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Yes, together we are the best!

March 29, 2012

San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section

2012 Annual ReportFor the Period of January 1– December 31, 2011

Table of Contents

SFBAY AREA ITE LEADERSHIP TEAM.........................................................................................4

2011-2012 ROSTER OF ELECTED OFFICERS.........................................................................................52011-2012 APPOINTED BOARD MEMBERS.........................................................................................5

MEMBERSHIP..........................................................................................................................8

FINANCIAL STATEMENT...........................................................................................................9

GOVERNANCE........................................................................................................................10

TECHNICAL PROGRAMS..........................................................................................................11

SCRIBES FOR LUNCH MEETINGS..............................................................................................13

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES.................................................................................................................22

ANNUAL RECOGNITION AWARDS...........................................................................................22

2011 TRANSPORTATION PROFESSIONAL OF THE YEAR..........................................................................222011 TRANSPORTATION PROJECT OF THE YEAR..................................................................................23

PAST PRESIDENT’S ACTIVITIES................................................................................................25

ITS ACTIVITES.........................................................................................................................26

TEAM CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 26, 2011.......................................................................................26ITS FOR CITIES – JULY 29, 2011......................................................................................................26

ITE/APWA SCHOLARSHIP GOLF TOURNAMENT......................................................................27

ITE COMMUNICATION PROGRESS..........................................................................................28

ITE EMAIL ANNOUNCEMENT AND EVENT REGISTRATIONS SYSTEM..........................................................28ITE SF BAY AREA WEB SITE............................................................................................................28

Home Page............................................................................................................................29Board & Bylaws and Annual Reports.....................................................................................29Assistance to Other Organizations.........................................................................................29Local Jobs...............................................................................................................................30Links Page, with PE vs. PTOE Page.........................................................................................30Students/Mentors Page.........................................................................................................30Technical Programs...............................................................................................................30Golf Tournament...................................................................................................................30Section Awards......................................................................................................................30Past Events............................................................................................................................30Photo Album..........................................................................................................................31Plans for Upgrade and Improvement.....................................................................................31

STEP MENTORING PROGRAM................................................................................................33

SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM......................................................................................................34

ANNUAL PICNIC AND NETWORKING MEETING.......................................................................35

STUDENT ACTIVITIES..............................................................................................................36

2012 SF Bay Area ITE Annual Report page 2 of 43

UC BERKELEY ITE CHAPTER.............................................................................................................36General Meetings..................................................................................................................36Office Visits............................................................................................................................36Activities................................................................................................................................37

INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERS, SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY STUDENT CHAPTER....................38Overview of the Year.............................................................................................................38Student Chapter Summary.....................................................................................................38Professional Meetings...........................................................................................................39Student Chapter Meeting......................................................................................................39Innovative Bike & Pedestrian Projects in San Jose, SJSU (February 9, 2012)..........................39Company and Field Tours......................................................................................................40Organization Fairs.................................................................................................................40Future Planned Activity..........................................................................................................40Fund Raising..........................................................................................................................41Member Roster......................................................................................................................41

APPENDICES...........................................................................................................................43

2011 TECHNICAL FOURTH ANNUAL TRANSPORTATION MODELING WORKSHOP........................................432011 MONTHLY LUNCH MEETING FLYERS.........................................................................................44


S F B A Y A R E A I T E L E A D E R S H I P T E A M

Kamala Parks President

Mousa AbbasiVice President

Jia Hao Wu Treasurer

Tiffany Barkley Secretary

Shruti MalikImmediate Past President

James R. Helmer Chair, Past President

Council Secretary


2011-2012 Roster of Elected Officers

President

Kamala ParksKittelson Associates

180 Grand Avenue, Suite 250Oakland, CA 94612

510-839-1742 ext 107 voice510-839-0871 fax

510-393-6611 [email protected]

Vice President

Mousa Abbasi, PhD, PE, TE, PTOETranspedia Consulting Engineers

613 Fourth Street, Suite 205Santa Rosa, CA 95404

707-527-6300 voice707-527-6303 [email protected]

Treasurer

Jia Hao Wu, PhD.W & S Solutions, LLC

4900 Hopyard Road Suite 100.Pleasanton, California 94588

925-468-4132 voice925-463-4128 fax


Secretary

Tiffany Barkley Iteris , Inc.

2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 200Berkeley, CA 94704-1345


Past President

Shruti Malik, PE, PMPHatch Mott McDonald

4301 Hacienda Drive, Suite 300Pleasanton, CA 94588


2011-2012 Appointed Board Members

Membership Coordinator

Lin ZhangCambridge Systematics, Inc.555 12th Street, Suite 1600

Oakland, CA 94607

510-873-8700 voice510-873-8701 fax

[email protected]

STEP Mentoring Chair and

SF/Peninsula Student Outreach Liaison

Paul StanisDKS Associates

1970 Broadway, Suite 740Oakland, CA 94611

510-267-6645 voice510-268-1739 fax

[email protected]

South Bay Student Outreach Liaison

Murali RamanujamSanta Clara Valley Transp. Authority

Development & Congestion Management Division

3331 North First Street, Building BSan Jose, CA 95134-1906


East Bay Student Outreach Liaison

Eduardo SerafinTechnology Transfer Program

UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies

1301 S 46th St, Bldg 155, Richmond, CA 94804

510.665.3457510.665.3454

[email protected]

Student Outreach Adviser

Eduardo SerafinTechnology Transfer Program

UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies

510.665.3457510.665.3454

[email protected]


1301 S 46th St, Bldg 155, Richmond, CA 94804

Web Administrator

Sam LamUniversity of California at Berkeley

2520 College Ave, Apt. #106Berkeley, CA, 94704


Wed Design Administrator

Joakim Osthus, P.E.Mead & Hunt, Inc.

133 Aviation Boulevard, Suite 100Santa Rosa, CA 95403

707-526-5010 voice707- 526-9721 fax


Co-Scribe Afsaneh Yavari 925-789-7337 [email protected]

Co-Scribe Kimberly E. Leung [email protected]

Technical Programs Co-Chair

Afsaneh Yavari 925-789-7337 [email protected]

Technical Programs Co-Chair

Nate Chanchareon, PESan Francisco Municipal Transportation

Agency1 South Van Ness Avenue, 7th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94103-5417

415.701.4374 voice415.515.8954 cell

[email protected]

ITE Awards Chair

Amit M. Kothari, PESan Francisco Municipal Transportation



415-701-4462 voice415-701-4301 fax

[email protected]

Legislative Chair

Michelle DeRobertis, PESanta Clara Valley Transp. Authority

3331 North First StreetSan Jose, CA 95134

408-321-5716 voice408-321-2300 general

[email protected]

ITS Coordinator

Joy Bhattacharya, PE, PTOETJKM Transportation Consultants

3875 Hopyard Road, Suite 200Pleasanton, CA 94588-8526

925-463-0611 voice925-463-3690 fax

[email protected]

Social Events Chair Kimberly E. Leung [email protected]

Golf Tournament Chair

Jerry RobbinsSan Francisco Municipal Transportation



415-701-4490 voice415-701-4343 fax

[email protected]

Chair of Past Presidents’ Council

James R. Helmer, PE, TE, PTOECity of San Jose

Dept. of Transportation200 East Santa Clara Street

San Jose, CA 95113

[email protected]

Sponsorship Chair

Bhanu P. Kala, PEWilbur Smith Associates

201 Mission Street, Suite 1450San Francisco, CA 94105

415-495-6201 voice415-495-5305 fax

[email protected]


M E M B E R S H I P

2010-2011 2011-2012 Membership Grade2 2 Honorary78 76 Fellow444 423 Member12 12 Institute Affiliate145 129 Student Member5 4 Other

686 646 Membership TotalThe Section membership decreased by 6% between 2010 and 2011. However, the Section made efforts to increase the membership. As of March 15, 2012, the total has reached to 481 as compared to 686 in 2010.


F I N A N C I A L S T A T E M E N TThe section is identified as follows:

The Section’s Federal Employer Identification Number: 94-3104865 Date Issued: 2/7/2011 501(c)3.

