Technical Program

Moderator

Matt Hardy, PhD is the Deputy Executive Director and Chief Technical Officer of ITE.

Panelists

Shanté A. Hastings, PE was sworn in by Governor Matt Meyer as the 12th Secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation on January 30, 2025. She has worked for the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) since graduating from the University of Delaware in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineer. Prior to her appointment, she served as the department’s Deputy Secretary and Chief Engineer – the first person to hold both positions simultaneously.

As secretary, she is responsible for 3,000 employees and 90% of the state’s public transportation network, including the Division of Motor Vehicles and the Delaware Transit Corporation. She oversees the development and implementation of the state’s six year capital program with $4 billion worth of projects. Shanté also works with state, county, and municipal officials to coordinate land use and transportation to support economic development throughout the state.

Shanté currently serves on the boards of Leadership Delaware, the Delaware State Fair, the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation, and Sussex Academy Charter School. She has been a member of the University of Delaware Board of Trustees since April 2024. She is also a member of Sigma Kappa Sorority and has stayed active as a chapter advisor.

Neelima Ghanta, PE is the Chief of Traffic Safety Administration at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), overseeing Operations Administration with approximately 700 employees (60% of the agency). Her mission is to improve safety on DC streets by focusing on various aspects including analysis, planning, design, construction, event management, multimodal traffic flow management, and the enforcement of traffic rules.

She has 19 years of international experience in technical and leadership roles in both the public and private sectors. She has led multi-modal transportation projects from vision to design in the United States and New Zealand. Her current project portfolio includes around $140 million in capital projects annually. She is a certified professional engineer and a chartered member of Engineering New Zealand. She has a master’s degree from Virginia Tech in Civil Engineering. She served on the boards of Women in Urbanism (NZ), WTS-DEC, led the CAPSITE scholarship program, and is currently serving on the Women in ITE Committee.

Veronica O. Davis, PE is a self-described transportation nerd and author of “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities”. She believes everyone should have access to safe, reliable, and affordable transportation.  

She is currently the Director of Cities Program for AtkinsRéalis. She has over twenty years of experience in civil engineering and planning. Under the Mayor Turner Administration, she was the Director of Transportation & Drainage Operations for the City of Houston. She is also the co-founder and former Managing Partner at Nspiregreen LLC.  She is one of the co-founders of Black Women Bike (BWB). She was the Vice President and City of Houston representative on the National Association of City Transportation Officials.  

She earned her dual Masters Degrees (Engineering Management and Regional Planning) from Cornell University.  She has a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from the University of Maryland. In July 2012, the White House recognized her as a Champion of Change and Transportation Innovator for her professional accomplishments and community advocacy in transportation.  

The Younger Member Committee invites students and professionals to an engaging session focused on navigating and growing within the transportation industry.

The session will begin with an introduction to the YMC, outlining its mission and how young professionals and students can leverage its resources for career development. Panelists will explore various career trajectories, including planning, engineering, safety, operations, and management, while discussing essential skills and milestones required to progress into leadership roles. Attendees will also learn about relevant licenses and certifications, including state-specific requirements. 

An interactive engagement session will encourage participants to share their aspirations, seek guidance, and network with peers. The discussion will highlight industry organizations such as ITE, ASCE, ITSA, WTS, SWE, APA, ASHE, YPT, and COMTO, as well as local collaborative groups that offer valuable professional development opportunities. 

The session will conclude with breakout discussions where attendees can reflect on key takeaways, provide feedback, and share ideas on how the YMC can support their career growth. This is a must-attend event for those looking to build a strong foundation in transportation and strategically advance their careers. 

Featuring

Emily Hufnal, EIT is a Traffic Safety Engineer for the Delaware Department of Transportation with seven years of experience in traffic engineering, transportation design, and planning. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Widener University in 2017. Her focus at the department is managing Delaware’s Highway Safety Improvement Program and other safety programs. Emily is the Website Coordinator for MASITE, an active member in MCDITE’s Younger Member Committee and member in the Class of 2025 LeadershipITE program.

Nicole Lehnert, PE, PTOE is a Project Engineer I at RK&K with six years of experience in traffic engineering. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is a licensed professional engineer in both Maryland and Delaware. Nicole specializes in reviewing traffic calming requests, developing traffic impact studies, transportation management plans, and performing highway capacity analyses. Nicole is also a member of MCDITE’s Younger Member Committee (YMC).

Patrick McTish, PE, PTOE, is a traffic engineer with Michael Baker International with nine years of experience in traffic engineering. His traffic engineering background includes areas such as transportation impact studies, engineering and traffic studies, roadway and pedestrian safety studies, and traffic operations planning.

Patrick holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees of science in civil engineering from Villanova University and is a licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania. He currently serves as a committee chair for the Mid-Atlantic Section of ITE (MASITE) and is a member of the Mid-Colonial District of ITE (MCDITE) Younger Member Committee (YMC).

Skye Guo, PhD is an ITS Specialist at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), bringing seven years of research experience in connected infrastructure, collaborating with IOOs and OEMs to benchmark safety and operational benefits. At DDOT, she manages the Traffic Monitoring Program and is a champion for the next-generation Advanced Transportation Management System and Vehicle-to-Everything initiatives. Skye is a member of the TRB Freeway Operations and Highway Automation Committee and actively participates in the ITE TSMO Council and Women in ITE Member Program Committee.

Moderator

Tanveer Ahmed is a 4^th year PhD candidate at The Pennsylvania State University. During his PhD, he has worked on a number of research projects that broadly extend to traffic operations, traffic safety and ITS. In addition to his academic role, Tanveer served as the president of the Penn State ITE student chapter and recently chaired the Mid-Colonial District ITE’s first Student Leadership Summit. Tanveer holds an E.I.T and is currently a member of the district’s Younger Member Committee.

