San Diego Section NEWSLETTER San Diego Section NEWSLETTER

Volume 15, Issue 5 Thank You to Our Sponsors May 2009 San Diego Section NEWSLETTER INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION PRESIDENT Maureen Gardiner, P.E. City of San Diego 619-236-7065 mgardiner@sandiego.gov VICE PRESIDENT Marc Mizuta, P.E., P.T.O.E. Parsons Brinckerhoff 619-338-9376 mizutam@pbworld.com TREASURER Saul Kane, P.E. Linscott, Law, & Greenspan 858-300-8800 kane@llgengineers.com SECRETARY Dawn Wilson, P.E. RBF Consulting dwilson@rbf.com PAST PRESIDENT Jon Collins, P.E. Kimley-Horn & Associates 619-744-0121 jon.collins@kimley-horn.com ITE San Diego Section Golf Tournament Friday, May 1st at the Vineyard Golf Course See page 7 for more information. President’s Message by Maureen Gardiner Our April meeting began with a buffet lunch at the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant. Our Past President, Jon Collins, was presented with a plaque in appreciation of his dedication and service as an officer of the section over the last four plus years. Thank you Jon! Then the program began, led by Caltrans District 11 Transportation Management Center (TMC) Branch Chief, Everett Townsend, who gave an overview of the history and operations of the TMC. The TMC opened in 1996 and is where Caltrans Traffic Operations and Maintenance, and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) provide coordinated communications and transportation management. Call box and cell phone 911 calls are received and dispatched, incidents are monitored and managed, the managed lanes are operated, ramp meters and changeable message signs are controlled, and traffic information is provided to the public from the TMC. At the TMC, attendees watched a slideshow that included photos of a wide variety of freeway incidents. Everett Townsend and Lima Kopitch,TMC Operations Engineer, led tours that began with a view of the state-of-the-art foundation and support structure of the TMC designed to protect its functionality in the event of a major earthquake. The TMC is set up to act as a command center during an emergency. We saw the impressive communications hub and servers that are constantly monitoring traffic conditions on the regions freeways. And finally, we saw the main floor where dispatchers, operations staff, and CHP monitor conditions and direct responses aided by live video they can pan, tilt, and zoom, displayed on giant screens. Many thanks to Caltrans for accommodating our large group and providing a great program and tour. And it’s finally warming up, just in time for some fun outdoor ITE activities! I hope to see many of you at our annual Golf Tournament on May 1 at the Vineyard in Escondido. And consider biking to work on Friday May 15 for Bike-to-Work Day. SANDAG is coordinating many pit stops throughout the region, including the downtown pit stop, which our Section is co-sponsoring. If you are interested in helping out, please contact our Public Outreach and Education Chair, Kim Romano at Kim_Romano@URSCorp.com. We are looking for a volunteer to coordinate a second annual Summer Social/Family Games Day. Last year about 25 members and family gathered for a catered picnic in Mission Bay where we played volleyball, horseshoes, and enjoyed some great food and great company. If you are interested in taking the lead or helping out with this, please contact me at mgardiner@sandiego.gov. Our next meeting is June 4, 2009 and will feature a presentation from Jose Martinez with the California High Speed Rail Authority. Don’t forget to register by May 15 for the Western District Annual Meeting taking place July 12-15, 2009 at the Sheraton Denver to get the early registration discount and mark your calendars for the ITE 2009 Annual Meeting and Exhibit taking place August 9-12, 2009 in San Antonio, TX. Inside This Issue... March Meeting President’s Message Feature Article Announcements Advertisements 1 1-2 3-4 5-8 9-11 1 President’s Message INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION ANNUAL AWARDS Bill Darnell, P.E. Darnell & Associates 619-233-9373 bdarnell@darnell-assoc.com DIRECTORY/ ROSTER Monique Chen Wilson & Company 619-330-5200 monique.chen@wilsonco.com MEETING LOCATION Solomon Abraham Parsons 619-218-5887 solomon.abraham@parsons.com MEMBERSHIP Mark Jugar, P.E Rick Engineering Company 619-291-0707 mjugar@rickengineering.com NEWSLETTER Arun Gajendran, P.E. Rick Engineering Company 619-291-0707 agajendran@rickengineering.com MONTHLY PROGRAM Minjie Mei, P.E City of Santee 619-258-4100 mmei@ci.santee.ca.us SDSU STUDENT CHAPTER LIAISON Ahmed Aburahmah, Ph.D., P.E. City of San Diego 619-533-3141 aaburahmah@sandiego.gov