Work Experience

With outdoor advertising I was mostly involved in surveillance which is mandatory for each district under the highway beautification act. If it isn’t performed twice a year and meet certain goals, the commonwealth can lose ten percent of their funding. Surveillance is when I go out into the field and drive along the controlled state routes in each county within the district. I was required to keep track of all of the signs and advertising devices on each of the state routes whether it is permitted or not. If it is not permitted and on a controlled route, it is considered an illegal sign. After I had confirmed that it is in fact an illegal sign, I must find whose property it is by doing tedious research at the county courthouse. I then have to contact the landowner to let them know they have an illegal sign on their property. I send them a letter letting them know they must either take it down or fill out a form to document that it is theirs and apply for a permit to be able to advertise on it. If the landowner does not want to be responsible, I have to do an investigation because I must find out how we can contact the business and let them know what needs to be done to issue them a permit for the sign.

I also have to do several things with signs that already have permits. Every year the sign owner must renew their permit and sometimes the business might have closed or the person may have moved so I need to do research on how I can contact this person. I also deal with transferring permits between owners or businesses which is very important to be done correctly because if it isn’t, the old owner will still be responsible for paying the fees for the permit. Lastly, I also revoke permits. If the permit isn’t paid for a certain amount of time the department is legally able to go out, remove the sign, and take the permit.

Click below to see my plans reading certificate in a pdf format. 

  A portion of my time was spent reviewing Right-of-Way (or ROW) plans for Highway Occupancy Permits (or HOP). When land is being developed and the drive way is connected to a state road, a Highway Occupancy Permit is required. In the permitting process, sometimes deceleration lanes, traffic signals, detention basins and various types of easements are required. When a deceleration lane is required many times the developer will need to dedicate land to construct necessary road features. I reviewed various HOP Right-of-way plans that depicted the right-of-way that will be deeded to the Commonwealth. The minimum width of right-of-way established for each project is necessary to accommodate construction and provide proper maintenance of the roadway without an undue number of jogs in the right of way line. I looked at many plans on paper and in the field that involved utility relocation (such as electrical poles, sanitary and water lines) that must be moved out of the land that is soon to be deeded.

When reviewing HOP ROW plans, I had to make sure all of the plans were in accordance the rules of the Commonwealth Design Manual 3 (or the DM3). The DM3 is a manual of state and federal guidelines that must be adhered to when designing highway plans. The manual promotes uniformity in the preparation of plans by establishing a general format and detailed information that is required from each plan. Reviewing all of these plans day after day helped me learn various things about highway plans and helped me achieve my plans reading certificate after taking a course offered by PennDOT.