Under the USDOT SMART grant program, DelDOT is evaluating network vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technologies to validate performance and scalability of various connected vehicle (CV) system architectures. Unlike direct V2X, which requires field communication devices, network V2X uses cellular communications and cloud processing to deliver targeted messages to transportation system users. This presentation will summarize the evaluation findings, including system performance, scalability, challenges, lessons learned, the red-light warning CV application, and Delaware’s next steps in V2X deployment. The objective is to identify the most effective and scalable V2X system architecture through performance testing and scalability assessments, highlighting key findings and their implications for future deployments.

Dan Ormand, PE is a Project Manager with RK&K and a licensed professional engineer with 18 years of experience in transportation engineering. He excels in program management and multidisciplinary collaboration focusing on intelligent transportation systems. Dan is dedicated to advancing transportation system operations and delivering innovative solutions to enhance mobility and safety.

Lack of adequate charging options for an electric vehicle (EV) can be a barrier to EV ownership. 80% of current EV owners charge at home overnight. Many single-family homes have designated parking spaces or garages where outlets could be installed for EV charging. However, many people live in multi-family dwellings with shared or no parking, older homes with outdated electrical panels, or mobile homes that are often difficult to upgrade for home charging stations. These residents will rely on public-access chargers and community charging hubs near homes or workplaces.

Abby and Anna will present a Community Charging Hub Planning Toolbox that explains how to engage with community stakeholders; select locations for charging hubs; plan for the design, operations, and maintenance of charging hubs; and support workforce development. This guidance helps local jurisdictions understand how to plan community charging hubs to serve the needs of their constituents who drive EVs and have barriers to charging their vehicles where they live. We’ll also share five fact sheets with talking points to explain EV charging basics, an overview of community charging hubs, recommendations for grant writing, tax credits/rebates, and workforce development opportunities available at https://baltometro.org/transportation/planning-areas/multi-modal-planning/emerging-technologies

Abby Morgan, PhD, PE is a Principal Engineer with Kittelson & Associates. She guides agencies across the country in developing Technology Transition Plans for connected, automated, and electric vehicles. She is currently leading the Automated Vehicle Pooled Fund Study creating a guidebook for state and local roadway owner operators to sustainably integrate automated transportation.

Anna Marshall, AICP has worked at Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) for 2.5 years as an environmental planner. BMC staff support the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board (BRTB), the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Baltimore Region. Her responsibilities include leading the air quality conformity process for the short- and long-range transportation plans and working on emerging technologies and active transportation projects. Anna has her master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University, and is a certified planner (AICP). 

The Safe Waves approach to arterial traffic signal timing aims to eliminate, as much as possible, opportunities to speed while still providing good two-way progression for arterial traffic through measures that include a short cycle length, short coordination zones, a low progression speed, and pedestrian recall except where pedestrian demand is very low. Simulation-based studies have shown Safe Waves signal timing can substantially reduce speeding opportunities with little or no increase in arterial delay. Speeding opportunities are defined as the number of events in which a vehicle enters an intersection on a stale green with no vehicle ahead of it for at least five seconds. However, only field studies can confirm whether timing traffic signals this way will actually lead to less speeding.

A field test compared existing versus Safe Waves signal timing plans for a stretch of Route 114 in Danvers, MA, a suburban, 4-lane arterial with six signalized intersections and a 40-mph speed limit. With Safe Waves, the number of vehicles exceeding the speed limit fell by 74% as speeding opportunities fell by 51%. At the same time, average arterial delay increased by only 1.8 s per intersection, and average pedestrian delay crossing the arterial fell by 18 s, or 33%. Signal timing techniques that proved valuable in reducing speeding opportunities included using 30-minute peak hour factors and, for phases that serve an infrequently used concurrent pedestrian crossing, programming the phase for less time than needed to serve the pedestrian crossing, a technique sometimes called “oversized ped.”

Milad Tahmasebi, PhD is an engineering associate at Kittelson and focusing on traffic signal timing and traffic operations. He earned his PhD from Northeastern University, where his research focused on the impact of traffic signals as a speed control tool on multilane arterials and providing geometric designs at unsignalized intersections to enhance safety for all road users. During his work at Kittelson he has collaborated with multiple state and city agencies on signal retiming and operation projects.

This presentation will describe the assessment of existing conditions, transportation system needs, geometric conditions and recommended actions to facilitate goods movement in the freight subareas of Central Florida (located in Ocala, Silver-Star, Space-Coast, Sanford, Melbourne, Orlando, Longwood and Cocoa). The recommendations are developed to address safety, congestion, geometry, and pavement issues. The study focuses on near-term solutions, which are low-cost improvements that can be considered for different funding programs, while positioning the corridors serving the subarea for longer-term capacity improvements as needed. The study objectives include:

• Identify a subarea that captures the major freight generators in the different regions in Central Florida.
• Provide an understanding of current operational issues and stakeholder concerns.
• Assess existing conditions, transportation system needs, and recommended actions to facilitate goods movement in the sub-areas.
• Identify expected changes in the study area so that anticipated needs and potential solutions address forecasted conditions.
• Identify near-term operational improvements that address current goods movement problems in the study area with relatively low-cost, high impact solutions.

Makarand Gawade, EIT is a Senior Transportation Planner at HDR and is an experienced transportation planning professional with 15+ years in multimodal planning. He has contributed to statewide, regional, and local freight studies and serves as Secretary of the TRB Freight Data Committee. At HDR, he plays a key role in freight and data analytics within planning.

