December 10, 2015

The November 2015 meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section will be held on Thursday, December 10, beginning at 12 noon at the Round Table Steak House and Pub located at 800 Pembina Highway.

Presenting this month is Brent Hartmann, P.Eng.  Brent is a highway design engineer with 9 years of experience with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (MIT). He has knowledge in both urban and rural roadway design, as well as construction and contract administration skills gained from working as a project manager.

Working as part of the Functional Design section in Highway Planning and Design with MIT, Brent is currently managing the CentrePort Canada Way – Western Extension Functional Design project, which his presentation will describe. This new route will ensure direct access between CentrePort Canada and the TransCanada Highway west of Winnipeg, and will allow traffic to bypass the congestive bottleneck that occurs on the existing TransCanada Highway through Headingley.

Following the presentation, there will be a short Annual General Meeting for members, including a review of the 2015 financials, a proposed budget for 2016, and any other issues brought forward by the membership. An agenda for the AGM portion of the luncheon is attached.

November 19, 2015

Reduced Speed School Zones

Colleen Flather, P. Eng., City of Winnipeg

The November 2015 meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section will be held on Thursday, November 19, beginning at 12 noon at the Round Table Steak House and Pub located at 800 Pembina Highway.

Presenting this month is Colleen Flather, P. Eng. Colleen is the Community Traffic Engineer in Public Works for the City of Winnipeg. She has been with the City since August, 2013.  On her first day of work as Community Traffic Engineer she attended a meeting for reduced speed school zones…and the rest is history!

The focus of Collen’s presentation will be on reduced speed school zones. Reduced speed school zones have been in effect in Winnipeg since September 1, 2014.  Her presentation will describe the Provincial Regulations, and the City of Winnipeg by-law, as well as discuss some challenges in the implementation of school zones across the city.

October 15, 2015

Winnipeg’s Pedestrian and Cycling Strategy

Scott Suderman, P. Eng., City of Winnipeg

The October 2015 meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section will be held on Thursday, October 15, beginning at 12 noon at the Round Table Steak House and Pub located at 800 Pembina Highway.

Presenting this month is Scott Suderman, C.E.T., P. Eng. Scott is a transportation engineering professional with over 10 years of experience in both the public sector and the consulting industry. He has a variety of experience in the planning and design of all types of transportation facilities.

Within the City of Winnipeg Public Works Department, Scott currently leads the Transportation Facilities Branch. His presentation will be on the recent Council approved Pedestrian and Cycling Strategy which sets out the vision for walking and cycling in Winnipeg over the next 20 years.

May 28, 2015

Integrated Mobility
Sean Rathwell, P. Eng., MMM Group (Ottawa)

Presenting this month is Sean Rathwell, P. Eng. Sean is a transit and urban mobility professional with over 29 years of experience in both the public sector and the consulting industry. He has experience across Canada, the United States and internationally in transit service planning and operations, Bus Rapid Transit, functional planning and design of transit infrastructure, mobility management, and the integration of transit, travel demand management and active transportation.

Based out of their Ottawa office, Sean currently leads MMM Group’s Integrated Mobility practice. This team’s purpose is to help communities understand the future of mobility by bringing together transit planning, TDM, mobility management, active transportation and smart city technology to develop products, services and solutions that can be implemented today. His presentation will be on Integrated Mobility.

April 9, 2015

Re-Design and Construction of the Souris Swinging Bridge
Kevin Amy, P. Eng., Stantec Consulting Ltd.

Presenting this month is Kevin Amy. Kevin is an associate with Stantec Consulting Ltd. and has over thirteen years of experience in bridge engineering and structural design. Kevin graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil engineering and Master’s Degree in structural engineering. His current role is a project manager and leads the Winnipeg’s office bridge design group. Throughout his career he has completed project management, detailed design, preliminary design, contract administration, tender document development, bridge inspections and construction site inspections and coordination as a resident engineer.

Kevin’s presentation, entitled “Souris Swinging Bridge”, provides a review of the replacement of this iconic Manitoba tourist attraction and vital local community link. The bridge is an important pedestrian link for the Town of Souris as it connects the Town on the east side of the Souris River directly with the downtown district. The bridge is currently Canada’s longest suspension (swinging) pedestrian bridge. As the design requirements for this record breaking bridge were beyond the codes and guidelines, the military was partnered with to complete in-situ dynamic testing of the bridge to evaluate pedestrian comfort and potential thrills.

March 19, 2015

Kean Lew Memorial Student Paper and Presentation Competition Winner
Adam Budowski, EIT

Presenting this month is Adam Budowski, the winner of the Kean Lew Memorial Student Paper and Presentation Competition. The prize is awarded for an outstanding student paper/presentation submitted to ITE Manitoba. It is given in memory of Mr. Kean Lew,P. Eng., a graduate of the Civil Engineering program at the University of Manitoba and active member of ITE Manitoba, who tragically lost his life in 2009. The award is generously supported by members of ITE Manitoba.

