2015 Meeting Highlights

On November 25 President Nita Wolfgramm welcomed everyone to the section meeting and then Vice President Sara Okuda then introduced Wayne Kawano, Executive Director of CCPI, and Timothy Folks, Technical Services Manager for Hawaiian Cement who explained the chemical process involved to produce concrete. Timothy also went over the different admixtures that are normally used to create the final product. Some of these admixtures include retarders, accelerators, water reducers and high range water reducers like superplasticizers which are common in Self-Consolidating Concrete (SCC).

On October 28, 2015, President Nita Wolfgramm opened the meeting welcoming everyone to the Hawaii Section October Meeting at the Fasi Municipal Building. President Nita Wolfgramm announced that the ITE Hawaii Section had their first clean-up on October 10th as a part of the DOT Adopt-A-Highway program which involved picking up trash along Kahekili Highway between Ahuimanu Place and Haiku Road and that the next clean-up is expected to occur in January. Cathy Leong, ITE Western District President, then announced that the 2015 Legislative Newsletter has been published and a link to the article can be found on our website. She strongly urges all members to read the article as it provides valuable information on the various transportation related bills being discussed for each state within the Western District.

Vice President Sara Okuda then introduced Panos Prevedouros, UH Manoa Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Chair who spoke about various sustainability topics including life cycle analysis and sustainable transportation. In addition, Panos concluded with a brief update on the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Engineering which included student enrollment numbers at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Section Meeting
On September 30, 2015, President Nita Wolfgramm opened the meeting welcoming everyone to the Hawaii Section September Meeting at the Fasi Municipal Building. Nita announced that the UH Manoa ITE student chapter has been reestablished and now has newly elected officers and members. Nita then announced that the ITE Hawaii Section will participate in the DOT Adopt-A-Highway program and has committed to clean Kahekili Highway between Ahuimanu Place and Haiku Road for the next two years. Vice President Sara Okuda then introduced Jon Young, executive director for HAPI, who presented on the Hawaii Asphalt Paving Industry. Jon opened with a brief description about the asphalt industry and described the various uses of asphalt. He later described the different methods used to repair asphalt which includes crack sealing, fog sealing, seal coating, and the use of a slurry seal.

Upcoming Section Meetings
The next section meeting and speaker are scheduled for November 25 – Wayne Kawano, Cement and Concrete Products Industry of Hawaii.

The ITE Hawaii Section meeting was held on August 26, on 9th floor of the Fasi Municipal Building

President Nita Wolfgramm welcomed everyone to the section meeting and went over several announcements:
• The Hawaii Section has donated $1,080 to the Richard T. Romer Student Endowment Fund in memory of Papacostas (so far $4,000 has been donated in the name of Costas).
• The Hawaii Section has accepted two Endowment Fund awards: 1) The first award was a plaque recognizing the contributions made in memory of Costas Papacostas. 2) The second award recognized the Hawaii Section as the Highest Contributor to the Endowment Fund per Member for the previous year.
• Congratulations to Cathy Leong who has been elected ITE Western District President.
• Neighbor islands are now able to view our meeting via web-cam. Today was a trial run.
• Surveys were created and passed out to members on suggestions of improving our section. For members who submit their surveys by Friday September 4th, would be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card of their choosing.
• There are two seminars coming up at UH Manoa Holmes Hall 244: 1) “Variable Speed Limit Control to Improve Freeway Operations” on Thursday, August 27, 2015 from 4:30-5:30 pm by Dr. Chen. 2) “New Measure, Evaluation Method and Consensus Building for Livable Streets.” On Thursday, September 3, 2015 from 4:30 – 5:30 pm by Dr. Kojima.

An ice breaker was then initiated by Nita to introduce someone that he/she does not work with. Members were asked to find out the person’s name, where they work and why did they come today or what was the best thing that happened to them this week. It was a great ice breaker and everyone enjoyed socializing.

Vice President Sara Okuda then introduced Maaza Mekuria from the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation, speaking on Transportation Systems Performance Measurement.

Maaza opened with Transportation Systems Performance Measurement is a core requirement of Map-21. He continued stating that travel time reliability is one of the key indicators in the performance of transportation facilities and that the National Performance Measurement Research Dataset (NPMRDS) is a data set of average travel times intended for use in performance measurement. Maaza explained that FHWA has acquired a national data set of average travel times in 5 minutes epochs that is being made available to State Department of Transportation’s (DOTs) and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) as an input for performance measurement analysis. The availability of this large travel time probe data across a regional transportation network opens new avenues and challenges to analyze transportation systems performance. The presentation showed a sample visualization of the travel times on Oahu using NPMRDS data.

The ITE Hawaii Section meeting was held on May 27th, on the 9th floor of the Fasi Municipal Building.