Andrea Sherman, AICP is a Senior Transit Planner at HDR with experience in multimodal transportation, land use, and environmental planning initiatives. Through use of geospatial tools, land use policy, demographic data, and origin/destination patterns, Andrea has extensive experience applying comprehensive analysis to a diverse range of projects, spanning from environmental screenings to corridor needs assessments. Andrea holds a Masters in City and Regional Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

As the only crossing of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, the William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial (Bay) Bridge is a critical link between the Eastern and Western Shores that serves multiple travel purposes, such as weekday commuting, weekend recreation, and connectivity for adjacent communities to important goods and services. The Chesapeake Bay Crossing Study (Bay Crossing Study) is a two-tiered preliminary engineering and environmental study to address existing and future transportation issues at the Bay Bridge and its approaches along U.S. 50/301. The Chesapeake Bay Crossing Study: Tier 2 NEPA (Tier 2 Study) environmental review process was formally initiated in November 2024 with the publication of a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare the Tier 2 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register. In December, the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) hosted Open Houses for the Tier 2 Study, which served as scoping meetings to solicit input on the recommendations that will be evaluated in the EIS. The Tier 2 Study is evaluating measures to reduce congestion; improve travel times and reliability, mobility, and roadway deficiencies; and accommodate maintenance activities and navigation while minimizing impacts to local communities and the environment. The Tier 2 Study is also considering objectives for environmental responsibility, as well as cost and financial responsibility. This presentation will include a summary of the materials presented at the December 2024 Open Houses, including the seven alternatives the MDTA has identified for the proposed action. These alternatives comprise the reasonable range of alternatives that will be evaluated in the Tier 2 Study EIS and are the MDTA’s proposed Alternatives Retained for Detailed Study (ARDS).

Heather Lowe is the Planning and Community Relations Manager for the Maryland Transportation Authority. She has over 25 years of experience with transportation projects and the National Environmental Policy Act.  She holds an MS in Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Environmental Studies from San Jose State University. 

Michelle Fox, PE, is a Project Engineer II at RK&K in their King of Prussia, PA office.  Michelle completed her bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at Bucknell University and has eight years of experience working on transportation planning and design projects throughout both Maryland and Pennsylvania. 

Tim Ryan, PhD, PE, PTOE is an ITS/Traffic Engineering Project Manager in the AECOM office in Hunt Valley, Maryland.  Tim holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Engineering from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland. Since 1999, he has been with AECOM and its predecessor firm URS.  Tim is a registered Professional Engineer in multiple states and is a registered Professional Traffic Operations Engineer.  He has been a member of CAPSITE since 1980.   

Addressing systemic safety challenges in rural environments is drastically different from urban and suburban areas. In addition to the narrow winding geometry, rural crashes involve ever changing weather patterns, wildlife, commercial vehicles, motorcyclists, long Emergency Medical Service response times, and drivers unfamiliar with the rural terrain. One of the key challenges rural safety engineers face is visiting drivers from more urban areas navigating rural roadways. This presentation will provide an overview of challenges faced and solutions employed in West Virginia over the last 30 years.

West Virginia is considered the 3rd most rural state in America with none of its urban communities having a population over 50,000. Public transit is not available throughout the State, and drivers are faced with long daily commutes. The mountain state has seven distinct mountain ranges with elevation changes from 240’ to 4,863’ above sea level. A remote and challenging drive along the two-lane country roads offers spectacular views but few services between towns. Though West Virginia as a whole has seen a reduction in fatalities, 38 of its 55 counties are trending upward. All but two of these counties have road departure noted as the #1 concern, with it ranking as the #2 issue within the other two. Navigating through these areas safely takes a comprehensive approach that includes ITS, enhanced signing and pavement markings, high friction surface treatment, delineation and barrier. There are rural areas throughout the District which will require comprehensive safety improvements to reach zero fatalities.

Donna Hardy, PE, RSP1 is a professional engineer with 30 years of experience in traffic engineering at WVDOH and DelDOT.  After leaving WVDOH as the Assistant Director in Traffic Engineering she joined Mead & Hunt in June 2024 as a Senior Traffic Engineer.

Cindy Cramer, PE is a professional engineer with over 33 years of experience in highway safety and traffic engineering. After retirement from WVDOT as the Traffic Engineering Director, she joined Mead & Hunt in November 2023, as its National Safety Market Leader. 

This presentation focuses on development of a Coordinated Safety Program tailored for the suburban areas within the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) region. The program addresses critical transportation safety challenges, fosters inter-jurisdictional collaboration, and aligns existing safety initiatives to create a cohesive regional strategy. The project incorporates insights from extensive stakeholder engagement, whose feedback revealed pressing safety concerns, including pedestrian and bicycle safety, speeding, congestion, and infrastructure resiliency. Key barriers to coordination, such as fragmented governance, funding limitations, and policy misalignments, were also identified. Grounded in these findings, the proposed program establishes a comprehensive policy framework focusing on data integration and sharing, standardized enforcement practices, public outreach, federal collaboration, and the adoption of emerging technologies. Priority actions include expanding pedestrian and bicycle networks, implementing intersection safety enhancements, deploying smart traffic technologies, and strengthening inter-jurisdictional communication. Furthermore, the program emphasizes region-wide safety campaigns and joint enforcement operations to ensure consistent safety standards and public engagement. This paper contributes to the discourse on regional transportation safety by demonstrating a scalable and adaptable model for coordinated safety programs. By leveraging collaboration and innovative practices, the proposed program aims to improve safety outcomes, enhance efficiency, and ensure equitable and sustainable transportation systems across suburban areas.

Md Sadman Islam is a PhD student specializing in Transportation Safety, Mobility, and Equity at Rowan University. Currently, he is engaged in multiple projects funded by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the New Jersey Department of Education, and New Jersey Transit. His research primarily focuses on enhancing the safety and mobility of large commercial vehicles, improving the mobility and rideability of transit users, and addressing concerns related to pavement markings and wrong-way driving incidents.