Adam is a transportation engineering Master’s student at the University of Manitoba and will be graduating this May. Upon graduation, Adam will be moving to Montreal, QC, to begin a six-month work term with Eco-Counter, a company which produces pedestrian and cyclist count technologies. During his graduate studies Adam’s main area of interest has been traffic monitoring – with a focus on cyclist traffic monitoring, a relatively new and emerging field. He has been involved in numerous projects throughout his degree, including: (1) Developing a Conceptual Design for a Traffic Management Centre in Winnipeg, MB; and (2) Managing the Manitoba Highway Traffic Information System.

Adam’s presentation, entitled “Developing Expansion Factors to Estimate Cyclist Volumes in Winnipeg, MB” focuses on developing a set of expansion factors which will normalize short duration cyclist volume data across different locations in Winnipeg. This data will be used in the safe and equitable accommodation of cyclists in Winnipeg, and will help practitioners to:

• Identify and support the need to upgrade existing facilities or develop new facilities;
• Allocate funds for maintaining existing infrastructure and prioritize investments in cyclist-related infrastructure; and
• Monitor changes in cyclist activity and assess the impacts of cyclist-related investment.

In addition to this, the presentation will outline the process undertaken to select locations where continuous cyclist counting devices (inductive loops) were installed across Winnipeg.

February 26, 2015

Safety Performance Functions and Network Screening Tools in Manitoba
Craig Milligan, P. Eng., Fireseeds North Infrastructure

The February 2015 meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section will be held on Thursday, February 26, starting at 12 noon at the Round Table Steak House and Pub located at 800 Pembina Highway.

Presenting this month is Craig Milligan, P. Eng. Craig is a road safety and asset management professional at Fireseeds North Infrastructure.

His nine years of professional experience include five in engineering and four in non-profit project management; he has worked for KGS Group Consulting Engineers, the Province of Manitoba, the University of Manitoba, and the World Bank prior to founding Fireseeds North Infrastructure. He is currently technical lead for the Google Glass In-Service Road Safety Review Pilot Program (41 reviews at 8 jurisdictions), project manager for Yukon Government’s Asset Management Program Development, and prioritization advisor to CH2M Hill on the 680 km Klondike Highway Functional Plan.

Craig’s presentation, entitled “What you need to know about Manitoba’s Safety Performance Functions and Network Screening Tools”, introduces tools developed for MIT that will form an important part of safety management and project work going forward. Manitoba is the third provincial-level jurisdiction to adopt the state-of-the-art tools, which are also used by several Canadian municipalities and many U.S. jurisdictions. Development of these tools represents a core component of Manitoba’s Traffic Safety Action Plan. The tools are the starting point to answer questions such as:

• What is the anticipated safety effect of a design element and is it justified?
• Where should annual in-service road safety reviews be completed?
• How effective are individual safety treatments in Manitoba?
• What safety investments will provide maximum benefit for a road safety budget?

The presentation will conclude with a discussion on how the tools were used to design and launch the Manitoba In-Service Road Safety Review Pilot Program.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

CentrePort Canada – Update on Development and Plans for the Future
John Spacek, Vice President of Planning and Development, CentrePort Canada

The January 2015 meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section will be held on Thursday, January 22, starting at 12 noon at the Round Table Steak House and Pub located at 800 Pembina Highway.

Presenting this month is John Spacek, Vice-President of Planning and Development, CentrePort Canada. John is an accomplished expert in the transportation industry, with extensive experience in both government and the private sector.

He was previously the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Transportation Policy Division and the Motor Carrier Division with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation. He was responsible for provincial transportation policy and legislation, planning and development; as well as motor carrier transportation safety and regulation.

John served as Chair of the Policy, Planning and Support Committee to the Council of Transportation Deputy Ministers; a member of the National Resources Canada’s National Advisory Council on Energy Efficiency; the Vancouver Gateway Council; the Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Advisory Committee; and a member of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation’s Executive Management Committee. John was also a member of the Prime Minister and Manitoba Premier’s 2013 Task Force on the Future of the Churchill Gateway.

As part of his ongoing dedication to the transportation community, John represented Manitoba on the National Transportation and Climate Change Table, as well as chairing the Freight sub-table. He is also the past Chair of the Board of Directors for the Centre for Sustainable Transportation at the University of Winnipeg. John was also honored to be awarded a National Transportation 2000 Award of Excellence in recognition of his work in climate change and transportation.

John has an Honours BA in Economics (Dean’s List) from the University of Western Ontario. He also attended the Graduate School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University on a two-year CMHC Research Fellowship. In 2005, John completed the Queen’s University Public Sector Executive Program.

John’s presentation will provide an update on CentrePort Canada’s development and plans for the future. 2015 will be an exciting year for CentrePort Canada. Recent developments including the undertaking of a Rosser CentrePort Canada Secondary Plan by Rosser and the Province, the completion of the CentrePort Canada Structured Plan for the Rail Park, announcements of water and wastewater developments, “live work play” residential development initiative, and the recent Provincial announcement of the CentrePort Special Planning Area, are enabling the CentrePort Canada vision.