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In this issue:

Letter from the Chair 1

About Us 1

Meet the Board 2

Recap of Past Events 4

Member Spotlight 5

Hot Topic: Austin Urban Rail

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Upcoming Events 6

Dear Members:

Welcome to the first edition of YPT Austin’s newsletter, and thank you for supporting our growing chapter. YPT is based in Washington, DC, but has already dug roots in New York and Boston. Austin is a dynamic place for young professionals, so it was obvious to create a branch chapter here.

What makes YPT different from other organizations dedicated to transportation issues? Resorting to a cliché, you make YPT different— whether your focus is engineering, planning, economics, policy, or any other aspect within the transportation field. Our organization does not have an arbitrary age-limit.

Our goal is to provide you the opportunities to network not only with your peers, but also network with established professionals who have the successful careers you might aspire to attain one day. Additionally, we want to give you the tools to get ahead in the industry through professional development seminars and roundtable discussions. If you are looking to land in a job, we wish to help you stand out in the crowd of applicants. If you are interested in seeing the new generation of professionals try to make their mark in the field, we also welcome you to the organization. We would love to have your support, as a sponsor or speaker at one of our meetings.

We have a successful parent organization to look up to as we move forward, but we do not want to be a “carbon copy” branch. Austin is a lively place with a unique culture and flavor that should be reflected in our chapter. We have events planned for throughout the year, including happy hours, volunteer events, and presentations with speakers from various levels of public, private, and academic backgrounds. However, we want to hear your ideas as to how the Austin chapter can be more unique and cater to your professional needs. How can we help you reach your career goals? Who would you like to be able to meet? Where would you like to take field trips? Without input from our members, we would not be able to be your ideal organization.

You can e-mail your questions or comments to us at yptaustin@gmail.com. Please visit our website or follow us on Facebook. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our future events.

Sincerely, Katherine Kortum, YPT-Austin Chair

About Us

Letter from the Chair

YPT’s mission is to provide career guidance, fellowship, and networking opportunities for young professionals in the transportation field.

Founder Joung Lee established the organization in April 2008. Since then, the YPT has grown from a handful of members in the nation’s capital to over a 1,000 members from all around the United States and the rest of the globe.

In the summer of 2010, YPT started the process of establishing regional chapters in major metropolitan areas around the United States. YPT-Austin Chapter was formally chartered on September 22, 2010. A regional chapter for Boston, MA was also started at about the same time. Other potential chapters include Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

YPT has a very diverse membership with members from 18 to 70 years of age. Our members represent all facets of the transportation industry. This includes individuals who work for the US Department of Transportation, state and local governments, consulting firms, transportation organizations, colleges and universities. We strive to reach out and attract members from a wide range of disciplines within the transportation industry.

Spring 2011 Volume 1, Issue 1

Newsletter Young Professionals in Transportation—Austin

Austin Executive Board

Katherine Kortum Chair Millie Hayes Deputy Chair April Sandoval Vice Chair - Administration Luis Lopez Vice Chair - Finance Migdalia Carrion Alers Vice Chair - Programs Wenxing Liu Vice Chair - Programs Sowmya Chandrasekhar Vice Chair - Communication Stephanie Shupe Vice Chair - Membership

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Meet the Board Members Katherine Kortum, Chair

Katherine graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bache-lor of Science in Civil Engineering in 2006. After graduation, she sought a better climate and left the Steelers to work for Halff Associates in Austin. She spent two years working as an engineer-in-training before returning to school to pursue her MS in Civil Engineer-ing in the Transportation Engineering program. She completed her Master’s degree in 2009, with a thesis focused on Austin-area carsharing, and is currently working towards earning her PhD degree.

