Category: Uncategorized

When: December 9, 2020 @ 5:00 PM (MDT)
Where: Online
Cost: Free

 

Join NACITE and your colleagues to hang out (virtually) and catch up! Demonstrate your transportation expertise at the trivia challenge – there will be prizes and also some less technical questions so everyone has a chance. Hear about our past season in a quick year end recap and AGM. And congratulate the winners of our inaugural section awards. Come and say hello to your fellow transportation professionals as we bring the year to a close.

 

When: December 2, 2020 @ 12:00 PM (MDT)
Where: Online
Cost: Free

The City of Edmonton has recently selected Pacific Western Transportation (PWT) to launch Canada’s largest On Demand Transit service, joining a growing list of cities across Canada with On Demand Transit. Please join us for a presentation from PWT about On Demand Transit and the different ways it is being used in Edmonton and other communities across the country. The presentation will include an interactive simulation and discuss implications for urban design and environmental and financial impacts.

About the Speakers

James Vine – Director of Operations (AB) and Business Development

James Vine has worked for Pacific Western for over 11 years. In 2010 he transitioned to a management role in PWT’s Prince George Transit operations, managing approximately 60 employees in that branch. James was a recipient of a 2013 Top 40 Under 40 Award from Mass Transit Magazine for his leadership of employees and involvement in transit system planning and analysis. In 2020, James became head of PWT’s Alberta Transit portfolio, which includes contracted transit operations to six municipalities/transit agencies.

Dan Finley – Vice President of Corporate Services

Dan Finley has been a member of the Pacific Western Transportation Executive Team since 2012 and has led the organization in a variety of functions such as HR, Operations, Business Development, Communications, Government Relations, Process Improvement and Advancing Transportation Technology. He has developed and implemented PWT’s On Demand strategy and has led the start-up of multiple operations, working to transfer client vision to real-world operations. 

John Stepovy – Director, Sales & Business Development / On Demand Lead

John Stepovy has been with Pacific Western Transportation for over 13 years, starting in Operations and later as General Manager of our flagship luxury inter-city motorcoach service Red Arrow. In John’s current role as Director, Sales & Business Development, he is focused on broadening the reach of the organization in various areas of transportation and new mobility, including electric autonomous shuttles, micro transit, and demand-response solutions.

 

When: November 4, 2020 @ 12:00 PM (MDT)
Where: Online
Cost: Free

Speeding and dangerous driving have consistently been recognized as important issues for the City of Edmonton. To improve drivers’ compliance with speeds, various passive/active countermeasures have been adopted by municipalities around the world. A Driver Feedback Sign (DFS) is one such countermeasure as it dynamically displays the speed of the driver and warns them if they are speeding. Acknowledging positive public response, the City has implemented DFSs at various accident-prone areas across the city. While DFS is deemed effective in voluntary speed reduction, high costs along with the need to cover Edmonton’s large road network necessitate a strategic and scientific approach to allocating signs.

This presentation will demonstrate how different modelling frameworks can be developed and applied to solve the following two specific problems using the City as a case study:
1) Estimation of safety benefits of DFS, and
2) Development of the optimal DFS implementation strategy.

About the Speakers

Dr. Tae J. Kwon joined the University of Alberta in 2016 after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo. Dr. Kwon’s research focuses on winter road maintenance, location optimization of Intelligent Transportation System facilities, geomatics, spatial and temporal analyses of road traffic and safety using Big Data and Deep Learning. Dr. Kwon’s research has been supported by many organizations including NSERC, Alberta Transportation, Alberta EcoTrust, Iowa Department of Transportation, CIMA+, and others.

Mingjian Wu is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Tae J. Kwon. During his M.Sc. studies, Mr. Wu focused on quantifying the safety effects of driver
feedback sign (DFS) and location allocation strategies under the co-supervision of Dr. Kwon and Dr. El-Basyouny. Mr. Wu’s current research interests lie primarily in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis in winter transportation engineering (e.g., winter road maintenance), traffic safety and collision modelling, and facility location and allocation optimizations using various heuristic algorithms.

 

UPDATE: Deadline for nominations extended to November 21.

