Caltrans hosted the MESA Training Academy on March 18, 2011 from 9:00 – 3:30 pm for 20 students from the MESA programs at San Diego State University, San Diego City College, and Southwestern College.
Caltrans’ Abu-Bakr Al-Jafri & Chris Thomas provided an introduction to transportation engineering at their district office in Old Town, fielding questions from students as well as discussing topics such as, ‘what is transportation engineering’, ‘what skills are needed’, ‘how does a project get built’, and ‘what needs to be considered when designing a project’.
Dimitar Peev led a hands on design exercise that allowed students to design a six lane freeway using CADD.
Students were provided with lunch provided by PEGC & MESA, then continued the training academy at the traffic management center (TMC) site in Kearny Mesa where Everett Townsend gave students a tour of the TMC and facilitated a hands on activity that demonstrated real time monitoring and traffic operations strategies, such as incident management, ramp metering and reversible/managed lanes.
San Diego Section Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG) Special Edition MESA Newsletter – web link / PDF
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