Millie Hayes, Deputy Chair

Millie earned her Bachelor degree from Iowa State University in 2007. After graduation, she joined the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in their Professional Develop-ment Program (PDP), based out of the Connecticut Division office. While on the PDP, she completed temporary assignments in New York and North Carolina. Upon comple-tion of the program, she transferred to the Texas Division office, where she worked as Area Engineer and provided oversight for the Atlanta, Paris, and Tyler Districts of TxDOT. She now provides oversight for the Dallas District.

April Sandoval, Vice Chair - Administration

April is an engineer-in-training for the AECOM Austin office. She has four years of road-way design experience on several city, county, and TxDOT transportation engineering projects; she also has design-build experience on a number of projects. Prior to AECOM, she began her career as a research technician at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Cincinnati, Ohio. April graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in May 2007. In addition to serving on the YPT Executive Board, she is also the UT Student Liaison for the Women’s Transpor-tation Seminar (WTS) Heart of Texas Chapter.

Luis Lopez, Vice Chair - Finance

Luis D. López is an Area Engineer for the Federal Highway Administration, Texas Divi-sion. He provides oversight to the North Houston District. He has six years of experi-ence in the federal oversight and construction management fields. Luis began his career working in the construction management of several projects, including two major infra-structure projects in Puerto Rico. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and Master of Engineering Management degrees from the University of Puerto Rico and Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, respectively. He also is a Licensed Professional Engineer, registered in Puerto Rico.

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Meet the Board Members Sowmya Chandrasekhar, Vice Chair - Communication

Sowmya works as a transportation analyst for Alliance Transportation Group (ATG) in Austin, TX. She earned her BSCE from National Institute of Technology – Nagpur, In-dia. She completed her Masters in Transportation Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri-Rolla) in 2007. Her three years of experience working with ATG involved projects varying from traffic impact analysis, signal designs, corridor studies to parking studies for various towns in Texas and Louisi-ana. Her prior exposure to the field of transportation includes summer internship with the School Safety Division at New York City Department of Transportation in 2007.

Migdalia Carrion-Alers , Vice Chair - Programs

Migdalia is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a 2-year recipient of the Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program. She graduated in 2008 from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez with a Civil Engineer-ing Bachelor Degree. Upon graduation, she was awarded with Summa Cum Laude - the Engineering Faculty Award for the student with best GPA (Class 08’) and the Etienne Totti Award - for best student of the Civil Engineering Department (Class 08’). At UT, she is currently doing research on 'Freight planning in Texas' supervised by her advisor Professor C. Michael Walton, PE, PhD.

Wenxing Liu, Vice Chair - Programs

Wenxing is a graduate student at University of Texas at Austin. She came to Austin to pursue her graduate studies after completing her bachelors from Tsinghua University (China) in 2009. Although she keenly aspires to get her PhD, Wenxing thought it would be better to get some real work experience first. Hence, after her graduation from UT, Wenxing plans to return to China to seek a career in transportation and yearns to con-tribute in improving the transportation system in China.

Stephanie Shupe, Vice Chair - Membership

Stephanie recently moved to Austin with her husband and is currently working part-time as a Design Engineer for Jones & Carter. Her focus in the past has been primarily in transportation and traffic engineering, although she is currently more involved with land development at Jones & Carter. Since graduating from Virginia Tech in 2010 with a BS in Civil Engineering, she worked as a Transportation Engineer, gaining a year of valu-able experience in roadway design and traffic analysis. In the more recent months, she started working in land development and is aiming to expand upon her knowledge of civil engineering design as a whole.

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Recap of Past Events

April Roundtable Event Mr. Gary W. Schatz, Assistant Director for the Austin Transportation Department, briefed the attendees on context sensitive solutions (CSS) in practice. The primary emphasis of his presentation was the incorporation of roundabouts as an increasingly accepted means to alleviate traffic. The event was hosted at the local Ronald McDonald House. Donations were collected for the charity.

January Roundtable Event Mr. Al Alonzi, Assistant Division Administrator for the FHWA-Texas Division, spoke at our first roundtable event. He provided insight on how to market yourself as a young professional and tips on building a successful career.