STUDENT CHAPTER PRESIDENT Kyle Perez San Diego State University 661-809-7517 WEB MASTER Mychal Loomis Kimley-Horn and Associates 619-744-0161 mychal.loomis@kimley-horn.com Many students have expressed great interest in obtaining an internship. Anyone who has an internship opportunity to offer please notify Sherry Ryan (one of our faculty advisors) at sryan@mail.sdsu.edu or 619-594-5037. Sherry Ryan will be handling our internship program and will notify the students when opportunities become available. Please contact Kyle Perez (661)809-7517 or Leo Espelet (619-744-0136) with any questions. SDSU-ITE Student Chapter Monthly Meeting 2 Feature Article INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION ARE YOU IN COMPLIANCE? by Bill E. Darnell, P.E. and Brian Hartshorn Darnell & Associates, Inc. Trev Holman, City Traffic Engineer, City of El Cajon The City of El Cajon became a local leader in 2008 by advancing accessibility for its citizens who utilize city streets and patronize public buildings through exploring potential deficiencies in the current infrastructure and taking the initiative to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The City of El Cajon contracted with Darnell & Associates, Inc., and Paul L. Bishop, Architect, to inventory and assess potential inadequacies and needed improvements of city sidewalks, curb ramps, intersection crossings, and building accessibility to complete the initial phase of its ADA Transition Plan. The ADA Transition Plan is intended to represent both the legal and functional goals and objectives of the City to make the existing administrative, recreation and pedestrian facilities within the City right-of-way accessible and usable for persons with disabilities. The ADA requires all public agencies to develop an ADA Transition Plan for the installation of compliant curb ramps or other sloped areas at all locations where walkways cross curbs. The plan must include a schedule for curb ramp installation and for other improvements necessary (such as contiguous sidewalk linkage) to achieve programmatic accessibility for persons with disabilities. The ultimate goal of the Transition Plan is to bring public buildings, sidewalks and associated crossings up to code over a period of several years. Yet without tangible inventory of the magnitude of issues, a budget and schedule would be impossible to deliver. As such, the consulting team, armed with measuring wheels, bubble levels, cameras, clipboards, and a thorough knowledge of the minimum requirements set forth by the most current ADA guidelines, took to the field and surveyed 161 intersections, approximately 16 miles of sidewalk (8 miles of roadway both sides), and 15 public buildings for ADA conformance. The data gathered on public streets typically found ADA deficiencies which are common to all local jurisdictions, such as inadequate sidewalk width or breaks in contiguous sidewalk, impassable objects or raised joints, non-conforming curb ramp gradients without detectable warning surfaces (truncated domes). Building inventories noted dimensional tolerances, detectable warnings, slip resistances, door closers, and other issues such as non-conforming doorways, handles, signage, ramp access, and bathroom stalls. Continued on page 4 3 Feature Article Each segment of roadway, every intersection and crossing, and all buildings included in the first phase of inventory was fully analyzed for compliance and the data was compiled into a functional database. A scoring sheet for each type of facility was generated. The scoring sheet considered each roadway feature that required work, the need for the work, and its relative cost to complete. By combining these factors, a draft priority list was created. In order to create the scoring sheets, the values for the items were determined as follows. Safety was listed in the matrix for each compliance item. However judgment should always be used in unusual situations to change the safety rating for a project based on its individual situation. Where items pose safety issues for all users, they are given higher priority than those which represent mobility issues, or those that are included in order to achieve technical compliance. The level of need was determined based on three factors. The highest level of priority is given where a specific need for the project has been identified to the City. For example, based on complaints from individuals or groups, curb ramps at a specific intersection re requested to allow one or more persons to access a worksite from the local transit stop. The second measure is the proximity of the location to transit stops, or public access buildings or