2012 Annual Report – Financial Statement

Chase Bank350 – 20th StreetOakland, California 94612(510) 452-6666

Beginning Balance – January 1, 2011Net Grand TotalITE HQ- Transfer from ChaseExpense Prior to 2005- January 20, 2011

$23,074.59$2,005.64$5,000.00$475.59

Ending Balance – December 31, 2011ITE HQ Student Scholarship – Feb. 13 2012

$20,555.82$15,394.30

Income Categories TotalMeeting Revenue $11,691.48ITE HQ Membership Dues $6,590.00Technical Programs Revenue $2,425.18ITE HQ Membership Coupons $1,258.00Other Income $261.45Credit for bank charges $150.00Total Income Categories $22,376.11Expense CategoriesMeeting Expense $10,355.40Student Outreach $3,571.07Technical Programs Committee $2,129.11Administrative / Board Activities $2,066.56Miscellaneous $475.59Plaques and Awards $430.55SBTOA $420.89BALLOTS - Officers or Bylaws $410.55Lunch Meeting Draw $186.85Bank Charges $173.95Internet & Web Site $149.95Total Expense Categories $20,370.47Net Grand Total $2,005.64

Note: the report is obtained from ITE MS Money Chase Account.


G O V E R N A N C E

Were changes made to your Bylaws during this reporting period? Yes No If yes, please attach a copy of the new bylaws.


T E C H N I C A L P R O G R A M S

The Section establishes new technical program committee, which includes Nate Chanchareon and Afsaneh Yavari as co-chairs and Jia Hao Wu as a member. The program consisted of presentations, workshops and technical papers on various subjects by experts from the Bay Area, Spain, Hong Kong, Canada and a series of ITE webinars. Section’s ITE members from governmental agencies and private firms strongly supported the technical program. They volunteered their time to provide professional services and program venues, including W & S Solutions, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley Transportation System, San Francisco MTA, University of California, Davis, Dowling Associates.

The co-chairs are mainly responsible for organizing the programs, determining the presentation topics, inviting speakers and working with the section officers. Section’s President Nate Chanchareon provided the Section leadership support and other officers Shruti Malik, Kamala Parks and Mousa Abbasi. The co-chairs participated in the discussions on the program and sent out program e-mail announcements, and Sam Lam provided technical program updates throughout the year on the SF Bay ITE website (http://www.sfbayite.org).

Fourth Annual Transportation Modeling Workshop

Topic: “Modeling for Sustainable Transportation and Land Use Developments” Date: Friday April 1, 2011, 8:00 AM – 5:30 PM, Location: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, San Francisco

Following the great success of our last three Annual San Francisco Bay Area ITE Transportation Modeling Workshops, with participants gathered from around the world, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE organized the Fourth Annual Transportation Modeling Workshop, on April 1, 2011. There were 80 participants, and the fee was $35 for ITE members, $65 for non‐members, and $20 for students. These fees included lunch and coffee/drinks during breaks.

The theme of this workshop was "Modeling for Sustainable Transportation and Land Use Developments". The objectives of this seminar was to show what innovative transportation modeling tools are available to our engineers and planners in the transportation modeling industry, and how these tools can be applied to transportation planning/engineering projects. Speakers were representatives from the international transportation modeling software development industry, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), San Francisco Transportation Authority, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and many others who talked about the current modeling development status on climate change evaluation, meso‐scopic modeling, and land use models linked to the transportation models. Some presentations were made at the last TRB conferences or will be presented in the future ITE conferences. The following is a list of topics and respective presenters:

Welcoming Notes, Nate Chanchareon, Technical Programs Co‐Chair Keynote Address, Moving Toward a Sustainable Mobility System, Timothy Papandreou,

Deputy Director, Sustainable Streets, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA)

Using an Activity‐based Travel Model to Inform Climate Studies, David Ory, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)

Emerging Land Use and Transportation Modeling with UPLAN and Emme in China, Jia Hao Wu, W & S Solutions Transportation Consultants


Integrated Modeling for California Climate Planning, Robert Johnson, University of California, Davis

Cube Land Implementation for Kern Council of Governments, Matthew Martimo, Citilabs

Integration of Travel Demand, Land Use and Emissions Modeling for Transit Corridor Expansion Projects in the Silicon Valley, George Naylor, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)

Making Your Demand Model Sensitive to Bicycle Infrastructure: from Raw GPS Data from the Cycle Tracks Smart Phone Application to a Bicycle Route Choice Model, Billy Charlton, San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA)

Transport Modeling for Transport and Land Use Sustainability: Lessons and Challenges from East Asia and the Middle East, Richard Di Bona, Independent Consultant & LLA Consultancy, Ltd., Hong Kong

Dynamic Traffic Assignment in San Francisco – Finding Out Where the Cars Go and Why, Elizabeth Sall, SFCTA

Modeling Pedestrian Traffic and Safety in STEPS Modeling Software, Baljinder Bassi & Allen Nie, Hatch Mott MacDonald

Multimodal Level of Service Analysis of a Road Diet in Pasadena, Bill Cisco, Dowling Associates

Evaluating the Efficiency of Variable Speed Policies using Micro‐simulation, Alex Gerodimos, TSS‐Transport Simulation System

Active Traffic Management using Macroscopic Simulation, Alex Kurzhanskiy & Gabriel Gomes, UC Berkeley PATH

Modeling Freeway‐to‐Boulevard Conversions, Greg Riessen, Planning Department, City of San Francisco

The workshop concluded with a questions/answers session and appreciations/ acknowledgments.


S C R I B E S F O R L U N C H M E E T I N G SStatistics of the 2011 Lunch Meetings are reported below. The lunch meeting flyers are shown in APPENDICES.

MONTH VENUE LOCATION ATTENDEES

January, 2011 Ponzu Restaurant’s Orpheum Ballroom San Francisco 48

February, 2011 Silver Dragon Restaurant Oakland 31

March, 2011 DeVery University Oakland 37

April, 2011 SFMTA San Francisco 46

May, 2011 The Faculty Club, Howard RoomUC Berkeley Berkeley 15

June, 2011 Elephant and Castle, Niantic Room San Francisco 76

September, 2011 Sinbad's Pier 2 Restaurant San Francisco 51

October, 2011 DeVry University Oakland 58

November, 2011 Michael's at Shoreline Mountain View 79

Scribes: Afsaneh Yavari, Kimberly Leung, and Tiffany Barkley

The Scribe committee prepared minutes for the monthly meetings as shown below:

January 2011 by Afsaneh Yavari On January 20, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBayITE) held its first monthly meeting of 2011 at Ponzu Restaurant’s Orpheum Ballroom in San Francisco. There were 48 people in attendance. This program featured the ITE’s Annual Recognition Awards ceremony, honoring the 2010 Project of the Year and 2010 Professional of the Year award winners. The winner of the 2010 Transportation Project of the Year was “AC Transit’s NextBus: System-wide Real Time Bus Arrival Information”. Jon Twichell of Capital Projects, AC Transit, made a presentation describing the project. The winner of the 2010 Transportation Professional of the Year award was Mark Spencer.

February 2011 by Tiffany BarkleyOn February 17, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBay ITE) held a joint monthly meeting with the South Bay Traffic Officials Association (SBTOA) at the Silver Dragon Restaurant in Oakland. 31 people attended the meeting, whose theme was Statewide Legislation and Transportation. Shruti Malik, the section president, began the meeting with an announcement for SFBay ITE's 4th Annual Transportation Modeling Workshop, which will be held on April 1st at SFMTA in San Francisco. In other news, Advancing Women in Transportation (WTS) will be holding their annual meeting at the Hyatt Embarcadero in San Francisco on May 18-20th. Pat Gibson, who is running for ITE's International Board of Directors, was in attendance, and encouraged all members to vote in the upcoming June elections.

The meeting's technical presentation was given by Lezlie Kimura Szeto, who is the air pollution specialist for the local government outreach group of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Eliot Rose from UC Berkeley was also slated to present, but was unable to attend the


meeting. Ms. Sveto presented on "Sustainable Communities for Sustainable States", and focused on CARB's efforts to direct local governments in implementing SB 375. Implementation of SB 375 is a three phase process. The first phase, which has just been completed, sets emission reduction targets for each MPO. The second phase is the planned development phase, in which each MPO comes up with a sustainable development strategy to help them meet their emission reduction target. The third phase offers incentives for implementation of the planned strategies. Ms. Szeto discussed the challenges of having SB 375 be only incentive-based, rather than a sanction or a mandate. Already, however, MPOs have greatly improved their analytical planning tools to prepare for the implementation phase. For example, travel demand models have improved, travel surveys have been refined, and MPOs are beginning to develop and monitor performance indicators to track their progress is meeting targets.