10th Annual Engineer’s Day In February, we invited our members to attend Engineer's Day at the Austin Children's Museum organized by ASCE and ACEA. This annual event aims to encourage an interest in science and engineering amongst children. Volunteers helped children to build hoop gliders, paper towers and all kind of structures with spaghetti and marshmallows!

February/March Happy Hours Networking events were held at Third Base and Flying Saucer in the months of February and March, respectively. Both events attracted many newcomers to the organization.

WTS/YPT December Happy Hour Last winter, the YPT-Austin and WTS-Heart of Texas chapters jointly hosted a happy hour at Flying Saucer. This was our first networking event. Donations were collected to benefit the Austin Children’s Shelter.

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Member Spot l ight Nick Wood was recently hired as an Assistant Researcher at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) Austin office. His work involves the study of managed lanes, congestion pricing, and vehicle mileage fees. He has been assessing programs that implement pricing as part of a national Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) study and for various projects in the State of Texas. “Agencies and municipalities look to pricing as a tool to help manage components of a transportation system,” Nick explained. “These strategies can be as diverse as having an express lane with variable tolling or adjusting the price of a downtown parking space to respond to demand.” “In Austin, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) is considering to construct an additional lane in both directions on the MoPac Expressway that will incorporate tolling on a 12-mile segment, called the MoPac Improvement Project. Drivers who use it will be guaranteed to travel without experiencing any congestion. The express lanes will have limited access points along the corridor, and be restricted only to vehicles that carry a TxTag sticker. The price to enter the lane will vary during the day as traffic conditions change to help curtail demand at peak times, and to keep the lanes free-flowing and uncongested.”

“More commonly we have seen express lanes not only improve the speed for toll lane users, but for those who travel in the general purpose lanes as well. The key is to actively manage demand by discouraging drivers from using the facility all at once. Tightly-knit groups of vehicles tend to travel at slower speeds that can reduce highway capacity.” Additionally, Nick is evaluating implementation of the I-85 Express Lanes in Atlanta, Georgia and the I-10 and I-110 Express Lanes and ExpressPark system in Los Angeles, California for an FHWA national study. He is also working on an exploratory FHWA research project to investigate road user charging (VMT fee) schemes and suggest different concepts of operation plans for further testing. A native of Gloversville, New York, Nick earned his BS in Civil Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2007. He also received his MS in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. He is certified as an Intern Engineer (EIT) from the State of New York. YPT-Austin would like to recognize Nick for his commitment and eagerness to see the organization grow. He has been an active member since the beginning of the chapter. Furthermore, he has been a pleasure to have at every networking and roundtable event.

Hot Topic : Aust in Urban Rai l Urban Rail project seeks to enhance mobility and address Central Austin’s transportation challenges

By now, you’ve probably heard rumblings about the proposed Urban Rail project in Austin. We all could probably agree that Austin faces many challenges when it comes to transportation. With ever escalating gas prices, the proposed Urban Rail project seeks to provide us with more

mobility choices.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell discussed the prospect of Urban Rail in his State of the City address in February: “I won’t suggest…that Urban Rail will

solve all of our traffic problems, but…I strongly believe that it must be a part of the solution. Because if we fail to deliver easy alternatives to single-occupant car trips, Austin will never be the kind of livable, sustainable city that we aspire to be.”

To that end, the City of Austin initiated an environmental impact statement (EIS) to study the potential impacts to human and natural environ-

ments. During the EIS process, the City will examine and document the benefits of the construction and operation of Urban Rail, as well as the potential social, economical, and environmental impacts.

