PALMDALE – Three city of Palmdale Public Works employees were honored by the Palmdale City Council for their contributions to three awards the City won at the High Desert Branch of the American Public Works Association’s (APWA) annual awards ceremony held in December.
Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford and Public Works Director Mike Mischel presented plaques from the APWA and commendations from State Senator Steve Knight’s office to Senior Civil Engineer Lynn Glidden, Administrative Analyst Ben Lucha and Traffic Signal Manager Anthony Provenza.
Glidden was named the APWA’s Outstanding Public Works Employee of the Year. A 22 year public works employee, she was the lead engineer on the award winning Dusty’s Mineshaft Racer, overseeing the project in its entirety. Glidden also oversaw the new Palmdale Transportation Center security upgrade, which allows staff to better monitor and ensure safety at the facility, streamline coordination with law enforcement agencies, and maintain compliance with State video retention requirements. She also spearheaded the expansion of the new buildings at the Palmdale maintenance facility on 3rd St. East, a design-build project that includes a 20,000 square foot steel warehouse building; a 8,400 square foot administration building; removal of two existing modular buildings; underground utilities including fire line with three hydrants; electrical and fiber line; minimal site improvements; and removal of approximately 50 cargo containers to bring the Center in compliance with the City of Palmdale’s Zoning Ordinance.
The City also won the Innovative Design of the Year for DryTown Water Park’s Dusty’s Mineshaft Racer, of which Glidden played a key role.
Palmdale also was awarded Best Use of Technology for its traffic signal synchronization program. “Anthony Provenza was instrumental in the design and the construction of this project,” said Mischel. “Ben Lucha obtained the funding from the Department of Energy to enable us to do it.”
The City’s traffic signal synchronization program, with the assistance of the City’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant from the United States Department of Energy, utilized Miovision cameras attached to the traffic signals of selected intersections. Data was recorded and inputted into computers using TrafficWare Synchro software. In addition to being more accurate, the software interfaces with the new software, which allows the City to save significant amounts of time in analyzing the data and performing traffic signal synchronization. Rather than drawing their own maps, the software utilizes Google Maps to save significant time in data preparation.
In the program, Palmdale City staff synchronized 11.04 miles, covering 39 intersections along four major and one minor corridor. One intersection in particular, Avenue S and Sierra Highway, realized a savings of 14 percent in emissions, reduced the number of stops per hour in the same intersection by 20 percent and reduced fuel consumption by 16 percent.
“We appreciate the excellence of our staff,” said Ledford. “These three individuals are great examples of the kind of people we have here at the City. Our entire staff does great work and we’re all proud of them and their achievements.”
For more information, call at 661-267-5300.
(Information via press release from the city of Palmdale.)
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