Attend our Joint Meeting
2022 President’s Message
Happy New Year, ITE Community! It’s hard to imagine that our last in-person event was the vendor show two and a half years ago. While not seeing engaged faces in person has been difficult, our section has hosted some incredible virtual events, taking advantage of the remote meetings. We’ve seen more consistent attendance with a wide variety of speakers presenting to our group. When we do go back to in-person meetings, we plan to offer a hybrid option. As transportation professionals, we all know how difficult it can be to commute across our section, which spans from San Luis Obispo to Simi Valley and beyond. Virtual platforms have made it easier than ever to stay connected and take advantage of the services and webinars ITE provides.
I want to thank our members for continuing to support ITE and remain active in their community and their profession. If there’s anything we can do for you, or if you would like to become more involved with the Board, please contact me. Here’s to a healthy and safe 2022!
Vidhi Sachdeva, Central Coast Section President
Cal Poly SLO Looking for Professional Mentor for ITE Student Data Collection RFP
The ITE Western District recently release the 2022 Request for Proposals (RFP) for Student Projects. This year’s RFP is focused on STEM outreach projects, instead of the traditional trip generation data collection project. However, the SLO student chapter project team needs a professional mentor who can work with them.
This is a great opportunity for the SLO student chapter to earn some money to support their chapter activities (up to four student chapters will be awarded $1,000 each).
Proposals will need to be sent to the Western District by Friday December 17 at 5pm Pacific Time. If you are interested in learning more or assisting the SLO student chapter please contact Jason Ng, Chapter Secretary.
Central Coast ITE Mixer with Cal Poly SLO Student Chapter and Faculty
Join us for a networking event this Friday between Cal Poly students, faculty, and transportation professionals! Food will be provided!
Friday, October 29, 2021 @ 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
San Luis Obispo Library Community Room (995 Palm St, San Luis Obispo, CA 93403)
Check out this flyer and RSVP with this form!
Caltrans District 5 Job Fair
Caltrans District 5 is hosting a Job Fair at the District Office in the San Luis Obispo parking lot on Wednesday, October 20th, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Attendees can apply in person at the event and there will be plenty of staff that can help answer their questions.
September Section Meeting
Mark Spencer will present on the recently completed Transportation Master Plan (TMP) for the City of Menlo Park.
About this event
The City of Menlo Park recently completed a Transportation Master Plan (TMP), outlining a multimodal vision for its future mobility by identifying projects, priorities, and a strategy for moving forward. The TMP was built upon four goals that were established in the city’s General Plan: Safety; Congestion Management; Mobility Choice; and Sustainability. The TMP enables the City to take a more strategic and comprehensive approach to implementing a multimodal vision, and to better understand how chosen investments help achieve their vision for a multimodal future. The project included an assessment of transportation operations, robust public engagement, reconciliation of proposed transportation improvements to a common baseline, formation of unified recommendations based on input from a Steering Committee, identification of funding partnerships and grant opportunities, and formation of a Plan that now serves as a blueprint for City decision making going forward. This presentation will cover lessons learned and how the integration of policies, funding mechanisms and public engagement elevated a list of projects into a plan that can be implemented.
About the Presenter:
Mark Spencer is one of the two ITE Western District International Directors. He is a Senior Principal and Vice President of W-Trans. He manages the firm’s Oakland office, focuses on traffic analysis for multi-disciplinary projects, and excels at community engagement. He is registered in California as a Traffic Engineer.
Mark holds a B. Eng. in Civil Engineering from McGill University and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been working as a consultant in the Bay Area since 1990, and joined W-Trans in 2011. His work includes managing a wide array of transportation planning projects, from EIRs and Specific Plans to parking studies and neighborhood traffic management plans. He is often invited to present projects before community forums and elected officials, and is recognized for his ability to present technical topics to both general and professional audiences. When asked what he does for a living, Mark will typically respond that, through transportation, he works to make communities better, safer and more livable. He also enjoys his role in mentoring and training staff.
Mark Spencer
Joint Central Coast Section and Central California Section Meeting
Agenda:
12pm-1pm: Presentation from from the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) on policies/bills that CalBike supports.
About the Presentation:
Jared Sanchez from the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) will present on policies/bills that CalBike supports. One of the bills that will be covered is the Bicycle Safety Stop Bill (AB 122), which legalizes a stop as a yield for bikes. A jaywalking repeal bill (AB 1238) will also be covered.
About the Presenter:
Jared Sanchez has a background in policy research, rooted in social justice, that connects to grassroots power to achieve transformative policy goals. His work at CalBike focuses on building connections with community-based justice-centered organizations across California, and connecting bicycling, and sustainable transportation more generally, with intersecting issues such as housing, climate, and environmental justice. Prior to CalBike, Jared worked in the social justice research space for 10 years focusing on issues of immigrant integration, regional equity and racial desegregation
Joint Central Coast Section and Cal Poly SLO Student Chapter Meeting
Agenda:
11am-12pm: ITE Announcements & The Railroad Safety Trail (RRST) presentation by Bryan Wheeler, City of San Luis Obispo
12pm-1pm: Social – Transportation Trivia
About the Presentation:
The Railroad Safety Trail (RRST) has long been one of the highest-priority multimodal transportation projects in the City of San Luis Obispo (City)—a crosstown, dedicated facility for pedestrians and bicyclists connecting the southern City limits north to California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Over the past two decades, approximately 40 percent of the total four-mile trail has been completed and existing portions of the trail are enjoyed by over 1,000 pedestrians and cyclists per day.
The portion currently under construction extends from Taft Street (current end) to Pepper Street. Once completed, it will encompass about 0.4 miles, from the existing trail alignment to the edge of the downtown core. The segment will run along the west side of California Boulevard, near Taft Street, stretching south across the existing Highway 101 overcrossing. The segment then shifts away from California Boulevard behind the California Highway Patrol (CHP) property to a new bicycle/pedestrian bridge crossing over the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) and connects Phillips Lane to Pepper Street. Construction began in November of 2020, and is expected to be completed in September of 2021.
Bryan Wheeler has been a Transportation Planner / Engineer working for the City of San Luis Obispo since 2012. He graduated from Cal Poly in City and Reginal Planning in 2009, and is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Civil Engineering form Cal Poly, graduating in June. His professional interests are traffic safety, sustainable transportation infrastructure, railway engineering, and traffic signal optimization.
About the Social:
The social portion of the joint meeting will utilize breakout rooms to split students and transportation professionals into groups for some transportation trivia.
Membership Update
Beginning this year the Section has a new Membership Committee chaired by Faridur Rahman. The following update on current membership was provided at the Section Board Meeting in March:
As of March, 2021 ITE Central Coast Section has 129 total members. Members are broken down into several categories: student members, younger members, members, fellow members, and retired members. All membership levels are ITE International members and Section only membership is no longer provided.
In 2020 Central Coast Section added 11 new members. In 2021 we added 7 new members in the first two months of the year. Majority of members added this current year are students members from Cal Poly Student Chapter.
The full membership report is available here:
If you have any membership questions or ideas for increasing membership please contact Faridur Rahman.
ITE Central Coast Section 