California Surveyors Forums

[font=&quot]February 3, 2015[/font]
[font=&quot]MEDIA BRIEFING[/font]
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[font=&quot]Los Angeles, CA – On Tuesday February 3, 1015, Mayor Eric Garcetti presented the City’s second Civic Innovation Award to the Survey Division of the Bureau of Engineering. The award was accepted by John Tosto, Survey Party Chief, who developed a cost-effective technique for milemarking the LA River Bikepath and digitially mapping maintenance holes. The Mayor’s Civic Innovation Award is given to those in the City’s ranks who exemplify creativity, innovation, and excellence. [/font]
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[font=&quot]“We are here today because new ideas and solutions aren’t always found within the walls of city hall,â€￾ said Mayor Garcetti, “they’re often found with the front-line workers who know more than anyone about the public services they deliver.â€￾[/font]
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[font=&quot]Tosto’s new process, using existing technologies, saved the department hundreds of work hours and established a new, shorter and technologically-advanced process for similar projects. [/font]
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[font=&quot]“John’s success shows us that the City of Los Angeles can compete with anyone when it comes to innovation, creativity and the best uses of technology,â€￾ said City Engineer Gary Lee Moore. [/font]
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[font=&quot]Surveyor’s New Process[/font]
[font=&quot]In September of 2014, Engineering’s Survey Division was asked to place 1/10 mile interval markers on a 7-mile stretch along the LA River near the City’s Griffith Park, as well as markers for the main entrances to the bike path.[/font]
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[font=&quot]Typically, the process for doing this is to send a three-person crew out to place the markers, lugging heavy equipment along with them and spending a couple weeks in the field. [/font]
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[font=&quot]Instead, Tosto used centerline stationing from construction plans and LA River stationing provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers, combining them with the measuring tools found on Google Earth and the new Pictometry application in NavigateLA, which was developed by the Bureau of Engineering. He was then able to load the coordinates into a GPS unit with precise, real-time measuring capabilities. [/font]
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[font=&quot]Next, he created a Google Earth overlay that could be opened on any smartphone out in the field. Using the Google Earth imagery and the construction plans, mile markers could be staked even if the GPS unit was not operational because of poor satellite visibility. [/font]
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[font=&quot]Staff was also able to create a file (much like an AutoCAD drawing file) that contains lines and icons with locations for Google Earth, Navigate LA and other GIS systems. These files are called a KML overlay, which is a layer of information that created a virtual “field reconâ€￾ that allows staff to interactively explore the LA River Bike Path for future projects.[/font]
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[font=&quot]A one-person crew was able to go out with a GPS unit, a Smartphone, staking equipment and a bicycle. Instead of a three-person crew walking the 7-mile stretch carrying heavy equipment over 200 staff hours, Tosto’s method took half the time.[/font]
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[font=&quot]Future Uses of New Process – Mapping Maintenance Holes[/font]
[font=&quot]Engineering’s Survey Division is now preparing to use this new technique to digitally map, with photos, the location of maintenance holes throughout the city. This new process combines the Bureau’s NavigateLA mapping system, GPS, Google Earth and a typical Smartphone.[/font]
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[font=&quot]Currently, the old process requires three surveyors working fulltime, all year, to relocate and mark maintenance holes when they have been covered up during street paving. By using the new process, only two surveyors will be required to do the work needed to relocate maintenance holes, because they only have to visit the site of the maintenance hole once (as opposed to twice). Now two surveyors are sufficient to meet the needs of Street Services, who is uncovering the holes. They will be able to do twice as much work in half the time.[/font]
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[font=&quot]Most importantly, once a maintenance hole location has been digitally mapped and archived in NavigateLA, multiple users can access its location. There are 140,000 maintenance holes in the City and Survey locates 3,500 a year. Over time, this means that once a maintenance hole location is archived, only rare field visits will be necessary to that location, should construction or significant changes occur on the street. [/font]
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[font=&quot]Tosto is a graduate of Cal State University Fresno, where he completed his Geomatics Engineering degree. He has worked as a surveyor with the City since 2003. [/font]
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[font=&quot]For more information:[/font]
[font=&quot]Mary Nemick, Director fo Communications[/font]
[font=&quot]Bureau of Engineering, City of Los Angeles[/font]
[font=&quot]213.485.5085[/font]
[font=&quot]Mary.nemick@lacity.org[/font]