MJ Receives ACEC Platinum and Gold Awards for Engineering Excellence

MJ recently received a Platinum and Gold Award for Engineering Excellence from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) for two different projects in the City of Albany, New York. The firm won a Platiunum Award for mobile mapping the City and a Gold Award for the revitalization of North Swan Street Park. MJ received these two prestigious awards at the 2016 Engineering Excellence Awards Reception on Saturday, March 19th at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

Mobile Mapping the City of Albany:

Mobile MappingMobile mapping is revolutionizing the way in which we map our world. Utilizing mobile mapping technology, MJ's survey team mapped the entire City of Albany in just four days. The MJ team drove the entire city (248 linear miles), street by street, collecting billions of data points of information at safe roadway speeds.

The mapping is being used in the development of a Complete Streets Policy and Design Manual for the City of Albany. MJ is the prime consultant responsible for creating the design manual which will promote safety, health and smart growth for all modes of transportation including pedestrian, bicycle, public transit, cars and trucks. Due to the fast-paced nature of this project, the project team needed accurate mapping and inventory of features such as sidewalks, crosswalks, curbs, bicycle racks, streetlights, trees, and bicycle lanes. MJ's survey technicians worked quickly to process the data to inventory and map the existing street infrastructure, allowing this important community project to stay on schedule.

Revitalization of North Swan Street Park:

This project involved the extensive renovation of the North Swan Street Park, a once dilapidated lot that was transformed into a multi-generational green urban park within the City of Albany's Arbor Hill neighborhood. The park was in a state of disrepair and identified as a priority for improvements in the Arbor Hill Neighborhood Plan. Five years ago, it was a crumbling paved lot with a weed-pocked basketball court surrounded by falling-down fences. Today, it is an environmentally sensitive, multi-use outdoor community center with playground equipment, benches, amphitheater, picnic areas, interactive water feature, prominent landscaping and a new, smooth basketball court. This green urban park is the first of its kind in the City of Albany and incorporates a variety of innovative approaches to sustainable water management. It is also notable in that it has been built to be universally accessible.