feasible solutions will be realized and the storm drainage for these residents will become more predictable than the weather.
The Village of Norridge has requested and received information pertaining to ComEd operated lights in the village, specifically ones along the major roads and intersections. The purpose is to compare the data provided by ComEd with the location information collected via field checks to make sure that the billing information is correct.
By using GIS and the location information provided by ComEd, the lights can be plotted on a base map and then compared with the known locations of the lights collected by the village. Any inconsistancies, such as missing lights or duplicated locations can be noted and then reviewed with ComEd. This will allow the village to make sure it’s paying the correct amount in electrical bills and will improve ComEd’s data records for the village.
An annual process for the Riverside GIS (Geographic Information System) program is to obtain parcel data and ownership information from the county as they are the custodians of that data. As a part of the 2010 data exchange the village was provided LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data.
LiDAR is a remote sensing technique where laser pulses are directed toward the earth and the time it takes for the impulse to return provides elevation information as well as some characteristics of the surface below. The village is currently using this information as an elevation resource as it provides a sample point every few feet. LiDAR can also be used to obtain a three dimensional view of an area and potentially derive additional GIS data. This data is made available from the county at no charge. This information is especially helpful given that the Village does not have a previous source of elevation information. This type of information comes into play when planning for flooding or other elevation sensitive projects.
The Village of Oak Brook has numerous private roads that are not maintained by the village. As a result, if a certain neighborhood wants a road to be converted to a public road they must adhere to village zoning code.
Two small, adjacent subdivisions in Oak Brook have put in a request to have their private roads converted to public roads in order to save money in maintenance fees. The first step that is required is for the village is to evaluate whether or not these private roads follow village zoning codes, and if they don’t, then the village must create a plan to convert these roads to village zoning standards.
In working with the engineering department I was able to create layers that display the minimum requirements for right of way and setback sizes. The map displays where the current road is, and the area that would be required to be converted to village property in order to adhere to village code.
This map assisted the village by providing them a visual reference to present these neighborhoods when the meeting occurs. By referencing the map alone, it is clear that these neighborhoods will not qualify for a road conversion because the required setbacks run into the houses on multiple lots.
Using GIS for this analysis saved the village time and money by not requiring engineers to go out in the field and manually measure the required distances and then map them by hand in the office.
The Village of Glenview has currently been tasked to come up with ways to more effectively and efficiently answer and fix drainage issues, and has requested assistance from the GIS department. One solution would be to set up a storm water fund, supplying that fund by applying a utility tax, and using it to perform maintenance on drainage ditches (which is currently not maintained by the Village.) GIS created data and maps that display major and minor public ditches and major and minor private ditches, and these maps will potentially be used to present to the Board of Trustees to assist with the approval of setting this storm water fund up.
Another solution is using GIS to assist with centralizing all complaint data (permits, subdivision plats, and etc.) for the inspectors to use in the field. The historical and current data is stored in Laserfiche (document management system) and MUNIS (records and work order system.) By using GIS to combine these two applications and viewing it through Map Office Advanced it will save the inspectors a lot of research time beforehand (before the inspectors go out on a complaint they have research and determine solutions and\or who is at fault.)
By using GIS it provides the Inspectors and the Village with a faster and a more cost effectively way for dealing with drainage complaints.
During an emergency event, knowing how a community is being impacted as a whole can be just as important as responding to an individual emergency call. Having an overall view of the event can provide emergency response personnel with a better idea of how wide-spread the problems are and reveal potential patterns that can lead to better management of the response efforts. To help maximize its ability to respond to a community-level emergency, the Village of Winnetka GIS department developed a process for showing staff-generated emergency information in a real-time mapping environment.