Engaging people with disabilities in transportation research is essential for fostering equitable and inclusive outcomes. However, traditional survey methods often fail to address barriers such as inaccessible formats, language complexity, limited technological compatibility, and rigid participation options, excluding a critical demographic from research. This study elaborates on practical strategies and best practices for making survey-based research more accessible to individuals with disabilities, focusing on overcoming these challenges to improve the quality and representativeness of research findings while respecting the diverse needs of participants. By designing inclusive surveys tailored to paratransit users, this work seeks to ensure that their voices are accurately represented in transportation planning and policy development.

Key strategies include offering multiple survey formats, employing simplified language, visual aids, and flexible participation methods to enhance comprehension for participants with different impairments. The study also emphasizes involving paratransit users during the design process to co-create surveys that reflect their unique experiences and challenges.

In addition, this research examines methods and best practices for leveraging modern survey platforms, such as Qualtrics, to incorporate accessible features. Strategies to reduce sampling and nonresponse bias are explored, ensuring that all demographic groups are adequately represented. By adopting user-centered design principles, adhering to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and fostering participatory approaches, this research aims to advance inclusive practices in data collection. Ultimately, it seeks to empower individuals with disabilities to contribute meaningfully to transportation planning and policy development, aligning with broader goals of equity, social justice, and accessibility.

Fatemah Abdous is a PhD candidate in transportation and highway engineering at Morgan State University, specializing in public transit for people with disabilities. Her research focuses on U.S. paratransit services, examining rider barriers and agency challenges. She designs accessible surveys to understand riders’ needs and enhance their independence. She also studies bike-share services and safety. Her background is in civil engineering and project management, and she is the president of the ITE graduate student chapter at Morgan State University.  

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ (MWCOG) Transportation Planning Board (TPB) excels in convening stakeholders and elected officials to tackle the region’s complex transportation challenges. Bringing together diverse perspectives is critical to fostering collaboration, aligning priorities, and driving unified action. The presentation will focus on the importance of convening these groups and the TPB’s role in facilitating discussions that lead to shared understanding and coordinated decision-making.

Two recent initiatives will illustrate this strength.

Example 1: On August 2, 2024, the TPB hosted a Regional Curbside Management Forum, which brought together public agencies to discuss the state of curbside management practices in the metropolitan area. Key outcomes from this forum included identifying shared challenges, innovative strategies for optimizing curbside usage, and opportunities for ongoing collaboration.

Example 2: On October 31, 2024, the TPB held a Regional Roadway Safety Summit to explore transportation safety issues and comprehensive approaches to reducing traffic-related injuries and fatalities. This summit provided a platform for discussing safety strategies, building consensus, and fostering a culture of safety across the region.

These examples demonstrate how the TPB effectively uses regional forums to align stakeholders and elected officials around specialty topics, enabling progress on critical transportation issues. Attendees will gain insights into the TPB’s collaborative methods and how such approaches can strengthen regional planning efforts.

Nicole Waldheim is a Principal at Fehr & Peers. She is a well-recognized national multimodal safety expert with an extensive 20-year career in transportation planning and policy. Specializing in safety planning now for over a decade, she is known for her expertise in applying the Safe System Approach (SSA) at the project level and identifying safety programs, policies, and projects for all road users.

Charmelis Reyes, EIT is an Engineer/Planner at Fehr & Peers. She earned a Master’s in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a Transportation Planner/Engineer with experience in safety, active transportation, and Complete Streets projects. Her technical expertise includes policy analysis, data evaluation, traffic forecasting and operations, GIS, and planning infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users.

Celia Escobar is an Engineer/Planner at Fehr & Peers. She earned a Master’s in Urban Planning from the University of Southern California. She is a Transportation Planner/Engineer with experience in roadway safety advocacy, multimodal operations, and traffic forecasting. Her expertise includes analyzing data for high-injury networks and crash studies, forecasting traffic impacts in corridor studies, and creating compelling data visualizations using geographic information systems.

Decisions about ADA accessibility often centers around the needs of wheelchair users, which may not be sufficient for the needs of individuals who are blind and visually impaired. The purpose of this presentation is to educate attendees on how individuals with visual impairments navigate the public right-of-way and how we, as planners and engineers, can better accommodate their needs. This will include discussion of published guidance (NCHRP Report 834), Orientation & Mobility guidelines, case studies of people learning to navigate Philadelphia with a long cane, and how to communicate our designs to the blind community.

Andrew Thompson, EIT is a roadway designer in Kittelson’s Philadelphia office with a passion for roundabouts and innovative intersections. He also works with agencies on safety planning including PennDOT’s Vulnerable Road User Assessment.

Brooke Kruemmling, PhD, COMS, is a certified orientation and mobility specialist and associate professor at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry/Drexel University. In addition to teaching and research, she provides orientation and mobility instruction to individuals at the William Feinbloom Vision Rehabilitation Center.

The traffic signals in Baltimore, Maryland, like many American cities, are outdated and rely on a defunct 1970s copper-based communication system and incompatible traffic signal system software. This has led to traffic delays, community complaints, and challenges in achieving the newly adopted Complete Streets policy and retiming signals for new traffic patterns and road closures.

In 2023, Mead & Hunt was awarded a citywide signal timing optimization contract to design, implement, fine-tune, monitor, and manage traffic signal timing plans at 1,100 traffic signals in Baltimore City over a three-year period. This project includes comprehensive re-evaluation and updates to accommodate growth in traffic volumes, changes in travel patterns, addition of bus-only lanes and bike lanes, and new traffic signals. The project also addresses the needs of Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) and signal timing issues to ensure access equity and reduce waiting times. A mini-signal system software with cellular communications was implemented to provide turnkey design and management of the signal optimization program.

This project is among the first of its kind in outsourcing Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) to A/E consultants with significant results. The project team met the City’s goals of optimizing an outdated signal system, successfully addressing citizen concerns, and deploying the signal timing components of the City’s Complete Streets policy. In the future, transportation operations, including signal timing, arterial management, and special event and incident management, are expected to be outsourced to A/E led teams with technology vendors and contractors as partners.