At the NACITE Year-end Social/AGM (scheduled to be held in late November / early December 2020), there will be a total of three annual awards presented during the awards ceremony:

Outstanding Professional｜The purpose of this award is to recognize a person who has shown initiative and dedication in their work through technical excellence, leadership, innovation and creativity in delivering lasting results. This person also exemplifies professional virtues that go beyond technical excellence, blending moral and intellectual qualities to achieve the public good. This award focuses on their professional contribution in the last two to three years. Judging criteria includes:

• Scope of work / project experience (20 points)
• Demonstrated impact from individual’s involvement (30 points)
• Leadership skills (30 points)
• Contribution to the industry and profession (20 points)

Self-nominations will not be accepted. 

NextGen Star (35 or under)｜NACITE’s NextGen Star has been created to highlight the next generation and new faces of the transportation profession. It is designed to recognize a person under the age of 35 who has demonstrated technical excellence, growing leadership skills, and has contributed to the growth of the ITE community and/or the transportation engineering and planning profession. 

A young professional is defined as being 35 years of age or younger on December 31, 2020 (please provide age on nomination form). Judging criteria includes:

• Scope of work / project experience (20 points)
• Demonstrated impact from individual’s involvement (30 points)
• Leadership skills (30 points)
• Contribution to the industry and profession (20 points)

Self-nominations will not be accepted. 

Transportation Project of the Year｜The purpose of this award is to recognize technical excellence in the field of transportation engineering, design, traffic operations, safety and planning and the project’s benefits to the community and in advancing the industry.  Nominated projects may include roadway design projects, traffic operation programs, transportation studies, planning / strategy documents and more. Nominated projects must be located within NACITE’s section boundaries (in Alberta, north of Red Deer). 

The selected projects must be substantially implemented or completed in the current calendar year. Judging criteria includes:

• Application of innovative ideas (30 points)
• Exhibits advancement of the industry* (30 points)
• Benefits to the community (30 points)
• Quality of Submission (10 points)

Nomination Procedures

• Complete the nomination by using the form below. 
• A separate nomination form must be used for each nominee or project. 
• Up to two pages of supporting documentation attached to the completed nomination forms will be accepted. 
• There is no limit to the number of nominations that can be submitted by a member. 
• All nominations should be submitted to the NACITE Past President (Dallas Karhut) by email: contact@nacite.org
• Completed nomination forms should be submitted in PDF format. Please consider large file sizes sent via email may not go through. 
• Nominations must be received no later than Saturday, November 14, 2020. Deadline Extended to November 21.
  

All nominations will be forwarded to the NACITE Award Committee for selection. The Awards Committee is composed of a group of Past Presidents, with the Immediate Past President serving as Committee Chair. If there are insufficient nominations or if no candidates are considered suitable in any particular award, the Awards Committee may decide to not award for that year.

The award recipients will be notified and are encouraged to attend the Year-end Social/AGM to accept their awards. Each award winner will receive a trophy or plaque, and be recognized in NACITE communications with the membership (ie. newsletter and year-end report). Please note that the Year-end Social/AGM will be held in a virtual format for 2020. If you have any questions, please contact Dallas Karhut, Immediate Past President, at contact@nacite.org.

Please click this link to download the application form.

* Projects will be judged based on how they advance ITE’s Policies for Planning and Design, Operations, Safety and Sustainability. The full list of policies can be found in the ITE Policies, Adopted April 9, 2020 on the ITE website.

Thanks to everyone who filled out the Membership Survey over the summer. Your feedback will help us plan events over the next year. All of our events will remain online for the foreseeable future. Here is a summary of the responses we received.

There was a wide variety of responses to our questions on webinar and training topics with no clear trend. We’ve summarized both questions in a word cloud.

Webinar Topics

We intend to continue hosting webinars as the Membership Survey indicated there continues to be interest in online events. As webinars are not being sponsored we are open to a variety of transportation related topics. Please let us know if there is something you’d like to share with the local transportation community.

We will reevaluate the possibility of hosting in-person events in 2021 depending on the health situation in Alberta.