March 2011 by Tiffany BarkleyOn March 17th, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBay ITE) held a joint monthly meeting with ITS-CA at Devry University in Oakland. 37 people were in attendance. The theme of the meeting was Automated Enforcement. Kamala Parks, the section vice president, began the meeting with some announcements. The section is holding its fourth annual Transportation Modeling Conference on April 1st at SFMTA. Kamala also announced the upcoming elections for new section officers.

The first presentation was given by Lieutenant Kevin Davis of the California Highway Patrol (CHP), who spoke about automated enforcements from the law enforcement perspective. Lieutenant Davis is an expert in the estimation of speed limits, automated speed enforcement, and red light camera systems. According to Lieutenant Davis, the goal of automated enforcement from the law enforcement perspective is to change driver behavior to save lives. CHP supports automated enforcement only when it is fair, supplemental to officer deployments, and allows enforcement where otherwise not possible (for example, a bridge with no shoulders). The decision of where automated enforcement is deployed is data-driven, and accuracy is of critical concern when deploying enforcement technologies. Lieutenant Davis discussed the need for early and comprehensive media campaigns so that motorists are not surprised by the deployments, and advises cities to avoid the topic of revenue generation. He discussed three specific types of automated enforcement: (1) red light camera systems, which CHP operates in Sacramento and Los Angeles; (2) automated speed enforcement, which is not authorized in California; and (3) automated occupancy enforcement, which is being tested on I-15 in San Diego.

The second presentation was given by Julie Dixon from Serco. Serco is an international provider of management services to government agencies, and transportation is one of their specialties. Serco has been operating San Francisco's parking program since the early 1990s, and was awarded the management of SFPark, which is San Francisco's project to incorporate new parking management technologies and approaches. Parking technologies in urbanized areas are changing rapidly. In many locations, parking is too expensive to make quarters feasible. San Francisco currently lets drivers pay for parking with credit cards or with SF smart parking cards. Revenue has increased by 50% since San Francisco implemented an integrated parking system; the city made $37.5 million dollars off of parking last year. Serco built a backend database that all vendors tie into, so that the city knows exactly which meter each penny came from, which helps them make decisions on changing meter hours or pricing. The next step of SFPark is demand-based pricing, which will involve the integration of traffic data into the parking data warehouse.

April 2011 by Tiffany Barkley


On April 14, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBayITE) held a joint monthly meeting with the Northern California Chapter of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) and the International Chinese Transportation Professionals Association (ICTPA). 46 people were in attendance at this meeting, which was held at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority's office. The format of the meeting was a lively panel discussion on engaging diverse communities in the transportation decision making process. The panel was moderated by Debra Jones, a native San Franciscan who has worked at both SFMTA and AC Transit, and is now an Environmental Protection Specialist for the Federal Transit Administration in Sacramento. The panel consisted of Robert Lee, Manager of the Local Government and Community Relations Division of BART; Lysa Hale, Project Consultant for the Clipper Program for MTC; and Brajah Norris, External Affairs Manager for the Central Subway Project for SFMTA.

On the ITE side, the meeting began with an announcement from section president Shruti Malik about the upcoming section elections. Specifically, the section is looking for secretary candidates. The election ends June 15, 2011. Section co-scribe Tiffany Barkley announced that the section is looking for a new co-scribe. Co-scribes are responsible for taking notes at monthly meetings. Following announcements, the panel discussion began with introductions from each of the panel members, followed by a question and answer session.

Mr. Lee gave an overview of current happenings at BART, which include the extension to Warm Springs from the Fremont Station and the need to replace the current fleet, which has been operating since the 1970s. Ms. Hale described the Clipper Program, which has instituted a smart payment card accepted by 7 transit agencies around the Bay Area. Mr. Norris introduced SFMTA's Central Subway Project, which is a 1.7 mile extension of the underground T Third Line from the Caltrain Station through Union Square to China Town. At 1.57 billion dollars, it is SFMTA's largest capital investment project in 50 years.

The discussion centered on the topics of assessing project impacts on diverse and

underrepresented communities and effectively engaging these communities in the stakeholder process. BART performs an equity analysis for every project, which considers the impacts to minority and low income communities. They also hold meetings in these communities to gather feedback on fares, accessibility, and amenities. To locate these communities, they use census data from the project's vicinity. They then consult with local groups about the most effective ways to perform outreach in each community. One lesson that the agency has learned over time is the importance of ensuring that food purchased for meetings is culturally-appropriate. The Clipper deployment was an operations project, not an infrastructure project, so the challenges are different. Because the Clipper Card accounts for fare discount rules across agencies, it can be complicated to use. As such, the focus is on communicating Clipper instructions (how to use, how to add money, how to add discounts, etc) with those who cannot access the website or who


have limited English proficiency. Here, it has become apparent that translating instructional materials from English is not sufficient, because of the subtle differences in tone and meaning between different languages. Instead, the program has native speakers write materials. Ms. Hale also discussed the ways that the Clipper program has leveraged the expertise of the outreach staff of partner transit agencies, who are accustomed to dealing with these challenges. For the Central Subway Project, SFMTA has employed a number of tools. Since the project largely impacts Chinatown, they distribute materials in multiple Chinese dialects. They also contract with local community-based organizations to help distribute messages and obtain feedback, and use a social media program to further inform the public. They have also found the benefit in not just communicating with local communities, but also employing them in the project. To this end, the agency set up a meeting to allow local minority contractors to meet with large prime firms to seek partnering opportunities. May 2011, by Afsaneh YavariOn May 19, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBayITE) meeting was held at the Faculty Club, Howard Room, at the University of California, Berkeley. There were 15 people in attendance. This meeting featured the winners of the 2011 ITE Student Paper Competition. The theme of the papers was Sustainable Communities: Intersecting Infill Development with Transportation, in which the students were asked to present their research and analysis of infill sites and transportation considerations of land use alternatives for the sites. The moderator was Ms. Elizabeth Deakin, Professor of City and Regional Planning and Urban Design, at UC Berkeley. Ms. Deakin’s research focuses on transportation and land use policy and the environmental impacts of transportation through the publication of over 200 articles, book chapters, and reports. The winner of the Grand Prize was Mark Young, who is a BS candidate at San Jose State University. The topic of his paper was: Intersecting Infill Development with Transportation. Ms Kimberly Leung, a MS candidate at University of California at Berkeley, won the Graduate Paper Award. The topic of her paper was: High Density Oriented Developments adjacent to The Milpitas Bart Station. Ms. Katie Leung, a BS candidate at University of California at Berkeley, won the Undergraduate Paper Award. The topic of her paper was: Intersecting Infill Development with Transportation, a Study Focused in Milpitas, CA.

June 2011 by Tiffany BarkleyOn June 20th, the section held its Annual Business Meeting at Elephant and Castle in San Francisco. 76 people were in attendance to hear the program on Complete Streets, Sustainable Communities, and Safe, Active Transportation. The meeting began with a Student Appreciation announcement. Murali Ramanujam presented Stephanie Chow and Alvin Sarmiento, both of San Jose State University (SJSU), with plaques for their efforts at reactivating the ITE student chapter at SJSU. Other announcements were made for the upcoming ITE/APWA Golf Tournament, to be held on July 15, 2011, and the Annual Western District meeting in Alaska on July 10th thru 13th.