Anam Ardeshiri, PhD, PE, PTOE is the Northeast Department Manager at Mead & Hunt with 18 years of research and industry experience in traffic engineering and ITS. He specializes in signal timing and phasing optimization, signal controller programming, transit signal priority, and signal systems. He is a former adjunct faculty at Morgan State University.

Keith Riniker, PE, PTOE is the Business Unit Leader for Traffic & Mobility at Mead & Hunt. He has a patented connected-vehicle application and is the inventor of the Folded-Lefts Interchange. His area of practice is Arterial Traffic Management. He is currently serving as the Co-P.I. for the National Signal Timing Manual update.

In 2022, the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) launched the Tampa Bay region’s first bus rapid transit (BRT) service, SunRunner, operating primarily within the City of St. Petersburg, FL. The project allowed for the implementation of Transit Signal Priority that included a lane reallocation along most of the project route in order to provide a semi-dedicated bus-and-turn lane. After allowing for system normalization, the City engaged Pennoni to optimize the traffic signal operations along the BRT route within St. Petersburg, with a focus on traffic safety, Complete Streets, and multimodal travel time reliability as a matter of innovative performance metrics.

Strong consideration was given to developing signal timing plans that support the Maximum Desired Operating Speeds for the corridor streets as identified in the City’s adopted Complete Streets Implementation Plan, and other safety elements, such as leading pedestrian intervals along the transit-prioritized corridor. Further, a secondary goal of the updated signal timing plans was to provide reliable travel times for SunRunner buses during various times of the weekday, a key element of the premium transit service.

The technical presentation will provide an overview of the signal optimization efforts, in cooperation with various multi-agency project partners. It will highlight constraints associated with data collection and implementation, seasonal traffic and event considerations, as the project is located immediately adjacent to Tropicana Field, home to Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays. The presentation will also include an overview of lessons learned through implementation, as well as anticipated Multimodal Safety and Traffic Management Benefits.

Anthony J. Castellone, PE, PTOE  is a Senior TSMO Engineer based in Pennoni’s Cape Coral, Florida office.  Formerly Pittsburgh’s Transportation Division Manager, Anthony transferred to Florida in the Fall of 2020 and is the regional lead for Pennoni’s Florida Transportation Division.  Anthony earned his BS from the University of New Hampshire and his MBA from the University of Rhode Island. A native of North Providence, Rhode Island, he is an avid archery hunter, clay-pigeon shooter, cook and vintner. 

Abhishek (AJ) Joshi, PE , PTOE is Senior Traffic Engineer at Pennoni. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from India and a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Kansas. AJ is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in multiple states and has 18 years of experience in the transportation engineering field. His expertise includes traffic modeling and studies, microsimulation, signal retiming and design.  

Join Pamela Brown, Executive Director of the Anne Arundel County Partnership for Children, Youth, and Families for the Women’s Breakfast on Friday morning.

Dr. Pamela Brown is currently the Executive Director of the Anne Arundel County Partnership for Children, Youth and Families; one of the 24 Maryland Local Management Boards. She has held several leadership positions over the past 30 years; in government and in the not-for-profit sector. Throughout her career she has worked on addressing inequities across government and educational systems. She completed her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership at Florida Atlantic University. Her dissertation focused on the importance of community partnerships in low income neighborhoods to improve outcomes for children and families. She has been conducting community needs assessments for over 25 years. 

Annapolis’s generally flat landscape, temperate climate, and two colleges, along with myriad historic and cultural destinations, make short and long bike trips across the City a desirable alternative to driving for residents and visitors alike. Additionally, a common theme in the City’s recently-adopted Comprehensive Plan is a broad desire among residents for a more walkable, bikeable, and connected city. However, due to limited right of way and narrow streets, the City’s bike network today is largely a mix of sharrows, with a sprinkle of unprotected bike lanes along heavily traveled roadways, as well as off-street paved trails – most of which start and end within a single neighborhood or are short or discontinuous. To mitigate this, Annapolis has undertaken a multi-year planning, design, and construction effort to add over 5 miles of biking facilities, almost all in the form of low-stress shared use paths, across the City to connect neighborhoods to each other and also to the City’s historic downtown, dock, and cultural scene – creating city-wide cycling infrastructure that will also be a keystone in the larger regional trails system. This presentation covers the numerous challenges that come with designing in a constrained environment as well as lessons learned for other similar cities whose growth patterns are a mix of historic traditional grid networks and Post-war style cul-de-sac suburban development.   

Bryon White, PE, PTOE is the Complete Streets and Trails Practice Leader for the Transportation Planning department of Mead & Hunt, a nationwide full-service engineering firm. He has over 25 years of experience in the public and private sectors, primarily managing projects related to repurposing public space walking and biking for municipalities and Counties in the Mid-Atlantic. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. 

Eric Leshinsky, AICP is the Chief of Comprehensive Planning for the City of Annapolis where he focuses on a broad range of urban policy areas including mobility, housing, land use, and natural resources. He led the City’s recently adopted comprehensive plan update, Annapolis Ahead 2040, which includes an ambitious vision for the City’s future mobility network. In addition, he manages several of the City’s major trail projects including the West East Express.

This session will provide insights into strategies for managing conflicts at signalized intersections using both published documents. Toole Design is the author of the fifth edition of the AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (published December 2024). This presentation will provide a brief overview of the structure of the AASHTO Bike Guide and a deep dive into an entirely new Chapter 10: Traffic Signals and Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons. Topics to be covered include signal phasing and timing for bicyclists. We were also the lead author of the NCHRP Research Report: Reducing Conflicts between Turning Motor Vehicles and Bicycles, Decision Tool and Design Guidance (published November 2024). The recently published findings from NCHRP 15-73 Design Options to Reduce Turning Motor Vehicle – Bicycle Conflicts at Controlled Intersections were synthesized into a Decision Tool and Design Guidance. This session will include a summary of the research methods and findings and walk through design examples and how to apply the Decision Tool and Design Guidance. 

