December 13, 2018

The December meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Thursday, December 13, 2018, starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenter was Jeremy Finkleman, MCIP, RPP, from Urban Systems.

Jeremy is a transportation planner and new mobility specialist with a strong background in transportation business cases, traffic operational analysis, traffic modeling, multi-modal integrated planning studies, transit planning, and transportation impact assessments. He is pioneering a new practice area in car sharing, where he advises clients on how to best leverage new mobility applications in the pursuit of strategic goals. Over the past three years, Jeremy has spearheaded a process to develop 21st century tools to streamline transportation network assessments and planning, working in tandem with a global GPS firm to develop in-vehicle methods of operationalizing big data offerings to assess roadway delays, speeds, and traffic volumes. Additionally, Jeremy is co-leading Urban System’s emerging Automated Vehicle practice.

Jeremy’s presentation was titled: Tomorrow’s Transportation Revolution.

Jeremy’s presentation shared some of the key insights gathered from an on-line survey on people’s perceptions of how autonomous vehicles may impact their lives. Survey questions were framed to provide insights on AV implications on willingness to travel longer distances, land use, impacts on vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT), parking, multi-modality (including willingness to use transit in an AV-dominant system), and opportunities for vehicle reduction. The presentation also outlined next steps municipalities and agencies could take to ensure they are planning proactively for this seismic shift to the transportation network.

The luncheon included a short Annual General Meeting to sum up the 2018 year, present the 2019 budget, and elect a new member to the Executive Committee for the 2019/20 term. Steven Wood was elected as Treasurer for the 2019/20 term.

November 13, 2018

The November meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenter was Clayton Rudy, P.Eng., VMA, from Morrison Hershfield. 

Having completed planning and design exercises on over 250 individual roundabouts and conventional intersections across Canada, Clayton has become a nationally recognized expert in roundabout engineering.  This includes policy, planning, capacity and safety analysis, first-principles-based geometric design, training, and peer review of planning and design assignments.  His experience spans every province, every size of project, and every project stage from functional planning to in-service operational and safety reviews.  Clayton is a member of several Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) committees and researches topics related to roundabouts and road safety.  In his spare time, Clayton plays bass in a rock band, volunteers with Bike Winnipeg, and is a year-round cyclist.

Clayton presented on Industry Updates on Roundabout Planning and Design. Roundabout policies and industry guidelines have been evolving over the years, and recent planning and design projects have contributed to industry best practices and lessons learned.  The presentation focused on opportunities and challenges with roundabout-related work such as engineering decisions required in capacity analysis, geometric design philosophy, safety considerations in planning and policy, consideration of roundabout work during procurement of engineering services, updates from the City and Manitoba Infrastructure, and other topics.  Content included examples in Manitoba with added context from elsewhere in Canada and the US.

September 18, 2018

The September meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Tuesday, September 18^th, 2018. The meeting included two phases: a presentation on the planning and design of the Waverley Underpass and a walking tour of the underpass, which was under construction at the time.

The presentation was held at the offices of Dillon Consulting Limited, at 1558 Willson Place. Buffet lunch was provided by Qdoba. After the presentation, attendees walked to the Waverley Underpass site, approximately 1 km away.

The presentation and tour was led by David Wiebe, P. Eng., PTOE, and Adam Prokopanko, EIT, MCP, both from Dillon Consulting Limited.

David is a Professional Engineer and Partner with Dillon. He has nineteen years of experience working on a variety of transportation engineering and planning projects. David was the Transportation Engineer for the preliminary design, and has been the project manager for the detailed design and construction of the Waverley Underpass, leading a large interdisciplinary team.

Adam is a Planner and EIT with Dillon. He has four years of experience working on transportation and transit planning projects in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Adam was responsible for active transportation design and stakeholder consultation for the Waverley Underpass.

June 13, 2018

The June meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Wednesday, June 13, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenters were Jeana Manning and Dave Duncan from Manitoba Infrastructure.

Jeana Manning is a transportation planning engineer-in-training at Manitoba Infrastructure. Jeana leads and supports various strategic policy/planning initiatives with MI involving active transportation, autonomous vehicles, highway classifications, road safety, regional planning, corridor planning, and vehicle weights and dimensions.

Dave Duncan holds the position of Senior Transportation Planning Engineer in the Transportation Systems Planning & Development Branch at Manitoba Infrastructure. Dave’s experience includes highway construction programming, transportation financing and economics, transportation planning, transportation safety, transportation information systems, and multimodal freight transportation.

Jeana and Dave’s presentation provided an overview of Manitoba Infrastructure’s draft active transportation policy and planning guidelines. The presentation included a discussion on the role of Manitoba Infrastructure in addressing active transportation on or in the vicinity of provincial highways. In addition, the presentation outlined the proposed active transportation planning guide that will be used to direct Manitoba Infrastructure’s decision making process when considering active transportation needs in relation to the provincial highway network.

