From Tech Transfer Newsletter, Summer 2004 » printer-friendly

New Workshops on Hot Topics

FREE ITS classes for public agencies

Tech Transfer is offering FREE Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) training courses to employees of California's public agencies, with funding from the FHWA and Caltrans. Both the two-day Fundamentals of Systems Engineering class (TE-21) and the one-day Understanding and Navigating Your ITS Architecture class (TE-22) are regularly held throughout the state. For more information, detailed course descriptions, and up-to-date class schedules and registration procedures, please visit www.its.berkeley.edu/techtransfer/train/its.

California's New MUTCD Supplement Hits the Road

TechTransfer will deliver a special one-day course this fall, Enhancing Roadway Safety through Compliance with the MUTCD 2003 and California Supplement, on the application of the MUTCD 2003 and the California Supplement that modifies it for use in California. This workshop will be held in Sacramento on September 21st, and in Fresno on September 23rd.

Caltrans' May 20th adoption of FHWA's MUTCD 2003 Edition, amended by the California Supplement, resulted in a major push to bring California's transportation practitioners up to speed on the newly updated uniform standards and specifications for all of the traffic control devices installed on California's public streets, highways, and bicycle trails. The new specifications supersede and replace all of the traffic control device topics described previously in the 1996 Caltrans Traffic Manual, Chapters 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 12, and the traffic signals portion of chapter 9.

This special forum aims to familiarize participants with the application of the MUTCD 2003 and the MUTCD 2003 California Supplement and the relationship between these and the Standard Highway Signs 2002 Edition and Caltrans Traffic Sign Specifications.

The instructors for this course are Matthew Schmitz and Johnny Bhulla.

Mr. Schmidt, Safety/Traffic Engineer with FHWA's California Division for seven years, works with Caltrans, local agencies and private industry primarily in the areas of roadside safety hardware like guardrails and crash cushions, traffic control devices, and highway-railroad grade-crossing safety. He has also worked in the areas of design, construction, and environmental engineering with the FHWA in Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Nevada. He currently serves as a National Highway Institute instructor for the AASHTO Roadside Design Guide training course.

Mr. Bhulla, Senior Transportation Engineer with Caltrans' Division of Traffic Operations, has for the past three years been responsible for adopting the FHWA's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the California Supplement. He has worked for Caltrans in Districts 3 and 4 for 16 years, serving in Design, Construction and Traffic, and Traffic Operations, and as a Senior Transportation Engineer in the California Highway Patrol's Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team.

Bicycles Find Their Place on the Street

A special one-day course on designing local roadways to safely accommodate both bicycles and vehicular traffic, Safely Sharing the Streets: Cars, Trucks and Bikes - A Safety Forum, will be offered by TechTransfer this summer in Milpitas on August 31st and in San Diego on September 2nd.

Roadway features and traffic operational characteristics must be taken into consideration when planning for the safety of bicyclists who legitimately and legally share the streets with vehicle traffic. Emerging factors, like the changing mix of vehicles on California's roadways, as evidenced by the increased percentage of SUV's on the road, have compounded existing problems in recent years. New policy initiatives, like California's emphasis on "Context Sensitive Solutions," have increased awareness of the issue.

This forum focuses on ways to maximize safety for bicyclists, examining innovations and improvements in the planning, design and re-design of shared roadway systems. It will cover the basics of new construction, road resurfacing, lane widening, and appropriate signage.

John Ciccarelli is the instructor for this course. Both bicycle advocate and advisor on state and federal bicycle programs, he is an experienced transportation engineer and planner with particular expertise in bicycle and pedestrian safety issues and master plans, and was Stanford University's first Bicycle Program Manager in the mid 1990's. He currently serves on the National Committee for Uniform Traffic Control Devices / Bicycle Technical Committee (NCUTCD-BTC), which advises FHWA on MUTCD revisions concerning non-motorized travel; he is also part of the consulting team for the Caltrans Non-motorized Training Development project, which creates bicycle and pedestrian courses and information resources for Caltrans staff. He served as an advisor to the 2001 state-wide study by the Mineta Transportation Institute on bicyclists and pedestrians on freeways, and worked with Santa Clara County engineers to create standards for bicycle accommodation on Silicon Valley's expressway network. Mr. Ciccarelli owns Transight LLC / Bicycle Solutions, a consulting firm based in Palo Alto.

For more information on these and all our workshops and courses, please see our course catalog, or visit our website at www.its.berkeley.edu/techtransfer/.

© 2008 Regents of the University of California