President Pete Pascua opened the meeting having everyone introduce themselves.  He thanked Gordon for providing lunch, and announced that the money collected for lunch will be donated to the Western District Student Endowment Fund in honor of C.S. Papacostas.  Pete also thanked those that volunteered and provided shuttle service for Costas’ funeral, as well as everyone that attended.  It was also announced that our Annual Meeting Grant will be renamed the Constantinos S. Papacostas Annual Meeting Grant in honor of Costas.  At the District Annual Meeting, July 19-22, in Las Vegas, a moment of silence will be held in his honor as well as others within the ITE community that have passed.  The International Meeting and Exhibit, August 2-5, will be in Hollywood, FL.  Our Hawaii Section Annual Meeting will be on June 24^th, at the Plaza Club.  Ballots for our Section 2015-2016 officers went out last week, please cast your vote.

Western District Vice President Cathy Leong announced that Western District ballots should be coming out on June 5^th, and the International ballots on June 19^th.  She also wanted to thank everyone who donated to the Student Endowment Fund in Costas’ name, more than $1300 has already been donated.  Should anyone need assistance in making a donation, she’ll be happy to help them.  A spotlight on Costas will be on the Endowment website, and a plaque will also be given at the Annual District Meeting.

Vice President Natasha Soriano introduced Dr. Adrian Ricardo Archilla, professor at the UH Moana, speaking on Top-Down Fatigue Cracking in High Temperature Environments.

Dr. Archilla started his presentation saying that Hawaii may not have the hottest or the coldest weather, but in Hawaii temperatures can get hot everyday.  He stated that from the moment asphalt pavement is built it experiences stress.  The distress of pavement is categorized by bottom-up fatigue, top-down fatigue cracking (TDFC), thermal cracking, rutting, and by roughness index.  Fatigue or Alligator cracking starts from the bottom, and moves its way to the surface, indicating that the structure has failed.  Early stages of TDFC will appear as longitudinal cracks along the wheel path.  Dr. Archilla showed picture examples of cracking, including roads on Oahu, one with both TDFC and rutting that occurs in cold temperatures.  He encourages everyone to look at the roads, and identify what kind of distress is occurring.  Dr. Archilla discussed the AASHTO MEPDG Manual of Practice, now known as Pavement ME Design.  Traffic, material properties, and environment are inputted to select a trial pavement structure.  An analysis takes place, and pavement response and performance models are created to determine if the pavement meets criteria.  It was explained that fatigue testing equipment is used to apply Miner’s hypothesis to calculate damage as a ratio of loading in an increment of time over the number of repetition before failure.  Pavement experiences different amounts of stress throughout the day, dependent on temperature and frequency.  Dr. Archilla had graphs showing colder temperatures having a higher modulus, but explained frequency has a higher effect.  He recommends monitoring actual temperature at different times of the day rather than just checking at one point in the day.

The floor was open to questions.  Only one question was asked: So are we supposed to design for fatigue cracking?  Dr. Archilla answered no, we need to catch it at the right time so that it does not progress.  Top-down fatigue can be fixed with milling and treatment.

On Wednesday, February 18, 2015, the Section meeting was held at the Fasi Municipal Building, Honolulu.

President Pete Pascua opened the meeting with everyone introducing themselves.  He announced that the District meeting will be in Las Vegas this year, and that the deadline for the call for abstracts is coming up soon.

Western District Vice President Cathy Leong made the announcement that Western District Elections are coming up, and that she is running for President.

Vice President Natasha Soriano thanked Danny Smoot with Phoenix Pacific, Inc. for helping to coordinate the featured speaker, and introduced speaker Nathan Welch, visiting from California.  He is the Director of Sales for McCain, Inc., who actively participates in standard committees such as NEMA 3YS, Sustainable Traffic Signals Development, and ITE standards working group for the ATC.

Nathan gave a PowerPoint presentation Introducing the ATC Cabinet Series.  He spoke about how the ATC Cabinet Series has a modern design for Safety, Efficiency, and Environmental awareness.  Its high-density components optimize cabinet space, providing the same equipment in ½ the space, capable of managing multiple and complex intersection with 32-channel outputs.  The ATC Cabinet Series are fully LED compatible, supporting the use of ultra low power LEDs.  Nathan talked about there are now 2 watt LED’s and are pushing vendors to go to 1 watt, looking towards the opportunity to make traffic signals solar powered and off grid.  Looking to the future, these smaller eco-friendly devices are providing more data providing for the possibility of connected vehicles with HUD’s in windshield, traffic signal red/yellow/green in vehicles, or no intersections at all.

Nathan took questions from the group and members had specific questions that were well discussed and answered.  Danny informed the group that they are holding a Lunch & Learn with Nathan on Friday and Nathan shared that McCain also offers free webinars.