Tina Fink, PE, PTOE is a Principal Transportation Engineer at Toole Design with 21 years of experience. She has led projects involving traffic analysis, signal design, design guidance, crossing improvements, school planning and design, and parking analysis. Tina is a contributing author to both national and local design guidance. Most notably, she was a contributing author for the 2024 AASHTO Bike Guide and Principal Investigator for NCHRP 15-73 Design Options to Reduce Turning Motor Vehicle – Bicycle Conflicts at Controlled Intersections.

The 2024 AASHTO Guide for the Development of Bicycle Facilities (Bike Guide) is a transformative advance in design practice for the industry. Most guides are iterative updates of past guides. This guide is a complete rewrite of the 2012 guide to emphasize the importance of designing for all ages and abilities. It not only aligns with the current state of the practice, but it is forward looking in the provision of guidance on design strategies which are emerging in the field including the just adopted PROWAG. Attendees will learn why the guide was rewritten and how it can be used to support planning and design project decision making.

This session will provide an overview of the guide along with insights into key elements of the content. These key elements will include the design domain concept, bikeway selection and tradeoff evaluations, connected networks, improved bicycle lanes, separated bike lanes, and intersection safety.

Bill Schultheiss, PE is the Director of Design and Engineering who has been practicing engineering since 1998. He was the project manager for the AASHTO Bike Guide and has played a leading role in the update of a diverse range of critical industry design guidance including the Green Book, MUTCD, and FHWA guidelines. 

Rehabilitation of long-span and complex bridge structures requires a combination of advanced engineering techniques and careful planning. A key factor in the successful delivery of such projects is the design and implementation of Maintenance of Traffic (MOT), also known as Temporary Traffic Control (TTC). This presentation focuses on the methods used in three U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) bridge rehabilitation projects over the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal in Delaware: the William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge (SR 1), the St. Georges Bridge (US 13), and the Reedy Point Bridge (SR 9). These structures carry approximately 77,000, 11,000, and 2,200 vehicles per day, respectively, requiring distinct MOT schemes based on varying traffic volumes and bridge configurations. Strategies such as Polyester Polymer Concrete (PPC) overlay, lane-dividing techniques, temporary traffic signals, and the use of concrete barriers, to name a few, were employed to ensure safety and maintain traffic flow within tight work zones. PPC overlay is widely used for extending the service life of bridge decks due to its superior durability and rapid curing properties, allowing for minimal traffic disruption. These methods required close coordination between project stakeholders, including the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT), USACE, and contractors. By leveraging advanced MOT designs and materials like PPC, the projects were able to enhance constructability, safety, and accessibility while minimizing the impact on the traveling public.

Teresa Scrocca, PE, PTOE obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Civil Engineering from Villanova University in 2012 and 2014. She serves as a Senior Project Engineer in Pennoni’s Transportation Division with 12+ years of experience in the transportation industry. Her experience includes signing, striping, traffic signal and roadway lighting design, as well as maintenance of traffic schemes, traffic analysis, microsimulation, and traffic impact studies. She is a registered PE in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and D.C., and is also a registered PTOE.

Road fatalities continue to inflict tragic consequences for communities. One of the principles of the Safe System Approach is to be proactive. Many agencies still rely predominantly on historical crash data to manage their safety programs. This approach is generally considered reactive. There’s a growing body of knowledge to suggest that crash data alone is not sufficient to make safety decisions because of time lags, errors, and incomplete data in crash reports, and small samples of reported vulnerable road user crashes.

These well-known limitations have given rise to the use of alternate measures of safety referred to critical conflicts. Conflicts are leading indicators of safety risk that describe events involving road users that demonstrate a high correlation with crashes. Conflict data and corresponding analytics offer several advantages over crash data including: 1) Conflicts occur much more frequently than crashes and acceptable conflict metrics have a strong relationship to crashes, 2) Conflict data avoids the ethical dilemma of the need to observe crashes to prevent them, and 3) They provide insights for real-time safety management.

The foundation of using conflicts to predict crash risk is built on the accuracy of the process to extract conflicts from traffic video camera or LIDAR feeds. Video analytics using AI methods allow for the identification of road users, their trajectories, speeds, and conflicts. In addition, this technology allows for continuous monitoring of flows, speeds, incidents, crash risk, and violations. With the right tools, critical situations involving these metrics can be detected and user-defined alerts can be generated to public agencies about risky events such as crashes and wrong-way driving.

This proposed presentation will give an overview of the technology of video analytics using AI methods with a focus on safety case studies from the United States, Australia, and Canada. These case studies will highlight the successes and challenges of using video analytics address difficult highway safety issues.

Michael Griffith, RSP2 is a senior advisor at Transoft Solutions. He was the recent President of North America for Advanced Mobility Analytics Group. In late 2022, he retired from the Federal Highway Administration as the Director of the Office of Safety Technologies. 

As a part of City of Frederick’s commitment to Vision Zero, city is emphasizing on promoting equitable and safe transportation options for all road users. One of the approaches is to repurpose the existing roadway to implement simple, low-cost traffic calming strategies that can improve safety and mobility for non-motorized road users. In the last year, three roadway corridors viz. Tuscanney Dr, Hayward Rd, and East 16th St, were evaluated for potential implementation of pedestrian and bicycle safety infrastructure. This involved analyzing traffic volumes, crash history, parking demand, stakeholder inputs, and evaluation of various traffic calming strategies.

