Professional and Career Development

Free Small Community and Tribal Government Webinars

FHWA and ITE Partner to Provide Training to Local and Tribal Transportation Practitioners

Through an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), ITE will provide free web-based training modules to local and tribal public agency practitioners in smaller jurisdictions (counties with fewer than 100,000 population; cities, towns and townships with fewer than 50,000 population; all tribal governments) through the ITE Learning Hub. This training, geared toward local agency and tribal government highway maintenance, construction, safety and engineering staff and managers as well as others, will involve numerous critical transportation areas, including transportation fundamentals, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), traffic engineering, and safety.

The goal of this training is to provide local and tribal transportation practitioners with the knowledge to meet the challenges faced by greater mobility and expanded population. Across the United States, there are more than 39,000 local governments and 573 federally recognized tribes that own and operate more than 80 percent, or roughly 3.3 million miles, of our nation’s highway network.

To be eligible, transportation professionals must be employed by a public agency:

  • in a county with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants;
  • in a city, town, or township with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants; or
  • That is part of a tribal government.

These training modules will offer access to information about foundational and emerging technologies and practices to help these professionals move beyond the status quo and identify new ways of looking at problems and the use of both proven and innovative solutions. There will be no charge to access these training modules.

To learn more and to confirm eligibility, please contact Kellyanne Broom, ITE Professional Development Director, at pdinfo@ite.org.

Registraton Instructions:
Once you have confirmed your elgibility, register yourself for any of the following On-Demand webinars by following these steps!

Steps to register:

  • Click the 'Register Here' button next to title of webinar you wish to register for
  • Click Purchase
  • Click Add to Cart
  • On Checkout screen, insert promotional code: FHWAEDU1
  • Please note: you have access to the On-Demand webinar upon registration confirmation for 30 days. 

This code is meant for eligible local agency and tribal governments as determined by this agreement. If you register and you do not qualify, ITE has the right to revoke your order. 

Available On-Demand Webinar Training Modules:

  • Design and Operation of Road Segments and Interchanges in Rural Areas -- Register Here
    • Description: Geometric design of uninterrupted flow facilities is the process by which engineers seek to provide for the needs of a variety of users and vehicle types while minimizing environmental impacts. Uninterrupted flow exists when there are no traffic control devices that interrupt traffic and where no platoons are formed by upstream signals. Examples are freeways, multilane highways, and two-lane highways. Design involves integrating three dimensions: horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, and cross-section. In addition to the design elements, the professional practices of uninterrupted flow facilities include the effect of roadway design on traffic operation and safety as well as signs, markings, and traffic safety devices associated with rural areas.

 

  • Designing for Bicyclist Safety -- Register Here
    • Description: This webinar discusses the range of bicyclists and what is needed to provide a bikeway network that is suitable for bicyclists of all ranges and abilities. You will be presented with U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration policies and guidance using a flexible approach to meet the needs of all modes and users. Currently available safety analysis tools will be compared, and considerations for qualitative safety analysis will be presented.

 

  • Finding the Right Tool for the Job - A Safety Data and Analysis Toolbox -- Register Here
    • Description: Have you ever been tasked with an assignment and didn’t know where to start? Maybe you’re a junior engineer responsible or conducting traffic impact assessments, and your boss asks you to assess the safety performance of an intersection while you are completing the TIA. Maybe you are a county engineer and you receive a request from the State DOT for a list of your priority locations for safety improvement. Maybe you are a city transportation manager and the city council has asked you to provide recommendations to enhance safety management capabilities. The FHWA Roadway Safety Data and Analysis Toolboxis a great place to start.

The last two decades have brought significant advancements in data-driven decision-making, including numerous safety data and analysis tools. For many, this transition to data-driven decision-making represents a change in how they do business. While the new safety data and analysis tools support data-driven decision-making, identifying and selecting an appropriate tool can be a daunting task, particularly for those new to quantitative safety analysis.

