Thursday, May 1, 2025
A Guide to Change
The new ISO 55000 standard identifies four fundamentals of proper asset management: value, alignment, leadership, and assurance. Of those, some of the biggest challenges are…
Featured
Room to Grow
When the Ontario government passed Greenbelt legislation in 2005, with the stated goal of protecting sensitive, beleaguered forests and waterways surrounding the Greater Toronto Area,…
Your P3 Policy Framework
The next decade will be a period of significant public-policy and program-delivery transformation as governments—particularly municipal governments—balance the public’s expectation for high-quality, responsive, and affordable…
Aboriginal Power
From coast to coast, Canada’s Aboriginal communities are flipping a clean-energy switch—and this story, which is still unfolding, is a classic Canadian tale filled with…
Smart Assets
The long-awaited ISO 55000 series of standards was officially released in January 2014 and is composed of three separate standards. The first—ISO 55000, “Overview, Principals…
A Smarter City
By Jim Dobbs Urban theorist Jane Jacobs called cities “problems in organized complexity.” Consider Jacobs’s example of a public park: a park’s use depends on…
Silent but Deadly
A massive explosion rocked the Regina Consumers’ Co-operative Refineries in October 2011, injuring 52 people. Investigators concluded that there was “a catastrophic failure” in a…
What Lies Beneath
In 2012, the Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT) reported more than 230,000 incidents of underground utility damage during excavation across Canada and the United States—up…
In Line
The City of Ottawa is embarking on the largest infrastructure project in its history. Expected to cost around $2.1 billion, the Confederation Line (No. 18…
Guelph Building City-Wide District Energy Network
The new high-efficiency heating and cooling system in the Sleeman Centre in downtown Guelph, Ontario is an important step toward building a city-wide district energy…
The Future of Renewables
At a national level, when Canada is compared to other countries, the renewable energy forecast appears to predict a safe, steady increase in capacity. However,…
Stand Up to Sprawl
The sprawling, outward expansion of Canadian cities to provide lower-priced houses to growing populations threatens the financial future of many Canadian local authorities and pushes…
Finding Your Way
Canada’s urban centres are moving—or at least, they are investing heavily in moving people for the future. Almost every municipality in the Greater Toronto Area…
Beyond the Money
Public-private partnerships (P3) are often viewed as a way for cash-strapped municipalities to meet increasing fiscal challenges. It is true that P3s—or alternative finance and…
Data Overload
There is great value in big data if you know where to look—and that’s especially true for the electricity sector, which is well positioned for…
From Vision to Reality
Communities across Canada are grappling with concerns about energy security, global warming, and environmental impacts of energy. In the search for ways to plan for…
Slow Uptake
A common theme among Canadian municipalities is the struggle to maintain, repair, and replace deteriorating municipal infrastructure like roads, water, and sewer networks. Traditionally, communities…
All Wrapped Up
The number-one question asked at every construction industry function is whether government plans to bundle. Project bundling, or combining a number of smaller projects into…
In the Know
It’s not rocket science. Effective communication with the public about infrastructure decision-making, service disruptions, and ongoing projects is a no-brainer and not terribly difficult to…
Future-Proof Cities
This year may well go down as the year of the flood. For people living along the Red River in Manitoba, and many other waterways…
3C Competition Winner: Adaptive Urban Habitats
Project Location: Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York Team: Matthew Stoner, Lukas LaLiberte, Debby Yeh, David Parker Adaptive Urban Habitats, winner of the 3C Competition, is a standardized…
The Urban Design Action Plan
Implementing urban design starts with the commitment to build the future. Below are the vital elements involved in successful action plans—and a case study of…
Done in a Flash
If you haven’t heard of rapid bridge replacement (RBR), it’s time you did. This state-of-the-art process allows bridges to be replaced in a matter of…
The New Brain Drain
Over the past decade, the Canadian public-private partnership (P3) market has been one of the most active in the world. With more than 200 projects…