When: October 7, 2020 @ 12:00 PM (MDT)
Where: Online
Cost: Free

In virtually every Canadian municipality, it goes without question that new homes and businesses must provide off-street parking spaces for customers and residents. These minimum parking requirements have a significant impact on the form and function of our communities, and are of increasingly questionable value. On June 23, 2020, Edmonton City Council voted to remove minimum parking requirements from Edmonton’s Zoning Bylaw. Removing parking minimums doesn’t necessarily mean that no parking will be provided. Rather, the amount of parking provided is left to the developers, businesses and homeowners — those who best understand their parking needs.  

This presentation details Edmonton’s journey to eliminating parking minimums city-wide, including the public consultation and technical studies we undertook to understand why open option parking is essential to building a better city.

About the Speakers

Anne Stevenson (RPP) has worked in urban design and planning for the past 15 years, both in Canada and abroad. She is passionate about building more equitable cities that serve all residents. Following 7 years at the City of Edmonton, Anne now works in affordable housing with the Right at Home Housing Society.

James Veltkamp (RPP, MCIP) has over 10 years experience working as a Professional Planner in public service. James has a professional interest in improving the effectiveness of local government to meet its long term strategic goals. His current role with the City of Edmonton specializes in Zoning Bylaw text amendments, and he spent the last six years building support for what became the comprehensive parking review, and Charter Bylaw 19275.

Dallas Karhut (P. Eng.) is a Transportation Engineer with a keen interest in how the analysis and design of our transportation systems evolve to better adapt to the needs of people who walk, bike, ride transit and drive. His current role with the City of Edmonton focuses on developing city-wide transportation plans and policies, and he also has experience in site and neighbourhood-level traffic and parking planning.

 

When: June 25, 2020 @ 12:00 PM
Where: Online
Cost: Free

Please join us for our final webinar before the summer. The City of Edmonton has made many changes in response to Covid-19. We’ll have the opportunity to hear from City staff about the pandemic’s impact on travel patterns in the City, how the City has responded, and next steps. Pre-registration is required for the webinar. We will send a link to all registrants one day before the webinar.

Darryl Mullen is the General Supervisor of the Traffic Control unit responsible for temporary traffic control services, traffic engineering and traffic field operations. Darryl will provide an overview of the initiatives the City of Edmonton has supported related to traffic operations in addressing COVID-19 related impacts.

Carrie Hotton-MacDonald (Director, Business Integration & Workforce Development) and Anthony Ng (Senior Engineer, Service Planning) from ETS will discuss recent changes to transit service and ridership patterns since the start of COVID and what service recovery could look like over the next year.

Howaida Hassan is a General Supervisor of Urban Growth with the City of Edmonton. Most recently she was the General Supervisor of Transportation for the City Plan – a plan that identifies the choices that need to be made to be a healthy, urban and climate resilient city of two million. Howaida will speak to how the City Plan can be a tool for post-Covid recovery, considerations for equity, urban places and mobility, and the relevance of City Plan’s 15 minute district in resilience.

 

May 13, 2020 NACITE Luncheon Webinar: 12:00

We’ve taken our May luncheon online due to the current restrictions. Please join NACITE and our May sponsor, WSP, on May 13 for our first ever webinar.

Mobility has an ever-increasing importance in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region and is shaping its citizens access to education, employment, and leisure activities. With over 8 studies investigating integrated transit services within the region over the past 10 years, a unique opportunity arose from 13 municipalities in the Capital Region joining forces to move forward in the creation of a Regional Transit Services Commission (RTSC). In 2019, WSP was selected in partnership with EY and Anderson Consulting to examine the business case for a Regional Transit Commission. Accelerating Transit in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region: Building a Regional Transit Services Commission, outlines a plan for starting up integrated transit services. The participating municipalities will move forward with an application to the Government of Alberta seeking approval to legally form the commission. Diana, Carolyn and Anika from WSP will provide a high-level overview of the project, the draft Transit Services Guidelines document and conceptual Transit Service Delivery for testing in the business case.

Pre-registration is required for the webinar. Please click the below button for registration.