The Toolbox fulfills the need for a centralized source of information about safety data and analysis tools. Its web-based interface helps users identify appropriate tools based on self-identified needs, capabilities, and resources. The target audience is a transportation professional in search of a safety data or analysis tool to support data-driven decision-making.

An online Primer serves as a support document for users of the Toolbox. The Primer will help all users, particularly novice users, understand the scope and functions of the Toolbox as well as the roles, responsibilities, and tasks supported by tools in the Toolbox. The Primer guides users through a stepwise process to identify an appropriate tool to support a given task based on their needs and capabilities.

 

  • Introduction to Traffic Engineering Studies -- Register Here
    • Description: Traffic engineering is that phase of engineering that deals with the planning, geometric design and traffic operations of transportation systems including roads, streets, highways, sidewalks and bicycle lanes for the achievement of safe, efficient and convenient movement of people and goods. As trained professionals, traffic engineers need to base their recommendations by studying existing and future conditions under a number of scenarios. As part of these efforts, traffic engineers take traffic counts, analyze accident statistics, study speed data, examine roadway conditions, conduct research and study what other professionals are doing and the results they have achieved. Millions and multi-millions of dollars are typically spent based on the findings and recommendations of traffic engineering studies. This webinar provides an introduction to the multitude of studies and measurements performed by traffic engineers and transportation planners as part of their work, and some of the pitfalls to be aware of when performing certain types of traffic engineering studies.

 

  • Managing Speed: Self-Enforcing Roadway Concepts -- Register Here
    • Description: This webinar identifies methods that may produce self-enforcing or self-explaining roadways during the geometric design process. While safety performance associated with these methods is not well-understood yet, an implied outcome of effective speed management is that less severe crashes will result via the application of self-enforcing or self-explaining road design principles. Six different self-enforcing road concepts and the processes needed to implement the concepts when designing or evaluating existing two-lane rural highways are identified and described during the webinar.

 

  • Advisory Bike Lanes -- Register Here
    • Description: This webinar will introduce and describe a roadway type new to North America but successfully used for 45+ years in other countries. It has started to appear in North America but awareness of it and its characteristics is still limited. The Advisory Bike Lane (ABL) is a road which accommodates motorized and non-motorized users on low volume roads which are of limited width or unlikely to receive funding for multimodal improvements. ABLs consist of a single center lane which supports two-way vehicular travel and edge lanes on either side preferentially reserved for bicyclists, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.

 

  • Engineering the Uncontrolled Pedestrian Crossing -- Register Here
    • Description: With the recent recension and reintroduction of interim approval for the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacon (RRFB), a lot of attention has been drawn to the wide range of enhancements available for uncontrolled pedestrian crossings. Edge-lit warning signs, circular beacons, knock-down signs, flash rates, our toolbox continues to grow, but how are these devices actually used in practice? ITE has created an Uncontrolled Pedestrian Crossings working group focused on this critical safety issue for members, with this webinar being the first effort. This webinar features perspectives from two local agencies, Seattle and Des Moines, as well as the Florida Department of Transportation, and how these agencies are addressing their uncontrolled crossings. This webinar is co-sponsored by the ITE Complete Streets Council and the Transportation Safety Council.

 

  • Understanding Finance for the Engineering/Planning Profession -- Register Here
    • Description: Often, emerging professionals are not exposed to the financial workings of a firm – including how projects are budgeted, how profits are calculated, and what implications not getting paid on a project can have to the overall operations of a firm. The goal of this webinar is to provide a highly abridged version of a Finance 101 course so that engineering and planning professionals can understand the role of finance in the engineering/planning industry.

 

  • Recommended Design Guidelines to Accommodate Pedestrians and Bicycles at Interchanges -- Register Here
    • Description: This webinar recording features the guiding principles and case studies included in the recently-released Recommended Practice Recommended Design Guidelines to Accommodate Pedestrians nd Bicycles at Interchanges. It will include a discussion of the preferred design guidelines for accommodating pedestrians and bicyclists at interchanges with respect to safety and accessibility. It will also discuss specific dimensions, safety features, signage, pavement markings, design geometries, and other treatments for accommodating non-motorized users at interchanges.

