A Busy Evening for HSH at the MAITE/NEITE Joint Annual Meeting

October 26, 2014

HSH was actively present at last week’s MAITE/NEITE Joint Annual Meeting, which focused on the theme of ‘Fast-Track Design for a Healthier Future’. The meeting is a yearly event attended by approximately 200 professionals in the transportation industry, offering training sessions, technical presentations, a networking/social hour, and a dinner program featuring a keynote speaker.

This year’s keynote speaker took the form of an expert panel discussing the Connect Historic Boston (CHB) Complete Streets Project. CHB was initiated by the Boston Transportation Department (BTD) in 2011 with a plan to connect historic landmarks across downtown Boston by means of improved bicycling and pedestrian facilities from existing public transit hubs. In 2013, the City of Boston was awarded a $25 million Federal TIGER grant to construct the multimodal infrastructure improvements. HSH served as the design lead on the CHB project in collaboration with Toole Design Group, working with BTD, Boston Public Works (BPW), and the Federal Highway Association (FHWA).

The panel included HSH Principal Dave Matton, who spoke of the design process associated with the improvements on the 1.4 mile stretch from Atlantic Avenue through Commercial Street, Causeway Street and Staniford Street to Cambridge Street. Nick Jackson, Vice President of Toole Design Partnership served on the panel, discussing the innovative bicycle accommodations implemented on the project – such as the separated cycletrack on Causeway Street. Also on the panel was Vineet Gupta, Director of Planning at BTD, who discussed the planning components of the project; Ken Miller, Assistant Division Administrator at FHWA, who spoke to the TIGER Funding Application Process, and Bill Egan, P.E., Chief Engineer for BPW, who discussed Project Management and the collaborative effort required to make the project successful on an accelerated design schedule.

In addition to our presence at the panel discussion, several HSH staff members, including Principal Keri Pyke, P.E., PTOE, attended full-day training sessions on the computer program Vistro, a comprehensive traffic analysis tool to analyze traffic from intersections to full networks – a tool that is currently being considered for implementation from MassDOT.

Also of note, that evening, HSH’s Hans Kuebler was officially elected as Vice President of the Massachusetts Chapter of ITE. Congratulations Hans!