Following the student recognitions, the Annual Business Meeting featured three presenters speaking on the theme of "Complete Streets, Sustainable Communities, and Safe, Active Transportation". John Sighamony, Senior Transportation Planner for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), gave a talk entitled "SB-375 (Sustainable Communities Strategies) for Local Agencies". VTA is unique in that it is both a transit operator and a Congestion Management Agency, and Mr. Sighamony shared the agency's strategies on encouraging sustainable communities, which include Express Lanes, Bus Rapid Transit, and the potential adoption of a Complete Streets Program. The second presentation was given by Meghan Wier, an epidemiologist with the San Francisco Department of Public Health who specializes in health impact assessments of transportation projects. In her presentation, entitled "Transportation


Policy is Health Policy", she discussed the aspects of health that are impacted by transportation projects, such as the ability to walk, bike, and play safely, noise and air quality levels, and equitable access to transportation facilities. She described a number of tools available for performing health impact assessments, and detailed her agency's development of a Pedestrian Injury Collision Forecasting Model used to identify high-risk corridors and meet the target of reducing San Francisco's 800 annual pedestrian injuries by 50% in 10 years. The final presentation was given by John LaPlante, Director of Traffic Engineering at T.Y. Lin. Mr. LaPlante's presentation, entitled "Complete Streets: Who Benefits and Who Pays" focused on debunking a number of the myths impeding the implementation of Complete Streets. Given that one-third of Americans do not drive, Complete Streets are those that accommodate all modes that want to use the facility. While there is no single design solution for Complete Streets, Mr. LaPlante described a number of location-specific ideas for improving multimodal access, such as reducing lane widths on arterials, adding landscaping, installing pedestrian countdown clocks, and timing signals to the speed that you want vehicles to travel.

To conclude the Annual Business Meeting, Shruti Malik, current section president, announced the election results and welcomed the new SF Bay Area ITE Elected Officers for the upcoming year. The new board members are: Kamala Parks, President; Mousa Abbasi, Vice President; Jia Hao Wu, Treasurer; and Tiffany Barkley, Secretary.

September 2011 Kimberly LeungOn September 15, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SF Bay ITE) held its monthly meeting at Sinbad's Pier 2 Restaurant in San Francisco. The topic of the meeting was "34th America's Cup - Race, Economy, and Transportation," which focused on the preparations for the America's Cup, an international yacht race to be held in the San Francisco Bay in the summer of 2013. The meeting was sponsored by Iteris. The meeting began with a presentation by Dalene Whitlock, who currently serves as ITE International Director. Dalene spoke about the purpose, organization, and strategic plan of ITE. The strategic plan includes student initiatives, career development, technical excellence, social/networking, and promoting the profession. Following the presentation, the newly elected Board Members - President Kamala Parks, Vice President Mousa Abbasi, and Secretary Tiffany Barkley - were sworn in. Roger Koehler, Sales Director at


Iteris, gave a brief presentation about the video detection and traffic management services of the company. With the introduction of CA Bill AB 1581, all new and replaced traffic signals are now required to detect bicycle and motorcycle traffic. He enumerated reasons for the usage of video detection, which is already becoming the most dominant form of technology for traffic management. Adam Van de Water, Assistant Project Director - 34th America's Cup, Office of Economic and Workforce Development with the City of San Francisco, addressed the preparations and economic impacts of the America's Cup. Adam first gave an overview of the event timeline, proposed course area and event locations, and renderings of renovations to the piers for staging areas, spectator sites, and other logistics. A draft EIR was already published in July, which received over 2000+ pages of comments by August, and the EIR certification is targeted for the end of this year. Peter Albert, Manager of SFMTA Urban Planning Initiatives, discussed the transportation impact and improvements projects being undertaken in preparation for the America's Cup, specifically with a focus on the People Plan. He opened with the guiding principles for all of the implementations plans that the City is putting together. The City has goals of remaining efficient with their resources, environmentally sustainable, and adaptable and also hope to leave a positive legacy. Therefore, the City is working towards improving transportation systems already in place by encouraging transit agencies, such as BART, MUNI, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, AC Transit, and WETA among others, to collaborate to provide the most efficient service for the public. This, however, comes with a number of institutional barriers among the various agencies and even with vendors such as Clipper. The next few years are being used a testing ground to try out new transit services such as adding a MUNI Route 47 with limited service on Van Ness and implementing the MUNI E line on top of the existing F line. There are also plans to extend the bicycle sharing pilot program, which is set to start in the Financial District and SOMA in Spring 2012, through the northern part of San Francisco through the Marina to Crissy Field for the America's Cup. The City is also considering areas for satellite parking outside of San Francisco at BART stations in West Oakland and Daly City and at Ferry Terminals in Larkspur to encourage people to use shuttles or transit to get into the City. There are still many other considerations such as access, safety, and transportation demand management that still needs to be planned for as the City moves forward with their plans.

October 2011, by Afsaneh YavariOn October 20, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBayITE) held its monthly meeting at the DeVry University/Keller School of Management in Downtown Oakland. There were 58 people in attendance. The topic of the meeting was "California High Speed Rail - Opportunities &s Challenges". The meeting panel provided a project update, including opportunities and challenges to its implementation. Kamala Parks, the new President of the SFBayITE started the meeting. She announced that the nominations for the SF Bay ITE Professional of the Year Award and for the Transportation Project of the Year Award are due to Mr. Amit Kothari (SFBayITE Awards Chair) by November 14, 2011. She then introduced Mr. Bill Nichols of National Data & Surveying Services (NDS), who sponsored this meeting. Mr. Nichols spoke briefly about their services which include traffic data collection.

Mousa Abbasi, the new Vice President, introduced the first


speaker, Mr. Randy Rentschler, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)'s Director of Legislation and Public Affairs, whose presentation was titled "California High Speed Rail: update and MTC's role in the planning of the project in the Bay Area". He started his presentation by indicating that there are 7 million residents, 3.1 million jobs, 9 counties, and 26 public transit operators in the Bay Area. MTC has allocated over $1.4 billion to Caltrain over the past 30 years. Peninsula is loaded with wealth creating transportation infrastructure. The Bay Area labor market is experiencing a stronger recovery than most of California, but is still lagging behind the rest of the nation. The next big step will be California High Speed Rail. Since the high-speed rail is about connecting large metropolitan areas, the critical decision is focusing on the proper city pairs. High speed rail will be an alternative to congested air travel, and will provide clean electric transportation.

The second speaker was Mr. Brock Winstead, District Director and representative from Senator Joe Simitian's office, presenting "HSR and Caltrain: A Blended Approach". He explained that what his office is asking is that the HSR between San Francisco and San Jose to stay within the Caltrain right-of-way, with no elevated structures, and to restrict EIR to a more modest project. He then explained that what their office is not asking for is switching to Caltrain in San Jose, running only one HSR train per day, not extending to the Transbay Terminal, and shutting the door to future construction. He indicated that it might not always be possible to stay within existing right-of-way, and some communities prefer above-grade structures as their best option. He concluded that the goals are to respond to pressing community concerns, while saving time and money.

The third speaker was Ms. Marian Lee, Executive Officer for Planning and Development at Caltrain. Her presentation was titled, "Caltrain plans and projects that benefit high speed rail implementation". She discussed the Caltrain Modernization Program and its focus areas, which include projects such as Caltrain Electrification and Advanced Signal Upgrade. She talked about coordinated planning with HSR and other stakeholders. She also talked about the system from San Jose to Transbay Terminal, supporting both Caltrain and HSR, utilizing existing right of way and tracks, minimizing impacts to communities while lowering project cost. She then discussed the Caltrain capacity analysis, and if the "blended system" concept is feasible. She discussed multiple considerations, such as operation, infrastructure, cost (capital & operation), ridership, Prop 1A requirements, and CEQA/NEPA requirements. She then talked about the scope of work, including building a simulation model (Main Line and Terminals). She discussed the preliminary findings, which suggest that the "blended system" concept has merit, and there is a potential for up to 10 trains / hour / direction during peak periods. Additional rail service simulations are still needed, and the next steps will be design (passing tracks location, grade crossings upgrades/separations/closures, system upgrades) and project cost estimate. The meeting concluded with questions and answers with the panel.

November 2011, by Afsaneh YavariOn November 17, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SFBayITE) and the South Bay Transportation Officials Association (SBTOA) held their joint lunch meeting at the Michael's At Shoreline restaurant in Mountain View. The meeting focused on express lanes in the Bay Area. The topic of the meeting was Express Lanes in the Bay Area- Operational & Planned. There were 82 people in attendance. Kamala Parks, the new President of the SFBayITE started the meeting by announcing that the ITE Western District conference which will be held in Santa Barbara in June of 2012.

The Gold Sponsor of today's meeting, Sensys Networks, and the Silver Sponsor, TY Lin International, were introduced. Mousa Abbasi introduced the meeting speaker, Mr. Murali


Ramanujam, from Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, who presented both presentations.

In the first presentation, I-680 Express Lanes, Murali provided an update on the operations of I-680 Express Lanes, which opened one year ago. The I-680 Express Lane is the Bay Area’s first express lane project, which opened on September 20, 2010. It stretches for 14 miles on I-680 in southbound direction over the Sunol Grade. It was converted from a HOV lane to a HOT Lane, which starts at Highway 84 in the north and ends at Route 237 in the south. He provided an overview of the I-680 Express Lane, which met the first year revenue projections. He then provided operations data through the first fourteen months, following with charts showing year by year comparison, weekly gross revenue, weekly gross trips, gross revenue by day, 2011-2012 revenue trend, typical daily revenue, typical daily trips by hour, peak period averages, average toll rate by hour, vehicle count by trip frequency, toll rate frequency, and finally enforcement summary by CHP. He concluded by indicating the additional traffic studies that will be done including the evaluation of ingress/egress points to be coordinated with MTC traffic study and automated enforcement modified design with multiple camera sites.

The second presentation, SR 237 Express Lanes, was an update on the SR 237/I-880 Express Connectors project that is expected to open early in 2012. The SR 237/I-880 Express Connectors project is part of the Silicon Valley Express Lanes Program which also consists of US101/SR 85 corridor. He provided some background information including VTA Ad Hoc Financial Stability Committee Recommendation, Legislative Authority, VTA Feasibility Study, SR 85 & US 101 Preliminary Engineering (PE) and Public Outreach, Recommendation for Implementation Plan, and SR 237/I-880 Project Initiation. He indicated that the reasons the express lanes are proposed in Santa Clara County are to increase efficiency of existing roadways, to provide commuters with new options, and finally it is a source of revenue generation for needed improvements including transit. He then talked about the proposed signage, hours of operation, and proposed schedule. It is anticipated that the installation and testing of electronic toll system will happen in January/February 2012 and it will be open to traffic in February/ March 2012. He also discussed how the toll revenues are planned to be used. The meeting concluded with questions and answers with the panel.


S O C I A L A C T I V I T I E SPrepared by Kimberly Leung

On September 15, 2011, the San Francisco Bay Area ITE Section (SF Bay ITE) held its monthly meeting at Sinbad’s Pier 2 Restaurant in San Francisco. The topic of the meeting was “34th America’s Cup—Race, Economy, and Transportation,” which focused on the preparations for the America’s Cup, an international yacht race to be held in the San Francisco Bay in the summer of 2013. The meeting was sponsored by Iteris.

Adam Van de Water, Assistant Project Director—34th America’s Cup, Office of Economic and Workforce Development with the City of San Francisco, addressed the preparations and economic impacts of the America’s Cup. Adam first gave an overview of the event timeline, proposed course area and event locations, and renderings of renovations to the piers for staging areas, spectator sites, and other logistics. A draft EIR was already published in July, which received over 2000+ pages of comments by August, and the EIR certification is targeted for the end of this year.

Peter Albert, Manager of SFMTA Urban Planning Initiatives, discussed the transportation impact and improvements projects being undertaken in preparation for the America’s Cup, specifically with a focus on the People Plan. He opened with the guiding principles for all of the implementations plans that the City is putting together. The City has goals of remaining efficient with their resources, environmentally sustainable, and adaptable and also hope to leave a positive legacy. Therefore, the City is working towards improving transportation systems already in place by encouraging transit agencies, such as BART, MUNI, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, AC Transit, and WETA among others, to collaborate to provide the most efficient service for the public. This, however, comes with a number of institutional barriers among the various agencies and even with vendors such as Clipper. The next few years are being used a testing ground to try out new transit services such as adding a MUNI Route 47 with limited service on Van Ness and implementing the MUNI E line on top of the existing F line. There are also plans to extend the bicycle sharing pilot program, which is set to start in the Financial District and SOMA in Spring 2012, through the northern part of San Francisco through the Marina to Crissy Field for the America’s Cup. The City is also considering areas for satellite parking outside of San Francisco at BART stations in West Oakland and Daly City and at Ferry Terminals in Larkspur to encourage people to use shuttles or transit to get into the City. There are still many other considerations such as access, safety, and transportation demand management that still need to be planned for as the City moves forward with their plans.

A N N U A L R E C O G N I T I O N A W A R D S

In 2006, the Section initiated an Annual Recognition Awards Program that recognizes excellence in transportation in two categories; Transportation Professional of the Year and Transportation Project of the Year. Transportation professionals and projects from the 15-county greater San Francisco Bay Area are eligible to participate in this program.

2011 Transportation Professional of the YearThe purpose of this award is to recognize an ITE member who has contributed significantly to the transportation field over the last several years. During the review of nominations and ranking process, the Review Panel considers the nominee’s expertise in the transportation field,


involvement with ITE activities, contributions to transportation profession, training/mentoring students and young professionals, etc.

This year’s award recipient was Joy Bhattacharya, P.E. with TJKM Transportation Consultants in Pleasanton. Joy received this recognition for his outstanding technical expertise in traffic operations and ITS; valuable contributions to several regional transportation projects, commitment to ITE activities and development of young and emerging transportation professionals. Joy’s long list of major projects includes Adaptive Signal System and TMC in Hayward, Webster Street SMART Corridor, Adaptive Signal System in Salinas and Mountain House ATMS. Joy is a past president of the ITE San Francisco Bay Area Section and currently serves as the ITS Coordinator. He has previously served on the ITE Transportation Software Development Task Force, Intelligent Traffic Signal Operations Committee and the ITE Highway/Railway Active Controls Committee. His keen interest in developing next generation of transportation professionals led him to teach two courses offered through the UC Berkeley’s Technology Transfer Program. Over the last several years, he has helped organize numerous workshops, joint events and businesses breakfast providing valuable networking opportunities and promoting transportation.

2011 Transportation Project of the YearThe purpose of this award is to recognize innovation and/or creative-thinking in the field of transportation. While reviewing the nominations in this category, the Review Panel is looking for a project that may have implemented ground-breaking ideas, developed new services/processes or implemented innovative design or planning. The panel ranks the projects based on innovation, unusual circumstances, unique challenges, cost effectiveness and public acceptance.

This year’s award recipient was Temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. This project, implemented by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) required innovative design to address significant geometric constraints, outstanding multi-agency coordination and project


execution strategies that benefitted thousands of daily commuters using numerous transit agencies.

The Temporary Transbay Terminal is a regional transportation hub that provides temporary bus terminal facilities while demolition of the old Transbay Terminal and construction of the new multi-modal Transbay Transit Center takes place. It serves AC Transit, WestCAT Lynx, Muni, Golden Gate Transit, SamTrans, Paratransit and Greyhound passengers. Thousands of commuters passed through the Terminal every nvigorates the surrounding neighborhood.

Edmond Sum, Engineering Manager with TJPA presented this project at the January 2011 Section Meeting and accepted the award.


P A S T P R E S I D E N T ’ S A C T I V I T I E SThe Chair of the Past President’s Council is Jim Helmer. Jim attended the national ITE Technical Conference in Orlando as well as the Annual Meeting and Exhibit in St. Louis in 2011. He currently serves as Chair of ITE's Public Agency Council where he and the executive board members have grown Council membership by nearly 70% to about 800. He is also an active member of the Intstitute's Sustainable Transportation Task Force, and participated in the recent State of the Practice in Sustainable Transportation Survey. Retired from municipal transportation agency service, Jim has recently been active in California, Washington and Hawaii in developing policies and guidelines for the planning and installation of electric vehicle infrastructure for public use. He has given presentations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area Section to public and private planners, engineers, inspectors and policy-makers on the preparation necessary for the advancement in the use of the electric vehicles in the United States.


I T S A C T I V I T E SITE SF Bay Area Section partners with ITS California’s Northern Section and assists in promoting regular workshop series that focuses on the deployment of Intelligent Transportation Systems in California. These events are designed to attract a broad audience of transportation professionals at public agencies, private firms and research centers. Two workshops were organized for 2011, which are as listed below:

Team California – September 26, 2011Team California brings together public, private and academic partners whose goal is to see early deployment of “connected vehicles”, where broadcast or point-to-point wireless links and their applications proliferate. Team California embraces safety, mobility-enhancing and commercial services and all wireless media; moreover, Team California is neutral on whether this comes about from Federal, State or local governments or from commercial sources – and long as “connected vehicles” happen sooner rather than later and in California.