About the Speaker

Carolyn Sherstone is WSP’s new Edmonton Transportation Planning lead. Carolyn is a professional engineer and professional planner with more than 10 years experience in Transportation Planning and Engineering in the Edmonton region. Her diverse experience ranges from developing traffic models to working with clients on multimodal infrastructure assessments, including walking, cycling and transit planning. A life long resident of the Edmonton region, Carolyn is proud to have worked on plans that consider the safety and network accessibility for people of all ages and abilities in various local municipalities and looks forward to bringing that experience to the WSP team in the future. 

Anika Muhammad recently joined WSP’s Edmonton office as a Transportation Planning Engineer. Prior to working at WSP, Anika worked for the City of Edmonton for 8 years on long-term strategic transportation planning initiatives. Anika has in-depth experience working with Complete Streets, Strategic Transportation Planning, Multimodal Network Planning, Development Planning, and Advisory Services. Anika uses her daily experiences as an active modes and transit user in her Transportation Planning practice and is passionate about creating functional and enjoyable mobility experiences for people of all ages and abilities.

Diana is an EIT with WSP’s Planning & Advisory group and primarily focuses on providing sustainable mobility solutions. Diana has worked on a variety transportation projects across Canada and is passionate about encouraging sustainable transportation through policy, planning, and implementation to improve quality of life and create truly livable cities. Diana lives car-free in Calgary and enjoys exploring international cities and their transportation systems.

The April 14 ITE/APPI joint luncheon has been cancelled due to the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

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April 14, 2020 NACITE Luncheon: Addressing Today’s Community Health and Wellbeing Priorities: Opportunities for Transportation

 

Non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and strokes, diabetes, cancers and mental health conditions are now the leading causes of mortality and morbidity, and healthcare costs, across provinces in Canada.  Our populations are also aging.  The scientific evidence is growing about the role that community and street designs play in impacting people’s ability to be regularly active through active transportation like walking, cycling and transit use, and in people’s ability to access healthy foods and beverages and active recreation opportunities which also support healthier dietary behaviours and physical activity.  Community and street designs supportive of active transportation modes have also been shown to be associated with decreased social isolation, sense of stress and crime, and with increased economic benefits such as retail sales and job creation.  This presentation will discuss these issues and case studies illustrating global best practices and the opportunities for collaboration between transportation and health professionals.

About the Speaker

Dr. Karen Lee, MD, MHSc, FRCPC is author of the new book Fit Cities.  She is an Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Dept of Medicine at the University of Alberta. Dr. Lee recently returned to Canada from a decade and a half away in the U.S., undertaking work first for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention, followed by her position for nearly 9 years in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as Inaugural Director of Healthy Built Environments and Deputy to the Assistant Commissioner of Chronic Disease Prevention and Control during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. She has acted as Special Advisor to multiple World Health Organization regional offices on intersectoral collaboration issues to address the social and environmental determinants of health, and to improve health equity.  Dr. Lee was awarded the Canadian Institute of Planners President’s Award in 2017.  More information on her work and available free resources can also be found at www.drkarenlee.com .

March 4, 2020 NACITE Luncheon

This month’s luncheon is sponsored by Bunt & Associates:

In January of 2020 Bunt & Associates, in partnership with Mobycon, prepared an Active Transportation Strategy for the Town of Stony Plain, Alberta.  The Active Transportation Strategy is intended to establish the vision and direction to facilitate the implementation of active transportation strategies for the community.

Through a review of Canadian and international active transportation infrastructure best practice and feedback from the Community using Thoughtexchange, an online engagement tool, 44 specific prioritized infrastructure projects were identified for consideration.  These specific initiatives were also supported through the identification of initiatives to promote and enable active transportation in the Community.  The presentation will highlight the key findings from the project, including existing barriers to active transportation within Stony Plain, how the use of Thoughtexchange contributed to the process, and the five catalyst projects that were identified to kick start the implementation of the strategy.

About the Speaker

Jason Potter is an Associate from Bunt’s Victoria office and was the Project Manager and Lead Transportation Planner on the project.  Over the past 15 years, Jason has expanded his knowledge of pedestrian, cyclist and vehicle interface and multi-modal intersection design. Jason is a cycling optimist. Admittedly, he sometimes forgets to wear his helmet but he always yields to pedestrians and believes that someday all transportation modes will flow in harmony.