Featured: Is your public playground safe?

• 76% of the injuries happened on public playground equipment
• 23% occured on home playground equipment

The Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) is a certification offered by the National Playground Safety Institute (a program of the National Recreation and Park Association). CPSIs are certified to inspect playgrounds for safety issues, making sure that each playground that they inspect is up to the current national standards. The national standards are developed by the ASTM and CPSC.

Playground Safety-related Links

Smart growth, as reflected in the Urban Land Institute's (ULI) publication Smart Growth: Myth and Fact™, addresses the core issue of how communities will accommodate inevitable growth in a way that enhances livability, the environment, and the economy.

ELA Group is uniquely positioned to guide communities and developers toward award-winning Smart Growth planning. ELA Group's Rick Jackson, RLA and Principal-Landscape Architecture, is an impassioned resource and a leader in ELA's regional community Smart Growth Initiative. Call Rick at 717.626.7271 to discuss your project and how our experience in Smart Growth planning will improve it.

The ULI offers the following characteristics defining Smart Growth:

• Development is economically viable and preserves open space and natural resources.
• Land use planning is comprehensive, integrated, and regional.
• Public, private, and nonprofit sectors collaborate on growth and development issues to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
• Certainty and predictability are inherent to the development process.
• Infrastructure is maintained and enhanced to serve existing and new residents.
• Redevelopment of infill housing, brownfield sites, and obsolete buildings is actively pursued.
• Urban centers and neighborhoods are integral components of a healthy regional economy.
• Compact suburban development is integrated into existing commercial areas, new town centers, and/or near existing or planned transportation facilities.
• Development on the urban fringe integrates a mix of land uses, preserves open space, is fiscally responsible, and provides transportation options.

ELA Group has expanded our GIS capabilities with the addition of Patrick Moulds to our Municipal Engineering Group as Director of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). We asked Patrick, "What exactly is GIS?" He responded with a pretty clear definition:

Geographic Information Systems or GIS is a comprehensive database, which allows users to store, manipulate, analyze and display geographically referenced information.

• Parks and Recreation Planning
• Sewage Facilities Act 537 Maps
• Act 167 Storm Water Management Maps
• Comprehensive and Strategic Plan Maps
• Zoning and Land Use Maps
• N.P.D.E.S. (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Study)
    for MS4's (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems) Maps Base Mapping
• Municipal GIS System Implementation
• Rental Unit and Code Enforcement Management
• On-Lot Disposal System Management (Septic Systems)
• Water and Sanitary Sewer System Maps
• Storm Water System Maps
• Roads and Liquid Fuel Maps
• Data Collection (Code-Phase GPS)

Patrick shared his favorite GIS links that may be useful to you:

ELA Group, working through the Lancaster County Transportation Committee, is currently underway designing the traffic signal timing plans and coordination plans, recommending an upgrade to antiquated equipment and proposing to install new state-of-the-art software to provide closed-loop systems capabilities.

One of the most cost-effective ways to address traffic congestion is through traffic signal coordination. Coordination can significantly improve the operation of major traffic corridors by providing synchronization of adjacent traffic signals. This reduces stops, delays and travel time and reduces driver frustration with stopping and starting at each traffic signal.

ELA Group has also completed two (2) other similar projects, one in Lancaster City and the other in Lititz Borough. The Lancaster City project included retiming all 90 traffic signals in the downtown traffic signal network. This project also included replacing over 20 miles of copper interconnect wire with fiber-optic cable. The Lititz Borough project included retiming 8 traffic signals with three (3) different timing plans and replacing all intersection timers with state-of-the-art equipment.

If your municipality has congestion issues, they could be addressed in a similar fashion by traffic signal retiming, interconnection and/or coordination. Our experienced traffic department can fulfill all aspects of a traffic signalization project from determining the need for a new traffic signal, to retiming, interconnection, coordination, analysis, implementation and follow-up observation. Please call ELA Group at 717.626.7271 or email Doug Plank Principal, Transportation, for more information.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) also known as intelligent vehicle highway systems, utilize advanced and emerging technology in such fields as computer technology, information technology, electronic communication and control, artificial intelligence, and electronics. Innovations in traveler information, traffic management, and vehicle control can make possible changes in the way that highway systems and vehicles interact. ITS utitlize synergistic technologies and systems engineering concepts to develop and improve transportation systems of all kinds.

Here are some useful Traffic Signal/Intelligent Transportation Systems links:

• Institute of Transportation Engineers -- ITE Traffic signal retiming
• Benefits of Retiming Traffic Signals
• FHWA Announces Video Telling Benefits of Traffic Signal Retiming
• Benefits of Retiming Traffic Signals
• Managing Traffic Flow Through Signals
• Intelligent Transportation Systems Independent group focusing on all aspects of intelligent transportation systems sponsored by the US Department of Transportation.
• Intelligent Transportation Society of America Advocacy group for intelligent transportation systems. Site has news releases, membership information, and descriptions of activities.