May 22, 2018

The May meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenter was Morgan Vespa, from the City of Winnipeg’s first Office of Public Engagement.

Morgan’s presentation was titled “How to design for communities: listen to them”. Morgan discussed how technical teams and public engagement professionals can work together to design with the community’s needs and community context in mind, using multiple types of knowledge to produce the best design outcome. She used the current Osborne to Downtown Walk Bike Bridge and Connections project as an example to show how the City of Winnipeg’s office of public engagement was undertaking an interesting and meaningful engagement process and the importance of a coordinated team approach.

April 27, 2018

The April meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Friday, April 27, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenter was Jairo Viafara, AICP, Senior Transportation Planner at Grand Forks-East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Jairo holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from the Universidad Cooperativa in Bogota, Colombia, and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Manitoba. His work involves researching, collecting and analyzing data, tracking changes in regional multimodal transportation factors, and supporting community goals of mobility, accessibility, and economic vitality. He works cooperatively with a variety of stakeholders in their quest to efficiently use existing transportation facilities and services to help achieve broader community goals, such as increasing travel choices,

improving economic competitiveness, and enhancing unique community characteristics.

Jairo’s presentation was titled “Roadway Improvements and Traffic Enhancements as Suggested by Safe Routes to Schools Parent’s Surveys”. The presentation detailed a study that considered how parent’s perceptions of spatially-based neighborhood attributes influence travel mode choice, and how travel mode choice may contribute to children’s socialization.

March 15, 2018

The March meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Thursday, March 15, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The presenter was Garreth Rempel, P. Eng. from TRAINFO and MORR Transportation Consulting.

Garreth is CEO and Co-Founder of TRAINFO. He has accumulated nearly 15 years of transportation engineering experience working in academia and the public and private sectors. This experience involved developing national engineering guidelines for topics including road safety, urban goods movement, traffic data, and pedestrian accommodation. Garreth currently serves on the Transportation Association of Canada’s Board of Directors, Chairs TAC’s Connected and Automated Vehicle Committee, and is a former recipient of the Canadian District ITE Rising Star Award.

Garreth’s presentation focused on innovative solutions to railway crossing blockages. These blockages can cause lengthy and unexpected traffic delays. In the past there have been few options to mitigate these delays; either the crossing was removed through grade separation or the problem was left unaddressed. Garreth’s presentation described the implementation of innovative ITS technologies at the Waverley St railway crossing as a low-cost option to mitigate these traffic delays.

February 13, 2018

The February meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Tuesday, February 13, 2018 starting at 12 noon. The luncheon was held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue. 

The speaker was Harald Larsen, P. Eng. From the Traffic Engineering Branch at Manitoba Infrastructure.

After working with a number of consulting engineering firms in Winnipeg, Harald started working with the Department of Highways and Transportation (now Manitoba Infrastructure) as the Traffic Safety Engineer in February of 1990 dealing with speed zones, traffic collisions and a minor responsibility for roadside safety.

In the mid 1990’s, Harald introduced Manitoba Infrastructure to effective roadside safety and that has become his primary role.  Manitoba Infrastructure’s approach to roadside safety has since evolved into a multi-million dollar program. Several manuals on roadside safety that Harald has written, or supervised the development of, have been implemented and are used to guide the roadside safety program for Manitoba Infrastructure. Harald has created many standard parts and system drawings specific to Manitoba Infrastructure that compliment these manuals.  These standard drawings are based on current research and crash test experience following NCHRP 350 and MASH testing criteria.

Harald’s presentation provided an overview of the evolution of roadside safety in general, with a focus on how Manitoba Infrastructure has grouped its various barrier systems into: Rigid, Semirigid and Flexible systems as well as different end treatment categories.  It contained many video clips of various crash tests both successful and unsuccessful.

January 16, 2018

The January meeting of the ITE Manitoba Section was held on Tuesday, January 16, 2018 starting at 12 noon. This was the first ITE Manitoba Luncheon held at the Winnipeg Winter Club, at 200 River Avenue.

The speaker was Mark Doucet from the City of Winnipeg Public Works Department.

Mark is a transportation engineer with over 15 years of experience in both the public sector and the consulting industry. He is currently the Acting Transportation Facilities Planning Engineer in the Public Works Department for the City of Winnipeg. His responsibilities include management of transportation planning studies, review of detailed facility designs including roadside safety and traffic noise assessment.

The presentation provided an overview of the 2017 Pilot Project “Angled Parking along Bannatyne Ave”. The presentation included a brief background as to why Bannatyne was selected for the site, insight into the design rationale and challenges, and discussion on observations of performance and public feedback, both positive and negative, received to date.