12.Municipal or urban engineering

Municipal engineering is concerned with municipal infrastructure. This involves specifying, designing, constructing, and maintaining streets, sidewalks, water supply networks, sewers, street lighting, municipal solid waste management and disposal, storage depots for various bulk materials used for maintenance and public works (salt, sand, etc), public parks and bicycle paths.

In the case of underground utility networks, it may also include the civil portion (conduits and access chambers) of the local distribution networks of electrical and telecommunications services. It can also include the optimizing of garbage collection and bus service networks. Municipal or urban engineering combines elements of environmental engineering, water resources engineering and transport engineering

Some of these disciplines overlap with other civil engineering specialties, however municipal engineering focuses on the coordination of these infrastructure networks and services, as they are often built simultaneously, and managed by the same municipal authority.Municipal engineering may be confused with urban design or urban planning.

Whereas the urbanist or urban planner may design the general layout of streets and public places, the municipal engineer is concerned with the detailed design. For example, in the case of the design of a new street, the urbanist may specifiy the general layout of the street, including landscaping, surface finishings and urban accessories, but the municipal engineer will prepare the detailed plans and specifications for the roads, sidewalks, municipal services and street lighting.