Scoping materials from the Federal Transit Administration and the City of Austin cite the need for the proposed Urban Rail as “a need for direct connectivity between Mueller Redevelopment, the University of Texas, the state Capitol Complex, the Central Business District, and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport; a need for a direct link between existing and planned passenger rail systems at opposite sides of downtown; a

need for increased transportation network capacity in constrained rights-of-way through established neighborhoods; a need for additional al-ternatives to single-occupancy/privately owned vehicles; a need to attract and concentrate development within the region’s core; a need to improve air quality by reducing the growth of automobile emissions; and a need to support the City’s environmental, public health, and eco-

nomic development goals.” The purpose of the project is “to improve the mobility, connectivity, and sustainability of Central Austin – the re-gion’s core – by providing greater mobility options; improving person-moving capacity; improving access and linkages to major activity centers

and commuter and regional rail; supporting the City’s environmental, public health, and economic development goals; and encouraging invest-ment.”

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Upcoming Events Young Professionals in Transportation—Austin Chapter

Mail: PO Box 300753

Austin, Texas 78703-0753

E-mail: YPTAustin@gmail.com

Website: http://ypt.transportation.org

Like us on Facebook!

If you would like to submit an article or advertise your business in our quarterly newsletter, please contact April Sandoval (april.sandoval@aecom.com).

BECOME INVOLVED!

The Central Austin Transit Study, prepared by URS for the City of Austin, was published in July 2010. The study encapsulates the range of alternatives considered and evaluated by the City. Based on the analysis, the City selected Urban Rail as the recommended modal alternative.

The three alternatives listed to be studied in the EIS include the No-Build Alternative, the Better Bus Alternative, and the Urban Rail Alterna-

tive. The No-Build Alternative includes the existing transportation system, plus the highway and transit projects listed in the fiscally-constrained long range transportation plan— CAMPO 2035 Plan. The Better Bus Alternative would be similar to the concept of Bus Rapid Tran-

sit, consisting of enhanced buses with more amenities, special stations, and inclusion of Intelligent Transportation Systems or other priority measures to minimize travel delays. The Urban Rail Alternative would include modern streetcar technology, with overhead-electric power and a fixed guideway service, blending the operational characteristics of Light Rail Transit and the modern streetcar. With single- or multiple-car

trains, the Urban Rail is envisioned to use a shared street and/or have exclusive right-of-way. Conceptual maps show over 40 potential sta-tions. Stations are projected to vary in distance depending on the neighborhood. In Downtown and spurs extending to the Long Center, West

Campus, Hancock Center, and Mueller, the stations would be three to five blocks apart. In the Riverside area, stations would be further apart.

The Central Austin Transit Study anticipates that Better Bus would attract 9,000 users per weekday by 2030; Urban Rail would attract 27,600 users per weekday, in comparison.

Critics of the proposed Urban Rail cite Austin’s Red Line as a failure due to its ridership, and believe that the Urban Rail would have similar results. However, the Urban Rail differs

from the Red Line in many aspects. Unlike the Red Line, Urban Rail is intended to serve riders in central Austin, which is more densely populated than the areas surrounding Red Line stations. Urban Rail would serve the major employment centers of the Capitol Com-

plex and the UT campus, while also connecting the Riverside area, Hancock Center, the Mueller Redevelopment, and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

What do you think? FTA and the City of Austin encourage public involvement and input on

the scope of the EIS, including the project’s purpose and need, alternatives to be consid-ered, the impacts to be evaluated, and the methodologies used in evaluation. Comments

can be submitted through April 29 on the project website at www.AustinUrbanRail.com.

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May Roundtable Event Date: Monday, May 2, 2011

Where: George Washington Carver Museum

Time: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

May Networking Happy Hour with ASCE YMF Date: TBD

Where: Hula Hut

Time: 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM

June Networking Happy Hour Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011

Where: Cuatros on 24th & San Gabriel

Time: 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM

July Roundtable Event Date: Thursday, July 14, 2011

Where: George Washington Carver Museum

Time: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

August Networking Happy Hour Date: Thursday, August 11, 2011

Where: Cuatros on 24th & San Gabriel

Time: 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM