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Save the Date!!! | |
April 19-22, 2015:
SDITE Annual Meeting in Biloxi, MS
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| 2015 Executive Board | |
President
Bill Seymour
Vice-President
Hollis Loveday
Secretary / Treasurer
Jennifer Bihl
International Director
Bob Murphy
Past-President
Kirsten Tynch
District Administrator
Craig Hanchey
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| Social Media | |
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SDITE Apparel | |
Don't forget to visit the Lands' End Store to get your SDITE Apparel.
Lands' End Website |
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Future Annual Meetings | |
2015 - Biloxi, MS
2016 - Nashville, TN
2017 - Columbia, SC |
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Newsletter Staff | |
Reviewers
Becky Malenke
Radha Swayampakala
Lindsay Walker
Anne Warnick
Social Media
Jeff Stephenson
Add Your Name Here Next Edition! |
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I hope Spring has finally hit in your area. We've had some beautiful days here in Kentucky. But there's been a lot of Kentucky Rain too.
"...brevity is the soul of wit..." - Polonius (Hamlet, William Shakespeare)
I, for one, am no William Shakespeare. For those that have read this newsletter for the past 18 editions, you can agree with that. In fact, many will agree that I can be a bit long-winded. This edition of the connector is a bit long, but not necessarily long-winded. Therefore, take few minute to read through it -- you won't regret it!
See you in Biloxi!
- Scott Walker, Editor |
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Presidential Welcome
From: SDITE President Bill Seymour
It's almost here! In just a few days, many of us will be heading to Biloxi, Mississippi to attend the SDITE Annual Meeting at the beautiful Beau Rivage. The Local Arrangements Committee (LAC) of the Deep South Section has done a tremendous job planning an outstanding meeting. The ABD has planned events that will be enjoyed and appreciated by all including technical exhibits, hospitality and even a luau on Monday evening.
The Annual Meeting is a great place to see old friends and colleagues, to make new acquaintances, to learn, to have fun, and to cheer for your team at the Traffic Bowl. This year's meeting promises to continue those traditions while adding its own uniqueness as well. Thanks to everyone involved with planning the event. I look forward to seeing you in Biloxi!
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SDITE 2015 Annual Meeting Update
We are only days away from this year's meeting! A few notes:
1. For those that are social media savvy, consider using the following hashtag in your Twitter and/or Facebook posting: #SDITE2015
2. Alison sent a suggested dress code email to all registered attendees. If you didn't get one, please contact her. Weather-wise, the latest forecast for Biloxi temperatures are highs in the low 80's and lows in the 60s.
3. Safe travels!
Please contact Jeff or Alison with any further questions between now and the meeting.
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Leadership Update
You may be familiar with the SDITE Leadership Development Team's efforts to provide leadership training in all our member Sections. But did you know that we also have a commitment to ongoing engagement with class participants after their class time is over? The goal of this ongoing engagement is to encourage leadership class graduates to continue their leadership journey through additional learning and interaction with other class participants. In 2014 we established two outreach tools to connect with leadership class graduates and others interested in leadership development:
- Learning to Lead is a quarterly electronic newsletter that provides articles, tips, and spotlights on SDITE members.
- SDITE Leadership Program is our Facebook page where we repost content from the newsletter and also provide links to interesting leadership content from the web.
All past leadership class graduates have been added to our email roster. If you are not a class graduate but are interested in receiving the newsletter, send an email request to Becky White. If you are a Facebook user, please like our page so you can see our regular updates.
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ITE International VP Candidates
The International ITE Vice-President Candidates have been announced. More information on each can be found here.
We look forward to seeing them while they visit with us in Biloxi next week. Here's a picture of each (listed in alphabetical order):
Shawn J. Leight, P.E., PTP, PTOE (F)
Vice President
CBB Transportation Engineers + Planners
St. Louis, MO, USA
Jimmy H.C. Lin, P.E. (F)
President and CEO
KOA Corporation
Monterey Park, CA, USA
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Transportation + Art
In 2011, Street Artist 'Megx' painted a pedestrian/cycle trail bridge in Wuppertal, Germany to look like it was built out of Legos. (And what engineer doesn't love Legos?!?!)
Have ideas or photos related to Transportation + Art?
Email Meredith Van Duyn.
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Results Are In! Part 3
By: Cindy Pionke, Chair of Strategic Planning Committee (Primary), and Kristina King, Knox County Engineering (Secondary)
This will be the last article that we will write about the survey results from our Greensboro, GA Annual Meeting. That seems appropriate as we will be gathering shortly in Biloxi, MS for our 2015 Annual Meeting. This article focuses on Leadership.
The survey asked responders to choose their top three Leadership Skills they would most like to learn more about. There were ten possible choices: Career Management; Developing Relationships; Group Behavior; Mentoring; Motivation; Organizational Behavior; Perception; Politics; Power and Influence; Problem Solving; Team Work; and Other.
The number one answer was Motivation. The next two most popular responses were Mentoring and Organizational Behavior. These were the same answers in the same order if you were a public sector employee. However, Mentoring, Organizational Behavior, Group Behavior and Developing Relationships received no votes (that's right, not a single vote for any of them) if the respondent had less than five years of experience.
The survey asked respondents to rank the skill sets from 1 to 5 with 1 being the most important for achieving a successful career. Leadership skills came in at 2 across the board (behind Communication skills at number 1). It did not matter how many years of experience or whether the respondent worked in the public sector, Leadership skills placed second.
The follow up question was "What skill set would benefit you most at this point in your career?" with the choices being Business; Communication; Leadership; Project Management; and Technology. Leadership was the answer for 30% of all the respondents. For public sector respondents Leadership was the answer for 33.3% of the respondents. For respondents with 15 or more years of experience, Leadership was their answer.
Some of us have been lucky enough to be a part of the Leadership training that SDITE offers. There was not a Motivation module when I took the class. I don't know from the survey if we are trying to motivate ourselves, our co-workers, our employees, our peers or all of the above. So stay tuned to see if this becomes a new module. There is obviously an interest in the topic.
The Work Force Development Team would like to thank everyone who responded to our survey! We have been sharing this information with all the Strategic Team Leaders and the SDITE Executive Board so that we continue to be responsive to our memberships needs.
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Student Chapter: Traffic Bowl
The William Temple Scholarship Challenge will take place next Monday and Tuesday in Biloxi, MS at the 2015 SDITE Annual Meeting. The following schools will participate:
Alabama - Auburn University
Georgia - Georgia Tech
Louisiana - University of Louisiana - Lafayette
Mississippi - Mississippi State University
North Carolina - North Carolina State University
South Carolina - Clemson University
Tennessee - University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Virginia - Virginia Tech
The winner will represent SDITE at the ITE Annual Meeting in Hollywood, Florida in August.
Good luck to all!
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From the Sections...
Start making your plans to attend one of these upcoming meetings.
North Carolina Section
The NCSITE 2015 Mid-Year Meeting is scheduled for June 18-19 in
beautiful Asheville, NC! This year's agenda is focused on tourism, events, and programming in transportation planning. For more, visit NCSITE's blog here. Registration opening soon!
Kentucky Section
The spring meeting has been rescheduled for Monday April 27th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the University of Kentucky in the University Student Center, Room 230. This allowed us to secure Li Zhang, PhD, PE, F.ASCE, F.ITE, Associate Professor at Mississippi State University to present for us on Signal Phasing and Timing (SPAT) Application Development. This initiative is a major V2I component within US DOT's future Connected Vehicle architecture.
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Policy and Legislative Updates
You may have heard about the ITE Advocacy Network, which supports the advocacy of ITE members on transportation issues of international, national, state, regional, and local significance. It is a forum through which ITE members can discuss and share thoughts on policy and legislative issues. (To access, log into your account at www.ITE.org, click on "Communities," and search "Advocacy.")
The Connector will occasionally feature policy and/or legislative updates from the Advocacy Network or our Sections as we hear about things relevant to the Southern District. If you would like to contribute to this column or have ideas for future topics, please email Meredith Van Duyn.
North Carolina Tackles Highway Funding
 The North Carolina Section's (NCSITE) Strategic Initiatives Council recently provided technical support and information about funding options to the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce-led "Coalition for a Prosperous Future." The Coalition took an advocacy role to support legislative efforts to stabilize volatile highway taxes and pending revenue shortfall for the NC Department of Transportation. Session Law 2015-2 was ratified on March 31, 2015 and provides relief to reduce stress on current transportation and infrastructure needs. Significant reductions to infrastructure spending would have occurred if the Senate Bill 20/House Bill 40 had not passed.
For more about the Chamber's public support-building campaign and transportation vision, click here. NCSITE, a founding member of the Coalition, was represented at significant coordination meetings with business and industry leaders in a supporting role. Other partners included ACEC/NC, ASHE, ASCE, PENC, The Carolinas AGC, and NC Aggregates, along with City, County, and planning organizations and businesses.
