Blog 18: Third Answer

Title:  Third Answer
Label: Research
Due Date:  Thursday March 27 by 8AM

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and 2 post your:

• EQ 
• How can a transportation engineer best design a comfortable means of transportation in the city of Los Angeles?

• Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*
• A transportation engineer can best design a comfortable means of transportation by implementing bycicle lanes.

• 3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example)
• detail 1: People who live around their job can ride bicycles to and from work.
• detail 2: Their will be less cars on the streets and their will be less saturation. 
• detail 3: By using a renewable energy source, the human body, the bicycle, will not be polluting the world like automobiles. 

• The research source (s) to support your details and answer
• http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bike/home.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregated_cycle_facilities

• Concluding Sentence
• Bike lanes, road shoulders, and side paths would benefit the city of Los Angeles in a big way. Less cars less traffic and healthier people.

Blog 17: Fourth Interview

Title:  Fourth Interview Questions
Label: Interviews 
Due Date:   Tuesday March 4, 2014

Content:

1: What is one of the major means of reducing vehicle miles of travel in a region, and thus of reducing auto emissions?

2: What are the levels of public transit service?

3: Will Los Angeles implement a subway or light rail system in future to reduce traffic saturation?

4: How is public transit viewed as an important component of transportation engineering?

5: How do transit systems pplay in maintaining mobilty and thus economic prosperity

6: How are structured transit services related to the land use patterns associated with an individual area?

7: How do major transportation corridors provide an ideal enviorment for the movement of large numbers of people?

8: Why have growth characteristics changed over the last 40 years due to the highway building program?

9: How will personal vehicle travel deteriorate significantly in more and more areas of the country? 

10: What type of emerging development patterns will require a broader range of public transportation solutions?

11: How will these transit systems worsen the air in this growing nation?

12: Will there be a coherent long-term energy policy for these transit systems?

13: Will there be any threats to energy indepence if these transit systems are put in place?

14: How will the trend of declining infrastructure affect the public transit system?

15: What makes a transit system successful?

16: How can transit systems and services be expanded using different types of measures?

17: What is the difference between heavy rail rapid transit and light rail transit?

18: Why do commuter rail services exist mainly between suburban communites and urban centers?

19: How do full automated guideways reduce vehicle traffic flow saturation?

20: What are paratransit services?

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

Title:  Advisory Meeting #2
Label: Presentation
Due Date:  Thursday 2/27 by 8AM

Content:

Answer 2: " The planning aspects of Transportation Engineering that relate to Urban Planning"

Technical forecasting of passenger travel usually involves an urban transportation planning model, requiring the estimation of trip generation (how many trips for what purpose), trip distribution (destination choice, where is the traveler going), mode choice (what mode is being taken), and route assignment (which streets or routes are being used). 

Sources:  http://ceg.osu.edu/undergraduate/civil-engineering/transportation-and-geodetic-engineering

               https://engineering.purdue.edu/ITE

Concluding Sentence: These are the focus of transport engineering because they often represent the peak of demand on any transportation system.

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.
- For my 30 hours I plan on working with a Transportation planner and doing mentorship with him because this way I can get a different point of view of the projects that Engineers work on. It will be helpful and I will learn something new each time.

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.
- I will meet the the 30 hours expectation by taking pictures while at mentorship and keeping my mentorship log up to date. I will also try to do mentorship at least twice a week so that I finish my 30 hours quickly. 


3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.
- What I will be doing is going to help me understand my topic in depth because I will learn how projects are started and how they are analyzed before engineers can get to work. I will learn things that not many engineers know and it will eventually help me in the long run because I will go into college already knowing these things,

Blog 13: Lesson 2 Reflection

Title: Lesson 2 reflection
Label:Presentation 2

Content:

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why?
- Something I am most proud if from my presentation is that I did not have to read off my slides because I actually practiced and recited my information days before.

2. Questions to Consider       a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AE       P          AP       CR       NC

       b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.
- I believe I deserve this grade because I met the time requirement and I felt like I had good information that will actually help my peers in the future. I also feel like I met most of the requirements. 

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?
- What worked for me is that we had to only focus on our essential question and our answer which made everything a lot easier for all of us. I also felt like the activity made the students feel as if they were actually doing the job and it was well executed.

4.  (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?
- If I had a time machine, I would go back and take my time to explain how the field survey sheet works on the board and show what the final product looks like so that they can have a general idea of what a day  at the field looks like for a planner or engineer.

5. Finding Value
What do you think your answer #2 is going to be? 
- I think my answer 2 will be "by figuring out the geometry of the future project site"

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Title:  Independent Component 1
Label:  Independent Component
Due Date:  Friday 2/7 at 8AM
Content: 

(a) - Literal "I, Isaac Salas, Affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work"

(b) - https://www.ite.org/ 

(c) - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnIhfdyOzX40dDlxOUV5V2JUUDg5MGRMemswLU4yd2c&usp=sharing#gid=0

(d) - While doing these 30 hours for my independent component I completed several things. I went to mentor ship and actually understood a lot more this time because I began to ask more questions.  I went with my mentor from city to city and analyzed many different intersections, streets, and highways. During Mentor ship my mentor and I used worksheets to write down how many left or right turns, how many lanes, and if there were pockets in each  intersection. 

Interpretive:

 Here I am with my mentor in the city of Bell gardens and we are analyzing an intersection. We did this several times in different cities. These worksheets are meant for the engineers to know what kind of intersection they will be working with. This is a significant part of my project because without this I would not get the actual data that I need and we would be relying on past reports that are outdated by now.

Applied: This component helped me understand the foundation of my project better because instead of just counting the vehicles that passed by the intersections and measuring the lanes and crosswalks, I actually began to learn why there are a certain amount of lanes in each street and why there cant be bus stops just anywhere. Or why the street division should be raised or not. This component helped me learn a lot more than I would have thought.

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

Title: Third Interview Questions
Label: Interviews 
Due Date: Thursday January 16th by 8AM

Content:

      1. How can  a Transportation Engineer design a comfortable means of Transportation in the city of Los Angeles?

      2. Is there anyone else in the Engineering field that I can refer to if I have any questions regarding this topic?

      3. Where are some places that your firm has worked on to improve the flow of traffic? how was it done?

      4. Are there currently any projects regarding the safety of the people and how it can be improved?

      5. How do your levels of service apply to Intersections, transit, sanitary sewer service and public open space?

      6.How will both bicycle and foot traffic be improved so that the people feel more safe?

      7. Will public transportation be affected by the changes that will be made to create a more safe and rapid flow of traffic in the city of Los Angeles?

      8. What innovative ideas will be used to reduce traffic impacts on public transportation?

      9. Will there be new regulations to control traffic?

     10. What new technology will be used to provide a more comfortable means of transportation for the city of Los Angeles?