Live Events
Spotlight On Winter Maintenance
PWX@Home works around your busy lifestyle. You can choose one afternoon per month to set aside and embrace an all-new virtual learning experience. The second Tuesday of each month from August through July, APWA will unveil education in 12 key public works focus areas. The series features sessions on relevant topics—most of which were selected for PWX 2020 in varying formats to maximize learning and engagement.
View all 2020-2021 Spotlight On... Series sessions >
October 13, 2020
1:00–4:30 p.m. CT
Attend three Winter Maintenance sessions for one low price! Registration is $50 for Members and $75 for Non-Members. Registration discounts are available when registering groups and for the entire annual series. Participants are eligible for up to 0.3 CEUs for this program.
Register for October
Register for Annual Series
Communicating your Winter Maintenance Plan
Speaker: John Parsons
Discover the ins and outs of the City of London, Ontario’s Winter Operations Plan in this comprehensive education session. The city’s Division Manager of Roads Operations will be on hand to discuss all things equipment, resource, budget, and service level related. Find out how they have managed the expectations of staff and contracted resources while implementing a customer service call tracking system. Attendees will also get a glimpse into how London leverages local media using innovative approaches like inviting local media to their operations yard for Q&A and harnessing the power of social media to provide members of their community with live updates on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (snow removal updates on their Twitter feed alone resulted in 275,084 impressions!).
Proficiency Level: Applied
Learning Objectives:
1. Communicate their winter maintenance plan.
2. Promote their service levels and expectations to the road, sidewalk and cycling community.
3. Develop a communications plan using social media to inspire feedback that can be used to enhance the user experience.
Lessons from the Lab – Enhanced Liquid Deicers
Speaker: Scott Koefod
Plain salt brine is the most commonly used liquid deicer, but agencies often use a variety of more complex brine blends to seek enhanced performance. Field experience is always the ultimate arbiter of effectiveness of any deicer, but it can usually only judge on a coarse, qualitative basis. Laboratory studies permit a more precise understanding of deicer performance properties and can provide valuable supporting information about the effectiveness expected from deicing chemicals. This presentation will focus on what we are learning about the fundamental performance properties of enhanced brine blends under controlled conditions in the laboratory. Topics will include: How do common brine enhancers affect ice melting capacity and rate? Low temperature performance? Pre-wet performance? What is the optimum brine concentration? What causes some brine blends to turn into “mayonnaise” and how to avoid it? Under what circumstances are enhanced brine blends likely to be most useful?
Proficiency Level: Advanced
Learning Objectives:
1. Determine when enhanced brines can provide the most value.
2. Prepare stable brine blends without formation of solids.
3. Select the brine enhancers needed for their particular application.
Pavement Gone to Pot? Patching and Preventing Potholes
Speakers: David Bergner, Mike Hale
Potholes, like cold, snow and ice, come with winter. They are most prolific later in the season as freeze-thaw cycles are the primary cause of pothole formation. Potholes generate the most complaints to transportation agencies about road conditions; they aggravate drivers, cause costly damage to vehicles, impede the flow of traffic, cause accidents due to loss of control or sudden swerving to avoid them, present hazards to pedestrians and those on bicycles and motorcycles, and lead to further deterioration of the roadway. Timely and reliable patching of potholes is vital to restoring safety, mobility and capacity to our streets, roads and highways. Yet many agencies lack the information, training and resources to effectively and efficiently repair these proliferating problems. Aside from traditional methods of throw-and-roll with cold patch and cut-and-fill with hot patch, there are new products and methods that are becoming more cost-efficient. Furthermore, agencies need to focus more on identifying "precursors," those pavement defects that will eventually lead to potholes if not corrected. Most agencies do not have adequate funding for all necessary preventive measures that would mitigate pothole formation. This session will examine pothole formation, review the various temporary and permanent repair methods, describe the different pavement defects that contribute to potholes, and establishing a year-round pothole "find-and-fix" program.
Proficiency Level: Applied
Learning Objectives:
1. Determine what would be the best methods and materials for patching under varying conditions.
2. Explain how and why potholes form.
3. Develop a year-round program of pothole repairs and preventive measures.
SC/RC Perspective On Winter Maintenance
October 7, 2020
Noon–1:00 p.m. CT
Preparing Small Cities/Rural Communities for Winter Weather Operations
Speakers: Marc Valenti and Craig Eldred
Winter operations is not limited to snow and ice season. Preparing for winter weather is a year-round charge for small cities and rural communities. Connect with panelists to prepare your winter weather operations and equipment in your small city/rural community.
Registration is FREE for Members and Non-Members. You can
register for the entire year of programming or by each individual
program.
Register for October
Register for Annual Series
Third Thursday Advocacy Jam: Winter Maintenance
October 15, 2020
2:30–3:30 p.m. CT
As public works agencies across the U.S. and Canada begin planning and preparing for winter maintenance, the threat of natural disasters looms large. In addition to snowstorms and other winter weather, different regions of the country can face a wide range of issues including flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, and more. Please join the APWA Government Affairs team and volunteer leaders for an interactive discussion on disaster relief policy, changes to grant programs, and the impact of COVID-19 on emergency management in both the U.S. and Canada. Please come ready with your stories – sharing your experiences with these programs and thoughts on how they might be improved will help APWA’s staff best advocate on your behalf. We look forward to hearing from you!
Registration is FREE for Members and Non-Members. You can register for the entire year of programming or by each individual program.
Register for October
Register for Annual Series
Winter Maintenance Operator Certificate
October 6 and 8
7:30–9:30 a.m. CT
Launched for chapters mid-2019, this is the first time this program will be available to nationally. This four-hour certificate program is targeted towards those staff in the trucks performing winter operations, including operators, crew leaders, and foremen. The program focuses on snow and ice control materials and how they work, equipment, and operations.
During this program’s national debut, hear from speakers who developed this program, many of whom are current or former operators themselves. The format blends the best of live face-to-face with the convenience of online learning. The workshop will be held over one week, two days a week with two-hour class sessions. Live session dates and times are October 6 and 8 from 7:30am-9:30am Central. Live sessions will be recorded, and participants can either go back and revisit material later or catch up on a session they missed.
Learning Objectives:
1. Discuss the basics of winter operations and apply essential winter operation for operators.
2. Identify common winter materials and how they work.
3. Explain the different winter equipment available and its upkeep and determine the benefits of enhanced communication between fleet personnel and operators.
Introductory pricing is available for this first session: $50 for Members and Non-Members.
Register for October