Based on adjacent land use, roadway functional classification, and road user needs, different types of road diets were adopted for each of the corridors. Special consideration was given to improve pedestrian and bicycle network connectivity based on city’s Bicycle-Pedestrian Plan and Shared-Use-Path Plan. Tuscanney Dr project included narrowing the travel lanes, removing parking lanes and converting them into a two-way cycle track. Hayward Rd included converting four travel lanes to two, including a center-turn lane, and a two-way cycle track. E 16th St project design resulted in narrower parking and travel lanes, and addition of a two-way cycle track. All these projects had a significant increase in the number of crosswalks.

These projects demonstrate that excess capacity on the roadway can be retrofitted into improving bicycle and pedestrian connectivity, while also aiding in reducing speeding on the roadway without compromising the capacity, reduce cut-through traffic, and improving equity for vulnerable road users.

Shraddha Praharaj, PhD, EI works as a Traffic Engineer for the City of Frederick, Maryland. With a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering, Shraddha brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her role, where she focuses on enhancing traffic safety, improving transportation infrastructure, and implementing innovative traffic calming measures. 

Recognized as one of the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ (ITE) 2024 Young Leaders to Follow and Association for Commuter Transportation’s (ACT) 40 under 40, Shraddha has made significant contributions to the field of transportation engineering. Her work includes leading community engagement initiatives, complete implementation of traffic calming projects which aim to improve safety and connectivity while aligning with the City’s Vision Zero goals and promoting sustainable transportation alternatives throughout the city. Shraddha has been involved with ITE since 2014 and currently serves as a University liaison for the local section and district ITE. 

The need for ongoing technical training is more important than ever given a changing workforce, new technologies and continuous updates to both state and federal standards such as the 11th edition of the MUTCD. In response, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) works to ensure appropriate traffic-related training programs are provided for employees and other stakeholders. It is important these professionals possess the technical knowledge and skills necessary to perform and understand their assigned highway safety and traffic operations (HSTO) tasks, today and in the future.

As part of this overall HSTO training program, the department recently worked with Pennoni to develop and offer a new course entitled Introduction to Engineering Traffic Studies. This comprehensive instructor-led training course is offered to both PennDOT staff and consultant partners and covers the basic concepts behind traffic studies for regulatory traffic control devices. This includes an overview of Pennsylvania law versus department regulation, policy and procedure, and documentation requirements. Participants also complete hands-on exercises including Sight Distance Measurement and Speed Limit Restrictions using resources such as department publications, standard forms and the MUTCD. Following this training, attendees will be able to apply these resources to perform traffic studies in accordance with Pennsylvania’s laws, regulations and guidelines.

Robert Pento, PE has a BS in Civil Engineering Penn State and has worked for PennDOT since 1992, primarily in traffic operations.  Since 2015, he has managed the Traffic Engineering and Permits Section in the Bureau of Operations. 

Marvin Ta, PE, PTOE, ENV SP graduated from Drexel University in 2109 with a BS in Civil Engineering. He works within Pennoni’s traffic group in transportation and has experience in signal retiming, active transportation planning, traffic studies, and training for both PennDOT and local PA municipalities. 

In this session, learn about the SEMCOG-MDOT (Michigan) Multimodal Tool and the DDOT (Washington, D.C.) Multi-Modal Measures of Effectiveness Tool through an interactive demonstration. The SEMCOG tool is an excel-based tool that was developed into a user-friendly web application, and DDOT tool is currently an excel-based tool in the development process of their web application. Moving beyond complete streets to complete networks – entire networks of continuous and connected facilities for transit, bike, auto, freight, and pedestrians – involves conducting a larger review of networks for each mode. The design of individual streets then follows the larger modal network vision with performance measures aligned with the priority mode for the subject street. Both tools were created to solve similar transportation and land use problems with slightly different approaches and metrics.

Meredith Milam is a passionate transportation planner at Fehr & Peers, with an analytical approach to solving complex and challenging transportation problems nationally, grounded in her studies in City and Regional Planning. She emphasizes the importance of the relationship between humans and the climate and built environment, and how transportation and land use cohesion can improve mobility and accessibility within communities. 

Zahra Kahn, EIT is a transportation analyst at Fehr & Peers providing data-driven insights into complex transportation projects. She applies a range analytical tools and techniques to her work in multimodal operations, safety, complete streets and forecasting. Zahra’s analytical proficiency and leadership experience allow her to work on projects with attention to detail and a holistic perspective. She has served as a technical lead on projects throughout the region and beyond, including the SEMCOG Multimodal Tool project in Southeast Michigan. 

Neelima Ghanta, PE is the Chief of Traffic Safety Administration at the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), overseeing Operations Administration with approximately 700 employees (60% of the agency). Her mission is to improve safety on DC streets by focusing on various aspects including analysis, planning, design, construction, event management, multimodal traffic flow management, and the enforcement of traffic rules.

She has 19 years of international experience in technical and leadership roles in both the public and private sectors. She has led multi-modal transportation projects from vision to design in the United States and New Zealand. Her current project portfolio includes around $140 million in capital projects annually. She is a certified professional engineer and a chartered member of Engineering New Zealand. She has a master’s degree from Virginia Tech in Civil Engineering. She served on the boards of Women in Urbanism (NZ), WTS-DEC, led the CAPSITE scholarship program, and is currently serving on the Women in ITE Committee.

Allysha Lorber, PLA, AICP, ASLA is an Urban Planner at Mead & Hunt with over 25 years of experience specializing in planning and design of livable communities through complete streets, community enhancements, and sustainable transportation. As a Professional Landscape Architect and Certified Planner, she brings a unique perspective balancing multi-modal safety and connectivity with community values, environmental stewardship, and context-sensitive solutions. 

We examine the difficulty in analyzing bus lanes’ impact on the transportation system, rather than a traditional approach that only examines impact on vehicle delay.