1. Team California: Introduction and Purpose. Alan Clelland / Jim Misener The Public Sector Perspective

2. Speaker #1, USDOT or Dynamic Mobility Applications contractors (invited) 3. Speaker #2, Greg Larson, Caltrans Division of Research and Innovation 4. Speaker #3 Peter Thompson, SANDAG 5. The Private Sector Perspective - Connected Vehicle Trade Association representative 6. The Vehicle OEM Perspective - Luca Delgrossi, Mercedes RTNA

ITS for Cities – July 29, 2011ITS technologies offer opportunities to better manage transportation systems of any size and form. Over the last decade, those that have implemented ITS systems have seen their technologies mature, and have learned how to use them more effectively. This is apparent at the regional level and at the local level. ITS California's upcoming workshop puts together key ITS users and early adopters at the local level, who will offer their view of where ITS has benefited their transportation system, what they expect out of their ITS systems in the future, and discuss challenges and opportunities.

As always, a sizeable Q&A section will be offered along with the opportunity to network with panel members and peers. An optional boxed lunch is available to participants through the online registration process.

PANELISTS Jay Primus, SF Park Project Manager, San Francisco MTA Ken Salvail, ITS Program Manager, City of San Jose Dean Hsiao, ITS System Manager, City of San Leandro Mike Wallace, Fehr & Peers, on measuring ITS GHG benefits in Tracy, CA


I T E / A P W A S C H O L A R S H I P G O L F T O U R N A M E N TJerry Robbins PTP, AICP, Transportation Planning Manager of SFMTA is the chair of the ITE/APWA Scholarship Golf Tournament event. The Bay Area Section of ITE once again joined forces with the Northern California Section of the American Public Works Association (APWA) to sponsor a scholarship golf tournament for members of these organizations. The tournament was held on Friday, July 15, 2011 at the Metropolitan Golf Course in Oakland. Approximately 80 golfers participated in the event, which raised $635.71 for the ITE scholarship fund and a like amount for APWA scholarship fund. Sponsors of this year’s tournament included Fehr & Peers; Kimley-Horn Associates; Quality Counts, LLC; and Sensys Networks Inc. The 2012 tournament is tentatively scheduled for Friday, July 13, 2012.


I T E C O M M U N I C A T I O N P R O G R E S SITE Email Announcement And Event Registrations SystemLast year the ITE SF Bay Area has implemented a ConstantContact system for the section email announcement and the event registration. As Secretary of the Section for 2011 and 2012, Jia Hao Wu and Tiffany Barkley have had positive experience and continue to use it. It has eliminated potential loss of the no-shows in the section meetings and saved our extensive many hours of registrations. The system has the following features for the email announcement and on-line registration:

Creating an email newsletter just got easier with our one-click editing tool! Use the step-by-step Email Wizard to create a email newsletter.

Add colors and ITE logos to one of our 400+ email newsletter templates. Easy editing tools make it a snap to customize our email newsletters, add formatting with one click, drag and drop images, resize pictures. Bring our event promotions to life with pictures.

Schedule welcome emails or commonly sent messages with an Email Autoresponder. Easy-to-use tools and templates for online event registration and promotion Professional

— our events, look professional. Secure credit card processing — collect event fees securely with PayPal processing. Facebook, Twitter links make it easy to promote our events online. Track and see results with detailed reports on invitations. Easy payments, RSVP's, and more.

In addition, we have been considering to use it for our election process as well.

ITE SF Bay Area Web Site The ITE SF Bay Area has maintained a Web site for its members since 2001. For the past 4 years, we have been providing updated information on ITE events at the local, district, and international level. We also use the front page of our Web site to advertise events of great interest to our members, including events put on by the Intelligent Transportation Society of California, Women’s Transportation Seminar, the California Department of Transportation, the Transportation Research Board, the American Public Works Association, local municipalities and universities, and many more.

In 2011, the web site averaged over 45,000 hits per month and over 4,300 unique site visits. Interest in the website has grown over 10 percent in comparison to 2010. Furthermore, web traffic exceeded 65,000 hits in April 2011. Our members rely on the web page as a resource for downloading past presentations from events and reading about upcoming events put on by ITE and other organizations within the transportation community. The following highlights webpage features.


Summary of Web site Usage, February 2011 to early January 2012

Home PageThe front page of http://www.sfbayite.org/ features a calendar of upcoming Section events, as well as a calendar of other upcoming events in the larger transportation community. The front page also features our “Current Headlines” with more information about upcoming events such as classes and workshops, as well as general Section announcements regarding deadlines for the awards program, officer elections, the student scholarship contest, and many more.From the Home Page, members can peruse past headlines at http://www.sfbayite.org/pastindex.html and search for the links to programs from previous years.

Each year the Section enhances the services it provides to members via our online lunch meeting announcements. In 2011, we continued providing an interactive, zoom-able Google map with walking, driving, and public transit directions is embedded in each Web page, as well as a link to an interactive map showing nearby parking garages. (Previously to 2008, we provided only a static picture file that showed the map.) For an example, go to http://www.sfbayite.org/events/Mtg_2009_05-21/.

Board & Bylaws and Annual Reports The Board & Bylaws and Annual Reports pages provide links and information to Section business items, including elected officers (past and present), board members, charter and bylaws, and annual reports.

Assistance to Other OrganizationsOur Section hosts and maintains the web pages, including announcements of upcoming events, archives of past meeting announcements, and a listing of officer rosters for the South Bay Chapter of ITE, also known as the South Bay Transportation Officials Association (http://www.sfbayite.org/sbtoa/) and the East Bay Traffic Engineers (EBTE) at http://www.sfbayite.org/ebte/.

Local Jobs


The jobs page is a vital resource for the transportation community in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Section provides listings at no cost for local jobs for transportation engineers and planners, as well as student internships. Employers e-mail the job listings to [email protected]. The Webmaster posts the information after checking that the postings meet the Section’s criteria (local and transportation-related).

Links Page, with PE vs. PTOE PageThe Section provides an exhaustive list of helpful links for the transportation community athttp://www.sfbayite.org/links/. In addition, we maintain a PTOE vs. TE page athttp://www.sfbayite.org/TE_PTOE.html for California Engineers. This TE vs. PTOE page is an original work based on the research of ITE SF Bay Area members. The Section has maintained this page since 2006 and has updated it throughout the years, as various changes to the processes for both the TE and the PTOE have occurred.

Students/Mentors PageStudents visit this page to learn about upcoming scholarships provided by Caltrans, ITE, and others, as well as the Section’s Annual Student Scholarship Program. Note that our Section provides an archive of all winning student papers since 2006 at http://www.sfbayite.org/students/paper-contest/.

Technical ProgramsThe Section provides a detailed meeting announcement as well as presentation downloads from past technical programs, viewable at the Past Events page. In addition, the main technical programs page provides links to ITE International’s Webinars, the US DOT's Talking Technology and Transportation (T3) online training program, and the ITS Deployment series athttp://www.sfbayite.org/technicalprograms/.

Golf TournamentThe Section maintains a web page history of all the mighty battles fought on the green, at the Annual ITE Golf Tournament, dating back to 2005. The chairs of the Golf Tournament rely on the Web page to advertise the event well in advance. After the event, we post the final results and rankings, as well as pictures to memorialize the winners and the losers. The Section’s golf page is viewable at http://www.sfbayite.org/golf/

Section AwardsThe Section maintains a Web site to advertise the call for nominations for the ITE Awards Program recognizing the Outstanding ITE Professional and Transportation Project of the Year. We maintain an archive of past winners of these awards, with biographical and/or project details for the winners. On the awards page, we also provide recognition to Section members who have received prestigious awards from the District, including Presidential Proclamations. Information about the annual awards is available at http://www.sfbayite.org/awards/.

Past EventsOur past events page at http://www.sfbayite.org/pastevents/ provides links to the scribe reports and meeting minutes, event photos in our Web album, and most importantly, downloadable PDF or Microsoft Power Point versions of the presentation files. Information and links for those wanting to join ITE and current members are also found on our Home Page.


