Show Notes
To celebrate Traffic Awareness Month and our Traffic team’s contributions to creating safer transportation systems, we asked engineers across our offices to share their favorite projects, highlighting the innovative solutions they developed, and the lasting impact their work has on drivers, pedestrians, and entire neighborhoods.
Fifteen engineers all provided different answers, which is a testament to the breadth of incredible and diverse work they do.
For Bradley Dicola, PE, PTOE, choosing a favorite project was easy: the Work Zone Speed Camera Program for the Washington Department of Transportation. His team supported the initiative through project management, program development, staff augmentation, and annual programmatic support.
“It’s not too often you get to work on a ‘first-of-its-kind’ program in the United States and showcase our technical capabilities on a precedent-setting project,” he said.
Erik Stellato, EIT, also pointed to a work zone speed enforcement project, this time in Pennsylvania. His team helped launch and maintain the state’s Automated Work Zone Speed Enforcement pilot program, which deploys mobile units in active work zones to monitor vehicle speeds.
“This is a project where you are directly involved in protecting and saving the lives of construction workers and the community, all in real time. It is a project that is very unique, and great to see it succeed.”
For Tony Chan PE, PTOE in Baltimore, Maryland, a project that he will always remember was when he was selected to provide value engineering for the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration’s MD 295/MD 175 Interchange Improvements.
“On a Monday morning, I was sequestered in a windowless room with a multi-disciplinary team of engineers I had not worked with before and was presented with an unknown concept for an interchange project. By Friday afternoon, I was part of a multi-disciplinary team of engineers that presented traffic and design changes that would save millions in construction costs for the interchange project. That project is being constructed today.”
Another memorable interchange project was the I-95 at MD 152 Interchange for Stephanie Everett, PhD, PE, PTOE. RK&K led multi-disciplinary design services to prepare reconstruction documents compatible with future corridor improvements.
“I enjoyed working with many different team members on a variety of traffic engineering elements, including a fun exercise to identify signal timings that would not result in queues on the bridge over I-95 when we introduced a new signal on MD 152 for the proposed express toll lanes (ETLs) – the answer was using half cycles. It’s also been rewarding to watch construction progress and see the new ETLs, roundabout, and interchange open to traffic.”
Working on the MD 190 Corridor Safety Study was the most rewarding work for Kylie Snyder, PE, PTOE.
This bicycle and pedestrian safety analysis established a vision for the corridor, identified strategies to address pedestrian and bicycle network deficiencies, and recommended potential short- to mid-term improvements in the corridor.
“Safety studies are interesting to me because you ask yourself, ‘how can I help road users?’ and then I can take a deep dive and provide recommendations,” said Kylie. “There was a high-profile bicyclist crash at this location that needed immediate attention, and knowing I may have an impact in creating a safety corridor is so rewarding.”
Working on transportation planning for M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore was an experience Jim Burnett, PE, PTOE will never forget.
“It was my first stadium-related transportation project. RK&K led all the transportation planning for the stadium, including the construction of a new light rail station, all transit service, all parking lots, and the complete ingress and egress plan for fans,” said Jim.
“While I never expected to work on a project like this when I pursued a degree in Traffic Engineering, it was an amazing experience to help plan a new NFL stadium that would impact the lives of millions of fans.”
Annika Callaham, EIT’s favorite project was also in Baltimore City, as she helped with installing lighting upgrades in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.
“This allowed me to learn about the complexity of lighting a tunnel, and the results will improve drivers’ experiences for years to come. As a bonus, it allowed us to go into the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel!”
The Severn River Bridge project in US 50 in Maryland was a stand-out project for Matt Snare, PE, PTOE.
This project added a continuous eastbound lane on the busy road by shifting the existing median barrier and restriping the roadway to create seven through-travel lanes.
“This project solved a difficult long-time congestion problem in Annapolis after years of study of many different options, including reversible lane scenarios,” he explained.
Brian Whiteford, EIT enjoyed being a part of the team providing design services for the pedestrian safety action plan for MD 2 from MD 177 to MD 648 corridor project.
“It’s my favorite project thus far because we got to go into the field and investigate some of the existing signal infrastructure to confirm some of the proposed work. It’s really cool to see the similarities (and differences) between plans and what is in the field,” Brian said.
In Fairfax, Virginia, Rakesh Mora, PE, PTOE said his top pick was the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway Project.
RK&K provided final roadway design services for three separate sections of the $3.7 billion project aimed at improving mobility, safety, and reliability to a 22.5-mile stretch of I-66.
“This design-build project provided an opportunity to support the contractor and the Virginia Department of Transportation on extremely short timelines with alternative concept analysis for both maintenance of traffic (MOT) and build conditions. It was rewarding to see the challenging MOT concepts, signal timings, and modeling analyses developed in the office translate into noticeable weekly improvements in traffic conditions,” said Rakesh.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Byron Holden, PE’s standout work was the NC 540 design-build project to design and construct a toll road extension for the North Carolina Toll Authority, where RK&K served as design lead.
Byron said he was proud to serve as design project manager and work on a large project “that touched every discipline and had lots of moving pieces.”
Davis Bradwell is proud to have led the volume development and traffic analysis for projects along several miles of I-40 in Raleigh, including improvements to the I-40 at Cary Towne Boulevard interchange.
“I was able to build a complicated TransModeler model from scratch, including multiple system interchanges and fiscally constrained projects in the future year,” said Davis. “I also helped develop the build alternatives for this project, including a collector-distributor (C-D) road on I-40 westbound to improve mainline operations.”
Wang Shi’s favorite project was working on an SR 58 Highway Network Traffic Analysis. The core task of this project was to design and evaluate optimized bike lanes and pedestrian facilities for these five consecutive intersections on the SR 58 in the Lake Hills area.
“This project gave me the opportunity to learn how to use Synchro to establish a traffic network and expanded my familiarity with the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s guidelines. It provided a valuable entry point into understanding how to prepare, execute, and perform quality checks on a project following proper procedures,” he explained.
“The I-40 Rehabilitation proposal in Shelby County, Tennessee, has been one of my favorite projects to work on because it required a complex plan (as well as an Alternative Technical Concept) for traffic control to complete the proposed roadway improvements,” said Ethan Miller, EIT.
This pavement rehabilitation project extended almost three miles along I-40 in Memphis and included 12 ramp connections and 10 mainline bridges.
Click here to learn more about RK&K’s Traffic team and other projects they have worked on.
