techni techn iccaal l l li iaai s o n co m m it te e u p d date ate
Connecting CITE & TAC BY RYAN MARTINSON TLC MEMBER Over the last couple of months, CITE's Technical Liaison Committee (TLC) has been gearing up for the Fall Technical Meetings of the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) in Halifax to see how collaboration between our two organizations can happen and share insights on what our members want. This fall, we had great representation and participation from CITE's TAC Appointees at various technical meetings that were going on. I attended the Transportation Planning & Research Committee, Sustainable Transportation Standing Committee, and Urban Transportation Council on behalf of the TLC and CITE. Admittedly, I was a newbie to the TAC meetings, but for those familiar with how the ITE or TRB meetings operate, they are very similar… coffee is flowing freely, everyone has a laptop out taking notes, and the biggest trick is to optimize your location between a power outlet and the doors to the washrooms (because of the aforementioned coffee). All of this occurs while members talk about emerging trends, evolving best practices, and gnarly problems that should be tackled. A common theme in the meetings I attended was the upcoming changes to the Council and Committees structure. It isn’t a big change for most of the Committees and Councils that CITE is involved with, perhaps a change in title or a minor change in the reporting structure. We are looking forward to keeping involved with the organization while these changes happen and our CITE Appointees are well situated to respond to the adjustments. In a couple of the meetings I attended, there was a presentation on Halifax’s Integrated Mobility Plan, which was approved in December 2017 and is currently being implemented. This plan’s key principles of Complete Communities, Move People, Manage Congestion (which is different than eliminating it), and Integrate Solutions has resulted in work around the region that participants of the conference were able to take in. There are a number of projects proposed or underway that CITE members might be interested in. Three in particular are the Road Safety Webinar Series, development of standard indicators for evaluating the integration of transportation and land use in an urban environment, and Public and Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainable Transportation. These projects are in the earlier stages of development, so let CITE know if that would be of interest to you and the work that you do. Also, if there is a project that you think would be good for TAC and CITE to tackle jointly, please feel free to let us know. As you will read in the TAC Tidbits from our Appointees, there are a number of projects that they are involved in on your behalf, but we are always looking for more linkages between our two groups to develop material that will better serve the communities that we work in. You can contact the TLC at tlc@cite7.org. On other TLC items, we would like to remind members of the revamped Stan Teply Outstanding Technical Project Award. Please consider nominating a project that you think fits the criteria of this award. Award nominations will open early 2020.
Stan Teply Outstanding Technical Project Award recognizes an outstanding transportation project that has shown significant and proven technical achievement
FALL 2019 | TRANSPORTATION TALK
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