2020 Meeting Highlights

A virtual section meeting was held on Wednesday, November 18, 2020. There were 50 ITE members and non-ITE members in attendance.

President Jennylyn Tapat welcomed everyone to the meeting. Then Cathy Leong made a few section announcements. Lastly, Kelly Akasaki introduced our guest speakers, Chris Clark who is the Chief Planner in the Department of Transportation Services at the City and County of Honolulu, Terry Shin, and Kathleen Chu who is a principal at KCS Consulting, LLC. The presentation introduced the City’s new Transportation Impact Assessment Guide, which was prepared by the Performance and Development Division of the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services. 

The presentation identified the purpose of the new guidelines, which is to provide a clear and consistent process for reviewing potential transportation impacts of proposed City projects and assist with implementing the Complete Streets Ordinance with a multimodal approach.  It was noted that the new guidance does not impact current requirements from the Traffic Review Branch of the Department of Planning and Permitting.  One of the integral steps in the new guidelines is the pre-scoping meeting.  During a pre-scoping meeting, the City staff and traffic consultant will meet to review the project, estimate potential impacts to the multimodal transportation network, and identify measures to address anticipated project impacts.  The remainder of the presentation highlighted the key chapter elements of the guide including the typical analyses required, transportation improvement strategies, and the expected components within a TIA’s. 

After the presentation, Jennylyn announced that the next section meeting would be held early next year.

A virtual section meeting was held on Wednesday, October 21, 2020. There were 24 ITE members and 2 non-ITE members in attendance.

President Jennylyn Tapat welcomed everyone to the meeting. Then Cathy introduced our guest speaker, Randy McCourt who is the International President of ITE. Randy also spearheaded ITE’s effort to track the impacts of travel restrictions related to COVID-19 on traffic patterns throughout the US.

Randy’s presentation highlighted the key findings of white paper published by ITE’s Task Force in July 2020 “What a Transportation Professional Needs to Know About Counts and Studies During a Pandemic”. Randy discussed the top concerns that transportation professionals are currently facing with the COVID-19 pandemic including ethics & big data, when will normal return, forecasting, and trip generation. Randy discussed options for the private sector to obtain historical counts such as big data sources (e.g. Streetlight, INRIX, etc.), previous traffic studies, active traffic management centers, and/or collaborating with other consultants or public agencies.

Next, Randy identified various travel trends in the US. For example, rural areas are experiencing an increase in vehicle-miles-traveled due to the decrease in air travel. Also, not surprisingly, peak patterns have changed in the US Metro areas with most government offices and private companies working from home. Similarly, there is a decrease in bikeshare use in downtown areas, while bicycle activity on trails and recreational areas have seen an increase. Randy went on to discuss the changes in trip generation for various uses as a result of travel restrictions, shutdowns, and/or stay-at-home orders. Again, not surprisingly there has been a decrease in trips to/from hotels and theaters, while some retail uses including hardware and garden stores have seen an increase in trips. Randy mentioned that these trip generation trends are available through ITE and are generally updated on a weekly basis.

After Randy’s presentation, Cathy announced the new Hawaii Section officers for the 2021-2022 year. Cathy swore in the new officers, Kelly Akasaki (President), Jasmine Teramae-Kaehuaea (Vice President), and Keoni Wasano (Secretary-Treasurer). Cathy also announced that the current Hawaii Section President, Jennylyn Tapat was appointed to serve as the Career Guidance Committee Chair for the Western District. Finally, Jennylyn thanked the current officers and committee chairs and announced that the next section meeting would be held on November 18^th with a presentation by City and County of Honolulu Department of Transportation Services on their new Transportation Impact Analysis Guide.

A section meeting was held on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at the Wilson Okamoto Corporation Conference Room.

President Jennylyn Tapat welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked everyone to introduce themselves.  Following the introductions, Jennylyn asked the committee chairpersons to provide any new updates from the committees.

Legislative Committee Chairperson Wayne Yoshioka began with a status update of the recent legislative measures including bills related to red light running cameras, automatic camera speed enforcement, and vision zero. One (1) bill related to red light running cameras that was recently adopted by the Hawaii State House of Representatives and has been forwarded on to the Finance Department for review. There has been no recent activity with the automatic camera speed enforcement bill or the two (2) vision zero bills.

Wayne was followed by, International Director Cathy Leong, who reminded everyone that the next joint Western and Mountain District Meeting will be in Honolulu June 28 – July 1, 2020. The technical program was just approved and speakers will be notified by the end of the week. Cathy also announced that the City and County of Honolulu and State of Hawaii are working together to put on a Shift Event that will begin in the afternoon of July 1, 2020, immediately following the joint ITE meeting. ITE members will be given more information about a potential discounted registration for this event. Lastly, Cathy reminded everyone that the next International ITE Meeting will be held in New Orleans this August.

Cathy went on to introduce the first guest speaker, Peter Koonce, Division Manager, Signals & Street Lighting Division at City of Portland, OR. Peter’s presentation focused on “Street Design Principles to Advance Vison Zero”. First, Peter identified Portland’s 20-year vision, which was to increase the walking, biking, and transit mode shares while decreasing the single-occupancy vehicle share. The City of Portland developed a transportation hierarchy where pedestrians and bicyclist are prioritized over motor vehicles, when appropriate. This was accomplished through policy changes and reallocating curb-to-curb space for non-motor vehicle modes, such as replacing a vehicle travel lane with a bus-only lane. Policy changes include shifting the performance measures from auto-centric vehicle delay standards to person delay standards. Peter also stressed the importance of complete networks versus complete streets.

Peter concluded his presentation with questions from the audience. During the Q&A session, Peter reported that Portland has not seen a shift in mode split since 2009, which is largely due to the lack of funding. Peter also reported that Portland has been installing/planning to install beacons at various locations to help improve safety and on average spend about $5 million per year on these safety improvements. Using data to show the benefits of these improvements will help the program continue to receive and hopefully increase funding.

After Peter’s presentation, Michelle Agustin, Student Chapter liaison announced that next student outreach event will be held on Monday, February 24, 2020 at University of Hawaii at Manoa, Holmes Hall. ITE Hawaii Section has organized professionals to come and help prepare students for the upcoming career fair.

After Michelle’s update, Jennylyn announced that the next meeting will be held in March 2020 at the HDOT building.