Terry M. Snow, PE, NCSITE Strategic Initiatives Council Chair
Bill Gilmore, PE, NCSITE Strategic Initiatives Council Member |
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Member Profile
This month, we bring you a blast from the past... See if you can name the SDITE members in these photos from previous Annual Meetings:
(1) Gaye Sprague receives the Herman J. Hoose Distinguished Service Award. Pictured with Mrs. Hoose. (2000 SDITE Annual Meeting, Greenville, SC)
(2) LAC Chairs Cindy Pionke and Hollis Loveday with the law on their side. (2007 SDITE Annual Meeting, Knoxville, TN)
(3) Tim White hands over the gavel to Becky White. (2011 SDITE Annual Meeting, Lafayette, LA)
We would love to feature YOU in a future edition of The Connector! This column is open to all members across the Southern District. If you'd like to share your story, or nominate someone we should feature, please email Meredith Van Duyn. |
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Technical Article of the Month
By: Rod Toruchy
Providing Facilities for Bicyclists and Pedestrians
The increasing attention being paid to providing transportation facilities for non-motorized users is evident almost everywhere in our profession over the last decade or two. This trend can be seen in the shift in the focus areas of ITE and the content in the monthly ITE Journal. For example, ITE has been an active partner in the Complete Streets Coalition and is even reorganizing its member councils in a similar way. The transportation professional may find it useful to understand the forces at work here and the increasing range of technical resources available to advise in planning, design, and operations decisions.
While no single event is responsible for these trends, a few items do stand out. From a legislative perspective, passage of the transportation authorization bill ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act) in 1991 raised the profile of bicyclists and pedestrians in federal transportation planning and design processes. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 elevated the responsibilities of transportation agencies in designing and maintaining pedestrian facilities in an acceptable manner for all users as never before. Phrases such as "due consideration" and "presumptive accommodation" became part of the language of management of transportation systems, and state transportation agencies were required to designate coordinators for bicycle and pedestrian activities. Over the next several years, movements and organizations began to form, for which a key premise was addressing the needs of all transportation modes. Examples include the National Association of City Transportation Officials formed in 1996 and the Complete Streets Coalition in 2005.
With these shifts in organizational priorities and development of new initiatives, new resources were developed to address the management of the transportation system. Historically, the key guidance for planning and design of transportation facilities has been the "Green Book" (Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets) which provides a relatively small amount of guidance for pedestrians and bicycle facilities. Since then, AASHTO has developed the Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (4th Edition, 2012) and the Guide for the Planning, Design, and Operation of Pedestrian Facilities (1st Edition, 2004). However, other organizations have released guidance publications in recent years. For example, ITE released its Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach in 2010; this publication superseded a similarly named one released four years earlier. NACTO has developed resources reflecting its stance on the role that bicycles and streets play in large cities. The Urban Bikeway Design Guide was published in 2011, and two years later, its Urban Street Design Guide was released.
Today there are many more perspectives and resources on accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists than there were 20 or even 10 years ago. This change reflects the growing diversity in voices on the topic and an increasing interest in walking and cycling among the general public. For transportation agencies, these changes mean that more attention is being paid, from a growing number of constituent groups, to how transportation systems are planned, designed, and operated. As agencies examine or (reexamine) their policies and practices, ITE members (and other transportation professionals) must rise to the challenge of meeting the needs of diverse and engaged groups of system users. At the same time, the decisions that we make still need the support of agency heads and local governing bodies as well. While this may make our work both exciting and challenging, many resources now exist to provide guidance on how to do this.
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Volunteer Opportunity of the Month
Each edition, we hope to advertise a 'volunteer of the month' position. This is a result of having so many needs for volunteers within the District. Some of these many require 1-2 hours per year. Some may require 1-2 hours per month. So keep your eyes open and let us know if you're willing to help out.
This month, we are looking to expand our newsletter staff. We appreciate everything that gets sent to us. However, some months, both Meredith and I have a lot to do to prepare this. We are looking for someone to help add content. This would be approximatley one hour a month. Email Scott if interested.
And no, you don't have to be a graduate of the University of Tennessee to sign up.
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SDITE is now LinkedIn
We just signed up for a LinkedIn group.
If you want to join, click here.
Thanks to Jeff Stephenson for setting this up!
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Have You Seen This?
Birds fly. Airplanes fly. Insects fly. Superman flies. Even flies fly.
But fish...?
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| | Flying fish attack a college rowing team in Missouri |
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We hope you enjoyed this edition. Feel free to let us know what we are missing or if you want to help us out some time!
Sincerely,
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Scott Walker, Editor
Southern District ITE |
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