In Photos: City Celebrates Public Works Week

Students from got an inside look into the day-to-day lives of some of Union City’s most important figures — the city’s Public Works Department staff.

This week was National Public Works Week and the city celebrated with a daylong equipment demonstration at the local school on Thursday.

Representatives from the department’s various programs met with children, allowing them to play with the tools and learn about the work they do. Street sweepers and a Union City Transit bus were also on display.

“[The staff] had a wonderful time and the children asked a lot of thoughtful questions about trees, storm water, , Union City Transit and clean water programs,” said Rhea Serran, communications manager for the City of Union City.

Established in 1960 and celebrated across the country, National Public Works Week aims to educate the community on the importance of Public Works. Public Works employees plan, build, manage and operate “the heart of our local communities,” Serran said.

The local Public Works Department uses “sustainable solutions to bring the community the highest possible quality of life within a framework of environmental, social, and economic responsibility,” Serran said.

What else does the local Public Works Department do? Here are some facts, courtesy of the City of Union City:

• The City of Union City’s Willow Park has the highest point rating for any Bay Friendly park in the Bay Area. The design has both active and passive recreation with lawns, trees, and planting beds, BBQ’S, play structure, composting bin, benches and tables.

• The City of Union City, Public Works, has an aggressive roadway pavement maintenance program which consists of yearly projects for pavement overlays and slurry sealing the lo- cal streets. The City has one of the highest pavement index (a indication of the conditions of a City’s streets pavement) in the Bay Area.

• The City acquired the large contaminated PG&E pipe yard and Pacific States Steel Cor- poration parcels located just east of BART station and cleaned them to enable Transit Ori- ented Development. This project, the Station District, will transform former industrial acre- age into a vibrant, integrated neighborhood, that will enable residents to live, work and play.

• Every Union City public street is swept twice a month. The Streets Division of the Public Works Department maintains 243 curb miles of City roadways.

• Operating 7 days a week, wheelchair friendly Union City Transit offers both fixed-route bus and paratransit services - over half a million service miles a year.

See photos from Thursday’s Public Works demo at Alvarado Elementary School in the photo gallery above.

To learn more about the Public Works Department, visit www.unioncity.org.