You are here:

ENGINEERING

Our award-winning engineers embrace the trailblazing spirit of our founder, W.G. McElhanney, by challenging conventional thinking, questioning the status-quo and expressing our passion to use engineering to make the world a better place.

We recognize that our projects must serve the interests of our communities for the long term. From senior management to our most junior recruits, we are partners in solving our clients’ challenges. For over a century, as McElhanney evolved, we have added expertise in specialized fields to suit our clients’ needs. Today we offer a complete range of engineering and related services to meet almost any requirement.

New roundabout
Municipal engineering & municipal infrastructure

MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE

McElhanney has a long history of partnering with municipalities on all aspects of infrastructure planning, design, and construction projects.

We offer an integrated approach projects through the collaboration of our engineering, contract administration, environmental, planning, and landscape architecture specialists, along with trusted industry partners to deliver the best solutions.

McElhanney provides a diverse range of municipal infrastructure services including:

  • Road design, including intersections, round-abouts, as well as multi-modal and “complete streets” design.
  • Underground infrastructure, including watermains, sanitary/storm sewers, and combined sewer separation. You can learn more about these services on our water resources portfolio page.
  • Infrastructure planning, including computational modeling and public and stakeholder engagement.
  • Facility design including treatment plants, pump stations, and pressure reducing valves.
  • Construction management, contract administration, and inspection services.
  • Street beautification and streetscape design.
pond and townhouses

WATER RESOURCES

McElhanney has established expertise in water resources planning and engineering for any scale of project. From watershed assessments to site specific improvements, our team can provide a wide range of services including:

  • River and Hydrotechnical Engineering
  • Infrastructure Planning and Renewal
  • Stormwater Management and Green Infrastructure
  • Water and Wastewater Facilities
Visit our water resources portfolio to learn more about our projects.
Engineering Transportation

TRANSPORTATION

Our transportation team provides a full range of services for roads, highways, trails, and transit systems. We set our work apart by beginning with the end in mind, and having in-depth design guideline knowledge to take projects through every design stage, tendering, construction supervision, and contract administration. Our transportation services include:

  • Highway traffic counts and analysis
  • Transportation planning
  • Transportation network modelling and forecasting
  • Intersection and interchange modelling
  • Traffic impact analysis
  • Route selection
  • Highway and interchange design
  • Highway drainage design
  • Construction detour design and traffic management plans
  • Parking studies
  • Business casing
  • Guide signing design and pavement marking design
  • Signal timing optimization
  • Roundabouts and traffic circle design
  • Pedestrian and wildlife crossing design
  • Retaining wall design
  • Resource access road design
  • Bicycle path and mountain bike trail design
  • Road safety audits and engineering,
  • Pavement condition assessments
  • Asset inventories and management
Engineering Bridges

BRIDGES

Our bridge team’s experience includes everything from short-span creek crossings to long-span, complex highway bridges. We have completed major projects in Canada and the US. We provide our services to owners on conventional design-bid-build projects and contractors in fast-paced P3 / design-build environments. With practical experience in planning, construction, and engineering of bridges, we can develop concepts around practical means of construction from the start to deliver fully integrated solutions tailored to each project. Our specialties include:

  • Bridge planning and conceptual design
  • Bridge hydrotechnical design and river training works
  • Long-span cable-stayed and suspension bridges
  • Short- and medium-span concrete and steel bridges
  • Bridge launching and construction engineering
  • Bridge deconstruction design
  • Bridge assessment, rehabilitation, and load evaluation services
Townhouses

LAND DEVELOPMENT

McElhanney offers many complementary services to meet the needs of our land development clients, including in-house expertise in civil engineering, structural engineering, environmental assessments, landscape architecture, and surveying.  We take pride in arriving at innovative design solutions – addressing many aspects of a typical land development project.  We apply our knowledge of local regulatory processes to assist our clients in navigating municipal development approvals.  We apply these services all projects of all sizes, from 10-lot developments to complex 1600+ unit developments. Our most popular land development services include:

  • Community plan preparation
  • Subdivision layout and servicing design
  • Development approvals
  • Tendering and construction engineering
Staff in the field in snow

GEOTECHNICAL

From planning and design through to construction, McElhanney’s qualified geotechnical engineers deliver the analysis and recommendations to address site needs. We operate in all market sectors including municipal, oil and gas, transportation, and the resource industry on projects of all sizes. Major services we provide include:

  • Geotechnical foundation engineering
  • Geotechnical site investigations
  • Drilling coordination, supervision, and sampling
  • Pavement evaluation and condition assessments
  • Aggregate resource evaluation
  • Pit development plans
  • Geological hazard assessments
  • Terrain mapping
  • Terrain assessments
  • Slope stability analysis
  • Geotechnical monitoring
Materials Testing

MATERIALS TESTING

McElhanney has in-house materials testing laboratories throughout BC to deliver prompt, locally focused materials testing services. Complementing our local laboratories, our fleet of mobile laboratories enables our qualified technicians to provide responsive on-site services, even in remote areas. We offer our services for the following project needs:

  • Construction aggregate testing
  • Soil and concrete testing
  • Asphalt testing
Structural Engineering

STRUCTURAL

Our structural engineers provide designs for industrial, institutional, commercial, and high-end residential structures. Additionally, we offer highly specialized structural, mechanical, and civil engineering services to the recreation and mountain resort industry, including ski-lifts and trail bridges. Our expertise includes:

  • Building design
  • Industrial structural design and analysis, including sign structure design
  • Structural design for utilities
  • Recreation design, including passenger ropeway, ski-lift, and amusement ride design
  • Noise and retaining walls design; shoring design
  • Connections designs, including guardrails, platforms, and stairs
  • Arctic structure design
  • Construction inspections and engineering support
  • Building condition assessment

Click here to learn more about our Trails, Tourism, Recreation, & Parks Services

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT


We provide construction management services for a wide array of clients and projects, including municipal infrastructure, water and sewer, highways, roads, bridges, and interchanges. Our construction management staff are a trusted and essential component of the project delivery team for our clients; taking the project from concept and constructability, through tendering and construction, to completion and implementation. Our services include:

  • Value analysis and value engineering
  • Constructability and construction staging
  • Tendering and construction contract administration
  • Quality assurance
  • Claim review, mitigation, and resolution
  • Emergency repairs, and federal disaster financial assistance reporting for cost recovery
Meters

ELECTRICAL

Our electrical engineers offer bright solutions to power businesses and advance communities. We work with industrial, commercial, and institutional clients on a variety of electrical projects. Whether it is a new design, a system study, or an existing system upgrade, our main focus is to ensure that systems remain safe, reliable, and efficient. We provide tailored electrical solutions across a range of markets and industries. These services include:

  • Electrical project management – scope development through to construction
  • Technical troubleshooting
  • Commercial, industrial and residential building electrical systems
  • Fire and life safety system
  • Standby power systems
  • Contractor and construction management
  • Indoor, outdoor, street and traffic lighting and control
  • Instrumentation and control
  • Power generation and distribution
  • Balance of plant design
  • Building management system design
  • Facility assessment
  • Network analysis including load flow, short circuit, arc flash and protection coordination studies

We are members of the BC Hydro Power Smart Alliance Group.