facilities. For example the streets just outside of a medical center, public facility such as a library or park, or adjacent to a transit bus stop. The third factor is the expected level of usage of the pedestrian facility. This is estimated using the functional classification of the street. Primary arterials, major streets, and commercial streets are expected to have the highest levels of pedestrian flows, and thus are given higher priority than local streets. The final factor considered was the cost of the improvement. In order to achieve the highest level of accessibility throughout the city, if all other factors give the same priority, completing many of the lower cost improvements will likely increase accessibility citywide more rapidly than completing one or two more expensive projects. Using this system, non-conforming locations were categorized and ranked by priority. Cost estimates were prepared based on the needs of the location using the database to query specific needs, such as complete replacement of a curb ramp, or the cost of installing textured warning surfaces. Cost estimates for sidewalks would range from grinding raised joints to replacement or installation of new concrete, etc. The cost estimates did not include any major reconstruction or unknown underground (non-visible) impediments. The combination of cost estimates and ranking system provided the City of El Cajon a reliable estimate of the improvement and budget needs to comply with ADA standards. The efforts of the consulting team were detailed in a report for the City of El Cajon for budget, schedule and approval. Future phases of the transition plan to incorporate more roadway locations and buildings are underway so that the City of El Cajon will able to meet federal requirements and provide accessibility for all of its citizens. 4 Announcements INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP Zoubir Ouadah, P.E. City of Poway 858-945-5577 zouadah@ci.poway.ca.us ANNUAL GOLF EVENT L. Scott Eisenhart, P.E. RBF Consulting 760-476-9193 seisenhart@rbf.com TECHNICAL WORKSHOPS Samir Hajiri, P.E. City of San Diego 619-533-6551 shajjiri@sandiego.gov INSTITUTO DE TECNOLOGICO DE TIJUANA STUDENT CHAPTER DEVELOPMENT Edgar Monroy monroy57@adnc.com WORKZONE SIZING JOINT ITE/EGCA TASK FORCE Joe De La Garza, P.E. Katz, Okitsu, & Associates 619-683-2933 jdelagarza@katzokitsu.com SDSU STUDENT CHAPTER ADVISOR Sherry Ryan, Ph.D. Alta Planning & Design 619-594-5037 sryan@mail.sdsu.edu TRANSPORTATION CAPACITY & MOBILITY TASK FORCE Erik Ruehr VRPA Technologies 858-566-1766 eruehr@vrpatechnologies.com SB 275 WOULD CONVERT TRAFFIC ENGINEERING TITLE TO PRACTICE By Walter Okitsu Senator Mimi Walters has introduced California Senate Bill 275, presenting a chance to convert the PE registration in traffic engineering into a full-fledged license. The bill, whose language could be found at website http://leginfo.ca.gov, would convert the 9 title-protected branches (agricultural, chemical, control systems, fire protection, industrial, metallurgical, nuclear, petroleum, and traffic engineering) into practice licenses. The bill would also allow overlap between all branches within every PE’s area of competency, as long as the practice is in connection with and incidental to the P.E.’s branch of licensure. Under California current law, only civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers are allowed to practice, and only civil engineers are allowed to overlap their practice into electrical or mechanical engineering. This bill would effectively create a licensing method similar to every other state in the USA, where boundaries between branches are blurred. Most states have a generic PE license that shows no branch of engineering on the PE stamp. Under SB 275, California would follow a more restricted model that closely resembles Nevada’s, where PE’s can collect licensure in one or several branches, with overlap recognized between branches. The passage of the bill would allow California traffic engineers to qualify for the Professional Traffic Operations Engineer certificate, for which they are currently ineligible. It would also help to reinvigorate Oregon’s traffic engineering license, which is languishing as the sole TE practice license in the country. The co-sponsors of the bill are the California Farm Bureau Federation and the Chemical Industry Council of California. They are interested in the licensure of agricultural engineers and chemical engineers, respectively. The opposition is likely to come from the Professional Engineers of California Government (PECG), and the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) California, formerly known as