 

  • Safety Fundamentals: A 9-Part ITE Learning Hub Series -- Register Here
    • Description: This 9-part webinar series highlights various aspects of road safety as part of ITE’s continued focus on Vision Zero and the goal to reduce and eventually eliminate fatalities. Presented by experts in their field, this series will have a topic appropriate for all levels. There is a suite of introductory webinars for those not familiar with road user safety as well as modules discussing safety evaluations and safety for all road users.

 

  • So Unsafe, It Seems Safe: Reassessing Safety Via Perceived Risk -- Register Here
    • Description: Traffic safety is a primary barrier for folks who wish to walk or bike. The traditional approach to combating such traffic safety issues consists of looking for crashes, injuries, or fatalities. However, that is a reactive approach, only accounting for the folks that are already walking or biking and the places that they are doing so. How would we account for people that have determined that the system is too unsafe to use in the first place? How would we identify the places where trips are suppressed – precisely because they are so unsafe – before they occur?

      By using safety perceptions and suppressed trips, this webinar will explore ways of identifying such people and places. Two case studies examine children in Denver, Colorado and California. Instead of the traditional reactive approach of reducing crashes, the goal of this webinar is to develop a proactive method of enabling as many people to safely walk and bike as possible.

 

  • Traffic Calming, What Has Changed in the Last 20 Years? -- Register Here
    • Description: As the need to protect residential areas from effects of traffic continues to increase, the Traffic Calming practice has evolved. Some traditional Traffic Calming measures remain, new ones have been engineered, while others have changed in their design, application and/or effects. In 2017, ITE and FHWA developed the “Traffic Calming ePrimer” to serve as a resource for the public and profession to understand the toolbox of individual traffic calming measures and their effects. The ePrimer can help to choose which measure(s) would be best to solve specific neighborhood traffic problems and have acceptable benefits and negative impacts. Based on the information contained in the ePrimer, the ITE Traffic Engineering Council is finalizing a revised set of Traffic Calming Fact Streets. These sheets have long been a popular staple on the ITE website. This webinar presents the current state of the Traffic Calming practice and presents the updated and new Fact Sheets on the individual Traffic Calming measures.

 

  • Traffic Control at Intersections -- Register Here
    • Description: When two roadways intersect, various modes of traffic are commonly stopped, slowed or restricted by the use of traffic control devices resulting in an “interrupted flow.” Since the traffic control is critical at intersections, it is important that uniform design and implementation of these devices be considered. This webinar will focus primary on introducing many of the concepts found in Chapter 10 of the Traffic Engineering Handbook entitled “Design and Control for Interrupted Traffic Flow Through Intersections.” Concepts include the various elements and characteristics of an intersection, the different types of intersection control, a review of the traffic signal warrants, development of a traffic signal timing plan, and various types of intersection control technologies.

 

  • Protected Bikeway Design: An ITE Practitioners Guide & Lecture Series -- Register Here
    • Description: There are numerous design guides that have been produced in the past decade for the design of bicycle infrastructure. The most recent guidance includes substantially more information about protected bike lanes due to the strength of their demonstrated outcomes. These facilities, also referred to as separated bike lanes and cycle tracks, have been shown to improve safety, user comfort, operations, equity, and mode share. With the additional guidance and approvals from authorizing agencies, growth in protected bike lane miles/kilometres has been significant. However, questions about the specific design and operational details that many of the guides do not address requires additional design guidance and research before these designs are widely adopted. The ITE Protected Bike Lane Lecture Series will address these gaps related to 5 priority areas: Safety Performance, Mid-Block Design & Operation, Intersection Design & Operation, Maintenance, and Implementation, and result in the development of the ITE Practitioners Guide*. While much of the application of protected bike lanes has been in urban areas, we will also include guidance for suburban contexts.