Part 1: Understanding the inherent tension between space reallocation to transit and traditional traffic analyses of congestion. Bus lanes are typically needed where congestion causes transit delay. However, reallocating a vehicle travel lane to a bus lane will result in “worsened” LOS, particularly where there is existing congestion. Decisionmakers may look at these traffic results and decide not to proceed. In many localities, existing policy may prohibit the implementation of a bus lane in these cases.

Part 2: An analytical approach that uses person delay to bring the user experience and equity into traffic modeling. Separating out the traditional vehicular delay to a user level provides parity for all vehicular roadway users. With a few extra steps, this person-delay analysis extends the traditional method and provides robust quantitative results that should be significantly more useful to any engineer.

Part 3: A discussion about how to create an analytical method that is most useful to engineers, planners, and policymakers who make decisions about roadway design. Traditional traffic analysis using the HCM method is standard among transportation professionals, but if a more useful analysis exists, as we argue, then standards should align with the most effective method. Will transportation professionals find this person-delay approach useful, more equitable, and more applicable to a variety of situations? How can we adjust this method to achieve these goals?

Jacob Elliott, EIT is a Vision Zero Project Coordinator at the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Multimodal Planning.  His work focuses on multimodal capital projects that improve roadway safety, accessibility, connectivity, and operations. He graduated from Drexel University with a degree in Civil Engineering.

Claire Adler Robin is a Complete Streets Transit Project Coordinator in the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Multimodal Planning. In her role, she focuses on roadway design that improves transit service while integrating all modes and prioritizing safety. She has a Master of Science in City and Regional Planning from Temple University. Prior to working in transportation planning, she was a cheese professional.

Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) is advancing BRT infrastructure and service on New Hampshire Avenue, a Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) owned roadway. STV and Kittelson are leading the study of the 8.5-mile corridor that travels from the District of Columbia to the Colesville Park & Ride through a portion of Prince George’s County.

BRT implementation is challenging on this corridor due to its high vehicle travel volume, proximity to local service roads that accommodate residential and commercial access as well as vehicle parking, and a built environment that is nearly adjacent to the right-of-way in many locations. It is also challenging as it traverses multiple jurisdictions requiring extensive agency coordination.
As part of a robust planning analysis, the team analyzed population demographics data to better understand the needs of the communities and analyzed vehicle travel conditions using VISSIM microsimulation. Additionally, transit operations data, such as automated passenger count (APC) data from both Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) and Montgomery County RideOn, were evaluated to understand bus operational performance on the corridor.

Aditya Inamdar, AICP, LEED AP, RSP is an Associate Urban Planner and Designer with Kittelson & Associates. Aditya brings broad interdisciplinary experience in urban design, city planning, and architecture to each project he undertakes. He provides urban design and planning solutions that leverage infrastructure projects to seamlessly integrate land uses, place-making, and multi-modal transportation systems to create livable communities. Aditya strongly believes in a collaborative and interdisciplinary project approach that involves all stakeholders in the development of better communities. He has successfully managed several transit projects, including Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) studies, multimodal complete streets, small area and corridor plans, and transit-oriented development plans.

Jacob N. Smith, PE has a degree in Civil Engineering from Penn State University and is a licensed Professional Engineer in Maryland.  He is a consultant for MCDOT and a Senior Project Manager for STV with more than 20 years of experience planning, designing, and managing various highway and roadway improvement projects. He has expertise in a variety of projects involving Bus Rapid Transit, highway, pedestrian, and bicycle facilities, helping to improve the mobility and reliability of transportation systems in Maryland. 

Jamie Henson is a transportation planner with extensive public agency and private consulting experience with Kittelson & Associates. He is leading Montgomery County’s effort to implement their 100-mile BRT network. His career has focused on leading major transit improvements, building agency project delivery programs, and advancing urban transportation research. Jamie has led major NEPA efforts with Section 106 and Section 4(f) concerns that necessitated coordination with federal and local agencies. In addition, Jamie has led state-of-the-practice data analysis efforts to translate transit AVL and APC data into usable bus operations information. 

This presentation focuses on the PennDOT/PA Public Transportation Association “Building Better Bus Stops Resource Guide” and recently completed PROWAG (Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines) appendix. The guide identifies best practices for transit agencies to coordinate with DOT, municipalities with land use controls, and developers. Furthermore, it also outlines what is and is not the responsibility of the transit agency to address for accessibility and gives guidance to agencies to work with stakeholders and planning partners to improve access for all transit users. The guide encourages designers of roadway projects and new developments to work proactively with transit agencies on designs and includes a Technically Infeasible reporting tool and an inventory checklist for bus stop accessibility for agency use.

Mark Cassel, AICP, is a Project Manager – Transit for Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. Mark joined Bowman in 2023 after serving 14 years in the Service Planning Department at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia, most recently as Director. In that role, he was the lead for bus stop design coordination with municipalities and developers. Mark was involved in the development of both editions of the SEPTA Bus Stop Design Guide. With Bowman, he was on the team for the development of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Bus Stop Design Guidelines, published in 2025. He also led the development of a PROWAG Appendix for PennDOT and the Pennsylvania Public Transportation Association (PPTA). The appendix will become part of the Bowman-led Building Better Bus Stops Resource Guide, published in 2020.

AJ Jordan is the Director of Planning and Scheduling for the Lehigh & Northampton Transportation Authority (LANTA), Board member for the Parking and Transportation Association of Pennsylvania (PTAP), and Chair of the Planning Committee for the Pennsylvania Public Transportation Association (PPTA). His career focuses on public transportation access and curb space management and in urban areas, overseeing long-term fixed-route transit planning, land-use planning, regional project coordination, bus stop management and bus operating schedules. AJ received his B.A. in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his M.S. in Community Planning and Urban Design from the University of Cincinnati. He previously worked for Cincinnati Metro as Lead Scheduler and Operations Planner, and after moving to Pennsylvania he worked as a Public Transit Consultant with PennDOT’s Bureau of Public Transportation in Harrisburg.