CELSOC. They object to their perceived dilution of powers in the civil engineering license. Continued on page 6 PLACE YOUR AD HERE! If you would like to place an advertisement in an upcoming issue of the ITE San Diego Section Newsletter, please contact Saul Kane of Linscott, Law & Greenspan at kane@llgengineers.com or Arun Gajendran of Rick Engineering Company at agajendran@rickengineering.com 5 Announcements INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS LIAISON John El Khoury CH2M Hill 619-689-0120 ext. 7238 John.elkhoury@ch2m.com PUBLIC EDUCATION & INFORMATION Kim Romano URS Corporation 619-243-2898 Kim_Romano@URSCorp.com A bill supporter is the Registered Traffic Engineers of America (RTEA), which has been using its membership dues for a lobbyist to gather support for SB 275. RTEA has been discouraging traffic engineers who support this bill from contacting legislators and Caltrans workers from complaining to PECG, because RTEA feels such contact does not help the bill’s progress. Instead, RTEA’s strategy has been to ask traffic engineers to find users of engineering services, such as major corporations and trade associations, to support the bill. Walter Okitsu ITE Western District Licensing & Certification Chair wokitsu@crainandassociates.com 6 2009 ITE - San Diego Section Golf Tournament Vineyard Golf Course Friday, May 1st New Exc itin 3 Par St g ud Poker Si de Game Check-in: 11:30 am Lunch & Putting Competition: 12:00 pm Shotgun Starts: 1:00 pm For sponsorship or additional information, call Scott Eisenhart at 760.603.6253 2009 GOLF TOURNAMENT Golf / Lunch / Dinner – $95 Name(s) / Average Golf Score: 1. _______________________________/________ 3. _______________________________/________ 2. _______________________________/________ 4. _______________________________/________ — ENTRY FORM Attendance: Prizes for the following: 7 Announcements INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS SAN DIEGO SECTION San Diego Section December 16, 2008 2009 Re: ITE San Diego Section Newsletter Sponsorships and Advertisements Dear Colleagues: The San Diego Section of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) is seeking sponsors and advertisers for February 2009 through January 2010 newsletters. Newsletter sponsorship allows the opportunity to showcase your company’s work in the “Feature Article” and includes a half-page advertisement for that issue. In addition, we continue to offer extended advertising options as outlined below which include the same size ad posted on our website for the same length of time. Sponsorship or Advertisement Type (includes monthly newsletter and website) Single issue sponsorship - includes one halfpage advertisement and the “Feature Article” Business card advertisement Quarter-page advertisement Half-page advertisement Full page insert $175 N/A $75 $150 $250 Single Issue Full Term (10 issues) N/A $125 $225 $450 $750 Sponsoring and advertising in the ITE San Diego Section newsletter, which is distributed ten times per year (January-June and September-December), offer your firm the opportunity to reach over 200 members in the San Diego region as well as their coworkers and acquaintances in the Transportation Engineering industry. Don’t miss out! We encourage you to contribute to keeping this valuable communication tool active and effective by sponsoring and advertising. Please send all advertising material (preferably in electronic format) and a check payable to the ITE San Diego Section to: Saul M. Kane, P.E., PTOE Linscott, Law & Greenspan, Engineers 4542 Ruffner Street, Suite 100 San Diego, CA 92111 Email: kane@llgengineers.com Phone: 858.300.8800 Ext. 231 Please don’t hesitate to call or email me if you have any questions. My contact information is mgardiner@sandiego.gov and (619) 236-7065. Thank you! Sincerely, Maureen Gardiner President ITE San Diego Section 8 TRANSPORTATION PLANNING/DESIGN RAIL ENGINEERING CIVIL ENGINEERING SURVEY/GEOSPATIAL/ RIGHT-OF-WAY ARCHITECTURE 701 B Street, Ste 1220 San Diego, CA 92101 Local 619-330-5200 Toll-Free 866-270-6283 www.wilsonco.com Serving California Traffic isn’t pretty, but for more than 40 years we’ve made it work better. Traffic Transportation Parking ■ ■ Land Development Water and Wastewater Traffic Transportation Roadway Environmental Aviation Stormwater Planning www.kimley-horn.com San Diego Office Tel: 619-234-9411 Fax: 619-234-9433 Additional California Locations Riverside • Los Angeles Orange • Santa Clarita Stockton • Oakland San Ramon • Rancho Cordova Roseville Pasadena 626.796.2322 Costa Mesa 714.641.1587 San Diego 858.300.8800 www.llgengineers.com Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.