USC ITE at the Western District Student Leadership Summit

USC ITE had a blast at the 12th annual ITE Western District Student Leadership Summit from January 31 to February 2, 2025. Thanks to generous sponsorship from METRANS and the Viterbi Conference & Research fund, 20 USC students attended the three-day conference hosted by UCLA. Along with over 220 students from 10+ universities, we embarked on a weekend full of networking with peers and professionals, honing our leadership skills, and learning about the latest topics in the transportation industry.

Starting the weekend off with a bang, this year’s conference offered five different field trips for students to tour transportation projects and facilities around LA County. On the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus trip—the biggest field trip of the day—over 70 students joined the Santa Monica Department of Transportation for a presentation and tour of their bus yard. Those who attended left with insider knowledge on how Santa Monica’s multimodal city operates as well as with a story to tell: what it’s like to be in a bus car wash!

Another popular field trip was the Los Angeles City Department of Transportation’s (LADOT) Advanced Transportation System and Coordination (ATSAC) Tour in downtown LA. ATSAC houses advanced traffic management technologies, including sophisticated detection and algorithms to monitor real-time traffic conditions citywide. Additionally, ATSAC staff can verify field situations via hundreds of traffic monitoring cameras throughout the city. When an abnormal condition occurs, ATSAC staff can quickly diagnose the problem(s) and implement appropriate responses. Viewing the big screens that stretch across the center’s room, students were impressed by ATSAC’s scale and effectiveness. We also enjoyed talking to staff, many of whom graduated from local universities and studied transportation just like us.

Friday ended with the 10th Annual ITE at UCLA Student-Professional Mixer where we intermingled, networked, and formed fresh friendships with students and professionals from across the West Coast, all while enjoying some delicious food!

Kicking off Day 2, we attended one of four technical presentations offered in topics ranging from rail engineering to mobility justice. One of the sessions was “Special Event and Emergency Traffic Operations in Metropolitan Environments” by Brandon Wilson. As Senior Director of Transportation Infrastructure Projects for the City of Los Angeles, Wilson is an expert on managing traffic flows for special events—both planned and unplanned. We learned that, just as effective communication and coordination are important practices in life generally, they are absolutely essential in organizing traffic. In addition to other experiences, Wilson shared how he works with the ATSAC Center to shift traffic on game days—a nice connection to the previous day’s field trip! It was especially interesting to hear what he learned from LA’s recent wildfires, which caused significant traffic chaos throughout LA County due to emergency evacuation orders and relief efforts.

Following the technical presentations were six learning workshops with titles such as “Getting to a Yes: Transportation Stakeholders and Engagement” and “A Complete Look at Complete Streets: Safer, More Inclusive Streets for All”. These sessions gave students the chance to interact with their peers and apply newly-learned skills. At the “Reimagining Westwood Blvd” workshop, LADOT Planner Matthews Criboli provided a brief introduction to street planning before letting us design our own vision of Westwood Blvd—a major street connecting UCLA and Westwood Village to LA’s Westside. In a little over an hour, we had learned the basics of reading street layout plans and designed several street configurations of Westwood Boulevard.

After lunch, we had the option to attend one of three professional panels. Many of us were excited to see that “Los Angeles 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games” was the title of one of these panels, for we had been hoping to learn more about transportation projects related to the upcoming games. As speakers Daniel Rodman, Kasey Shuda, and Pat Gibson put it, LA28 will be like hosting three Super Bowls every day for 16 days straight! Plus, Los Angeles has promised the games would be “car-free,” emphasizing a “transit-first” slogan. Doing so will require nearly triple the number of buses currently operating the city and the organization of mass communication campaigns with the city and public. Despite the challenge, all three speakers were optimistic and confident that they could pull it off. They stressed that, rather than developing temporary infrastructure for LA28, they are expediting existing projects that will serve the community even after the Games. In this sense, Rodman, Shuda, and Gibson see the Gamesas an opportunity to make progress toward visions of LA’s transit system that they’ve had even before Los Angeles was announced the Games’ host.

Next up was the career fair! This was a great event for students looking to learn more about what it’s like to work in transportation (and potentially secure an internship or job while at it). We closed the day off with a banquet dinner highlighting keynote speaker Tina Backstrom, the Senior Director of Transportation at the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Infrastructure. To our surprise, Backstrom studied Industrial and Systems Engineering at USC, which is what many of our members are doing now. While she shared her story, I couldn’t help but wonder if I might follow in her footsteps one day. There were many memorable moments in her speech, but we left with two key takeaways: (1) Don’t be afraid to share your goals and ask for what you want, and (2) Strengthening your emotional intelligence is essential to developing constructive relationships, both professional and personal.

The final day of the conference revolved around a hotly anticipated competition: the Western District Traffic Bowl! In this transportation-themed Jeopardy-like tournament, participants representing each university competed to win tickets to this year’s international ITE Conference in Orlando, Florida. This being my first time witnessing a Traffic Bowl competition, I was amazed to see just how much my peers knew about transportation engineering! Plus, a new rule change that allowed competitors to buzz in before the question was finished being read made the game all the more exciting. In the end of two intense rounds of Traffic Bowl, Alex Wang, Andrew Keefer, and Brandon Sanchez from USC ITE finished in fourth place overall, while UW earned first place.

For new and returning members alike, this year’s ITE SLS conference was a truly unforgettable experience. Thank you to UCLA for organizing such a special event and to the many sponsors, speakers, and professionals for taking part. USC ITE looks forward to next year’s conference (and possibly hosting again sometime in the next few years)!