Photo Album

The ITE SF Bay Area Section is unique among all Sections in its zeal for taking photos at all events and uploading them to our online photo album. One can find photos for most ITE meetings and technical programs, as well as the golf tournaments from 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010, 2011, many of the student activities, and almost every other ITE meeting dating back to 2005. In addition, one may find a comprehensive photo album documenting the 2010 ITE Western District Annual Meeting in San Francisco.The Section provides a high quality of photos and coverage of nearly all events. The photo album is the result of dozens of hours of hard work and talent donated by our ITE members each year. Don’t miss our photo album at: http://sfbayite.smugmug.com/Events. Examples of our photos taken for 2011 events in the website are shown above.

Plans for Upgrade and Improvement

The current chapter website is maintained by a volunteer webmaster. It is currently based on HTML language and that means that it is more of a time commitment than what we would like for the webmaster. Also, it requires programming knowledge that not everyone who wants to volunteer possesses. In order to make the work of the webmaster easier and to enable people without programming knowledge to volunteer for this position, it was decided to update the website to a more modern and user-friendly format.

The chapter board formed a committee (Joakim Osthus, Sam Lam and Mousa Abbasi) to lead the efforts of updating the chapter website. Following discussions regarding the desired outcome of the update and the level of effort that would be needed, it was decided that we would seek the assistance of an outside consultant. An amount of $5,000 was budgeted for the services of this consultant.


The consultant’s work is in the preliminary design stages. The new website is expected to be up and running sometime in April. 2012.


S T E P M E N T O R I N G P R O G R A MPaul Stanis was responsible for the STEP Mentoring Program. The most recent round of STEP Mentoring Program matching yielded 4 mentor/mentee match-ups in mid-2011. These partnerships have been meeting and sharing knowledge, guidance, and ideas during the past year. The main challenge for the program is encouraging professionals' participation. The current strategy for the STEP Mentoring Program is to spend the spring and summer encouraging professional involvement for another round of matching as the 2012-2013 academic year begins in the fall.


S P O N S O R S H I P P R O G R A MThe sponsorship program was introduced by the SF Bay Area ITE Section during the year 2009-2010. The objective of this program is to identify potential sponsors who would be interested in sponsoring during the SF Bay Area ITE Section monthly meetings. The sponsorship money raised through this program is used to pay a part of the out-of-pocket costs collected from the monthly meeting attendees. This reduces the meeting’s cost-of-attendance, and in-turn encourages more attendance from the members, non-members, and students.

The SF Bay Area ITE Section allows a maximum of two (2) sponsors per meeting, one each of the Gold and Silver Sponsors. It collects $300 from a Gold Sponsor and $200 from a Silver Sponsor. In return, benefits provided to the sponsor include the following:

1. Gold Sponsora. Sponsor can talk/present during the ITE lunch meeting. The talk/presentation time is

not to exceed five minutes.b. Sponsor can bring his own pamphlets and distribute them during the meeting.c. Sponsor’s logo and web address will be included in the meeting announcement that

will be circulated to the SF Bay Area ITE members and posted in the San Francisco Bay Area ITE website (www.sfbayite.org).

d. RSVP fee will be waived and lunch will be provided for one representative of the sponsor.

2. Silver Sponsora. Sponsor can bring his own pamphlets and distribute them during the meeting.b. Sponsor’s logo and web address will be included in the meeting announcement that

will be circulated to the SF Bay Area ITE members and posted in the San Francisco Bay Area ITE website (www.sfbayite.org).

c. RSVP fee will be waived and lunch will be provided for one representative of the sponsor.

As part of this program, the SF Bay Area ITE Section has collected sponsorship fees from the sponsors during the year 2011-2012. These sponsorship fees do help keep the lunch meeting self-sustainable.


http://www.sfbayite.org/

http://www.sfbayite.org/

A N N U A L P I C N I C A N D N E T W O R K I N G M E E T I N GThe SF Bay Area Section ITE continues the successful annual tradition of sponsoring a picnic and networking meeting with three of our sister organizations: the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA), the San Jose Branch of American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the South Bay Transportation Officials Association (SBTOA). The picnic and meeting took place at lunch time on September 28th, 2011 at Central Park in the City of Santa Clara. This event brought together about 100 people from different engineering disciplines and included an introduction by officers and chairs from the sponsoring organizations. It was a relaxing and enjoyable way to meet and network with fellow engineers.


S T U D E N T A C T I V I T I E SThe San Francisco Bay Area is an expansive region with a number of world-class institutes of higher learning. Four liaisons together form the Section’s Student Outreach Committee plan activities for, and serve as liaisons and mentors to the various student populations in the Bay Area:

1. South Bay Student Outreach Chair (focus: San Jose State University and University of Santa Clara)

2. East Bay Student Outreach Chair (focus: University of California, Berkeley)3. East Bay Student Outreach Professional Liaison (focus on student-related professional

activities)4. Peninsula Student Outreach Chair (focus: San Francisco State University, Stanford

University)

UC Berkeley ITE Chapter

General Meetings

September 14, 2011 – 1st General MeetingThe UC Berkeley ITE Student chapter hosted its first general meeting of the fall semester. This was an introductory meeting. After introductions, the ITE officers led a well organized game of Jeopardy for members to meet one another. Following Jeopardy, the graduate students were asked to explain their current research and anything else they wished to share regarding graduate school. The rest of the members were able to ask them questions about applying to Graduate school and why they chose their topic of research.

October 19, 2011 – 2nd General MeetingFor our second general meeting we invited a graduate student to talk about her international work in the graduate program. In addition, we showed part of documentary about transportation systems in Portland, Oregon. After the showing we had a discussion about possible solutions for Berkeley as well as California as a whole. We had a very good showing of graduate students who attended and contributed to the discussion

November 16, 2011 – 3rd General MeetingThe Berkeley ITE chapter held its the third and final general meeting of the semester. We were able to invite a guest speaker from the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. The guest speaker was involved with projects in California, Singapore, and Malaysia. He was able to share much of his experience with the ITE members and compare and contrast his work in the United States with his work overseas. His presentation was very interesting and gave us opportunities to ask questions. Office Visits

September 21, 2011 - Dowling Associates Office Visit – Oakland OfficeThe focus of the visit was to be introduced to their Oakland office and projects they were working on at that time. We also had ample time to ask any questions we had.

October 28, 2011 - Fehr & Peers and URS Office Visit – San Jose Office VisitWe were able to meet with the San Jose State University ITE Chapter and visit the Fehr & Peers and URS offices in San Jose. We were able to connect with another chapter and build connections with other groups across the bay. The office visits were very informative and gave ITE members the opportunity to explore the workplace of a transportation engineer.


Activities

September 24, 2011 - UC Berkeley ITE Chapter Scavenger HuntWe had a fun time together and were able to build friendships and spend an afternoon with those who have similar interest.

October 13, 2011 - Documentary Viewing with BUSSABUSSA is the Berkeley Urban Studies Student Association on campus. We were able to watch a transportation-oriented documentary with them. After the film we were able to have a good discussion about the documentary and about transportation in general. It was a great time to just connect with another group on campus who shared similar interests.

December 1, 2011 - ASCE and ITE Joint Gingerbread SocialThe UC Berkeley chapters of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Institute of Transportation Engineers were able to spend some quality time together during this social. We had a great time eating snacks, playing games, and getting to know each other better.


Institute Of Transportation Engineers, San Jose State University Student Chapter

From April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012, the officers are reported in the following table.

Student Chapter OfficersPresident Shivam VohraVice President Roshan ShuklaSecretary Shams BasharTreasurer Brett FaustEvents & Public Relations Clifford WongFaculty Advisor Dr. Jan L. BothaITE Student Chapter Advisor Murali Ramanujam

Student Chapter Membership

1. Number of Student Chapter Members: 15 2. Number of members of the Institute: 73. Number of Student eligible to be a Student member of the Institute: 154. Number of faculty members who are current ITE members: 2

Report Submitted by: Contents Approved by:Name: Shams Bashar Name: Murali RamanujamPhone: 510-209-0986 Phone: (408) 952-8905Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]: 3/2/2012 Date: 3/2/2012

(ITE Student Chapter Advisor)Overview of the Year

The Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) at San Jose State University (SJSU) started off early in the year by planning the goals and activities for the 2011-2012 year. ITE SJSU Chapter organized various lunch and learn sessions with professionals from the industry, company tours, joint tours with ITE Berkeley Chapter, career and club fairs, and attended San Francisco Bay Area section ITE and South Bay Transportation Officials Association (SBTOA) meetings. The Chapter progressed quickly this past year and is hopeful to continue its growth and expand its membership and connections with the professional world.