The environment for displaying the emergency event data generated by community staff is the GIS Consortium MapOffice™ Advanced mapping application, so the first step in the development process was to determine how the information would be stored and transferred from the input location to the map. The medium for bridging this gap is a Microsoft SQL database environment, which is used by MapOffice™ Advanced to display data and allows for multiple user inputs at one time. Using a Microsoft Access form as the point for data input, the staff member can enter emergency call information and, through a programming script developed by GIS department staff, have the information processed for input into the mapping application. Once processed, the event locations can be displayed by the application’s end users, providing them with a real-time view of what is occurring in the Village.
Viewing a community-level, real-time emergency event in an interactive spatial environment provides the potential for the Village of Winnetka to better plan for response situations and can assist Village staff in developing and executing better polices for future resource and manpower distribution.
The Village of Lincolnshire Public Works Department conducts a Pavement Patch and Repair Program for Village Streets in need of work. The goal of this program is to maintain and repair roads within the Village that have been identified that work needs to be done to improve the quality of the surface.
The GIS Department was approached by the Public Works Department to take an existing database of information and link to the GIS system to help locate and identify the patching locations throughout the Village. The database contained all location information, type of repairs, range of repairs, classification system of the repairs, and other key pieces of information that is needed to conduct this program.
The GIS Department used the provided database and mapped all the Pavement Patching Locations. Using available software and tools, the GIS Department was able to link the database and it’s records and assign a location within the Village. These locations then were turned into mapping points which contained the data from the database.
The end result of this task was the Village was able to take information, map that information, and then visualize the information in a mapping environment. The mapping products then can be used for planning purposes, inventory, and reporting as the Pavement Patch and Repair Program is being conducted.
The City of Highland Park has an ongoing program to restore ravines in order to prevent further degradations. Some of the issues they are addressing are slope failure, exposed sewer pipes, pollution discharge, and channel scouring. If these are left uncheck the ravines will continue to degrade, thus threatening the stability of nearby structures and increasing the amount of debris dumped into Lake Michigan.
Lack of funding forced the City to reduce the amount of ravine area restored each year. The City decided to apply for several grants from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative program. While a written report is useful, a map of the area is even more valuable. The City Public Works Engineering Division requested that GIS create some maps for the report.
Through GIS, the city created a map that showed the topography around the ravines. Then they added graphics showing existing issues, the extent of previous projects, and proposed new improvements. Using an underlying elevation model, the position of items is better understood in relation to the ravine.
With the help of GIS, the city created maps supported the written statements of what the city wanted to accomplish with the grants. The extent of the maps allowed the city to show it’s ongoing commitment to improve existing ravines and assisting with improving the ecosystem of Lake Michigan.
Currently the Village of Glenview does not maintain existing drainage ditches or culverts. This long-standing policy may merit review by the Board of Trustees as many neighborhoods depend heavily on ditch flow as their primary means of storm water drainage. Development of a Village-wide inventory of the existing right-of-way, and easemented drainage ditches is proposed for completion within 2010. Currently the Village is using Geographic Information System (GIS) to create this inventory.
By using GIS it provides the Village with a better understanding of where and how many linear feet of public and private ditches are in the Village. It also allows for Capital projects to present a more complete report and presentation, which could ultimately be the deciding factor on whether or not the Board of Trustees approves a storm water maintenance fund.
The Village of Lincolnshire has a rich intranet based mapping application MapOffice™ Advanced for all village users to access while on the network. The application has tools designed to fulfill business processes of the village staff to obtain information on a daily basis. MapOffice™ Advanced has a specific view to show Digital Terrain and Contour Information for viewing elevation data. Some users informed the GIS Department that they would like view just the Contour Information separate from the Terrain View. The goal was to provide village staff with a cleaner version of the Contour Information which could be used when printing Utility Infrastructure Maps. It was decided that a Custom Contour Overlay would be created to fulfill this request.
The GIS Department created and specific data layer that would display the Contour Information and worked with development staff to load this data layer as a Custom Overlay view within the MapOffice™ Application. When the data layer was completed, reviewed, and approved the application was updated to reflect the overlay. The end result gave village staff the ability to display the overlay when needed and print simple Contour and Utility Maps from MapOffice™ Advanced.