Student Chapter Summary

The students of SJSU reactivated the ITE Student Chapter last year. Since then, the Chapter has continued to encourage and endorse talent and interest of students in the transportation engineering/planning profession. San Francisco Bay Area ITE section has ensured a pool of dedicated professionals to support the SJSU ITE student chapter activities. Some new activities that ITE SJSU Chapter wants to participate this year the following meetings:


1. Attend the 2012 Western District ITE Conference in Santa Barbara, CA. 2. Participate in the student paper competition – both at the Section (Bay Area) and District

(Western states) level.3. Participate in student mentoring program.

Professional Meetings

2011-2012 ITE Bay Area Section MeetingsStephanie Chow and Roshan Shukla attended ITE Bay Area section meeting on June 16, 2011. The topic was “Complete Streets, Sustainable Communities, and Safe, Active Transportation” by John Sighamony, Senior Transportation Planner for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.

South Bay Transportation Officials Association (SBTOA) MeetingsShams Bashar attended the SBTOA meeting on February 14, 2012. The topic was on “San Jose Trail Development”, by Yves Zsutty, Trail Manager at City of San Jose. ITE members will also be attending another SBTOA meeting on March 13, 2012. The topic of this meeting is “Chairperson’s Priorities for VTA in 2012”, presented by Ken Yeager, Chair of Valley Transportation Authority (VTA).

Student Chapter Meeting Chapter Meeting, SJSU (September 21, 2011)

The chapter held its first member meeting of the new academic year. Current ITE members and those interested in joining were welcomed at the event. The chapters newly elected board members were introduced followed by a brief presentation highlighting the events and plans our local chapter aims to accomplish in the coming year. Interested applicants were also given a brief summary on what our chapter provides to them and the university, and what they gain access to by becoming members. All who attended were provided with a free pizza lunch from Fourth Street Pizza. A total of 17 students and 1 professional ITE member attended this meeting.

Student Chapter Lunch and Learns SessionsOur Chapter hosts Lunch and Learn sessions, where we invite professionals in the transportation field to come speak about projects their company is working on or various subjects of interest to the chapter during the lunch hour at SJSU. Since we are a commuter school, this allows for maximum student participation and provides for a more effective outreach to the students. Lunch is provided by various sponsors who support the student chapter. Interested non-ITE student members are also allowed to attend these sessions to better expose them to transportation as well as to inform them of chapter activities and how they can be involved. It is a great opportunity for students to interact with industry professionals and learn more about local companies.

California High Speed Rail, SJSU (October 20, 2011)Ben Tripousis, Transportation Policy Manager, City of San Jose’s Department of Transportation, updated the students on current coordination activities that are on-going to bring High Speed Rail to San Jose. He spoke of the challenges of the alignment and the vision for a future modern world class transit hub at Diridon station in San Jose to link with other major metropolitan areas in California. Ben also spoke of how the high speed transportation versus using airplane option can move people and services efficiently as well as bring economic development. A total of 20 students and 1 professional ITE member attended this meeting.

Innovative Bike & Pedestrian Projects in San Jose, SJSU (February 9, 2012)


John Brazil, from the City of San Jose, presented on the Innovative Bike and Pedestrian Projects in San Jose. He discussed the importance of the San Jose’s Bike Master Plan to increase bicycle mode share in the city. By 2020, San Jose hopes the increase of bike lanes and bike racks will encourage people to feel more comfortable riding their bike to work and around the city. The master plan will help the environment by eliminating over 400,000 metric tons of smog by 2020. A total of 19 students attended this meeting.

Company and Field Tours

Bay Area Rapid Transit - Warm Springs Extension, Fremont, (August 12, 2011)A group of 10 Chapter members revisited the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Warm Springs Extension in Fremont for a technical tour. We were able to learn about how the project has progressed since the March 2011 tour.

Santa Clara County Traffic Operations Center Tour, San Jose (October 21, 2011) Santa Clara County Traffic Operations Center gave students a tour on how they operate and coordinate traffic movement across jurisdictional lines. They demonstrated how data flows into the center from more than 2,000 road sensors that can detect signal malfunctions or traffic slow-downs. There were 15 students who attended this tour.

URS and Fehr and Peers Company Tour, San Jose (March 18, 2011)SJSU ITE hosted CAL ITE Student Chapter for a joint tour with URS Corporation and Fehr and Peers at their San Jose offices. URS presented on multidiscipline projects from transportation, geotechnical and environmental engineering areas. Fehr and Peers presented on various transportation projects. The companies also provided lunch and snacks for the students. There were total of 9 students who attended this tour.

Organization Fairs

SJSU Fall College of Engineering Club day, San Jose (August 26, 2011)In the beginning of a new school year, the College of Engineering at SJSU held a club day for various organizations. ITE board members had a table at the fair to recruit new student members. Board members spoke with freshmen and sophomore students who were interested in Transportation Engineering. The event sign up list had 20 new students who were interested in joining the Chapter.

San Jose State University Student Organization Fair, San Jose (September 8, 2011)The Organization Fair provided an opportunity for clubs to share information about the organization with the SJSU community. The Chapter had the opportunity to speak with students outside of engineering who were interested in the transportation field.

SJSU Spring College of Engineering Club day, San Jose (February 28, 2012)The College of Engineering at SJSU held a club day for various organizations. ITE board members had a table at the fair to recruit new student members.

Future Planned Activity

Joint Company Tours with CAL ITE Student Chapter (March, 2012) The UC Berkeley Chapter will be hosting us in attending company tours in the San Francisco and Oakland areas. SJSU ITE will in turn host their chapter in company tours in the South Bay Area in the Fall.


Spring Semester Lunch and Learns (April, 2012)We will be organizing two more lunch and learns in April 2012. Students will be able to enjoy a lunch, along with a presentation from a professional from the industry.

ITE Western District Student Paper Competition (April 1, 2012)The chapter will be working to complete the student research paper for the competition. The deadline for the competition is April 1, 2012.

Western ITE Conference, Santa Barbara (June, 2012)We will be organizing the list of student members who are interested in attending the conference. Apart from attending, the students plan to volunteer with registration work and interacting with exhibitors at the conference.

Fund Raising

T-Shirt Project, SJSU (February, 2012)We will be selling SJSU ITE Chapter t-shirts as a fundraiser. Student members who have joined for a year will get the t-shirt free, but other members and students will have to pay $15 for their own t-shirt.Member Roster

2011 registered members are reported in the following table.

Registered Member Roster

No. Names Year

1 Loreene Garcia Senior

2 Stephanie Chow Alum

3 Greg Garrison Senior

4 Lorina Louie Junior

5 Nigel Cacdac Senior

6 Andrew Easterling Graduate Student

7 Scott Ledley Senior

8 Anthony Do Senior

9 Ramin Kashaninejad Junior

10 Anthony Fischer Alum

11 Shivam Vohra Graduating Senior

12 Roshan Shukla Senior

13 Clifford Wong Senior


14 Shams Bashar Graduating Senior

15 Brett Faust Senior


A P P E N D I C E S2011 Technical Fourth Annual Transportation Modeling Workshop


2011 Monthly Lunch Meeting FlyersThe SF Bay Area Section puts together a series of nine meetings per year, each focusing on a different timely topic in transportation. These monthly meetings provide time for networking and socializing, enjoying a good meal with colleagues, and exchanging ideas. The invited guest presenters for these meetings are typically experts, pioneers or recognized leaders in the topic of interest. They provide a valuable service by sharing their knowledge and expertise with our membership. The Section attempts to alternate transit-friendly meeting locations from San Francisco to the East Bay, so as to encourage the maximum participation over time by members who may have difficulty traveling across the Bay due to time constraints. Since 2005, the Section began making a photographic record of meetings for posting on its Web site. The Section’s South Bay Chapter SBTOA provides a similar service by organizing monthly meetings readily accessible to the approximately 100 members in the South Bay. A summary of the Section’s meeting dates and topics are provided below. In addition, the Section has worked with ITS-Cal, EBTE (East Bay Traffic Engineers) and ICTPA Chapter in the San Francisco Bay area.Meeting announcements for each lunch program are included here.


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