Gresham Smith Transportation Professionals to Speak at the 2023 ASHE National Conference

May 31, 2023

Gresham Smith is proud to announce that a group of Transportation market leaders will be speaking at the upcoming 2023 ASHE National Conference from June 7-11 in Atlanta, Georgia. Senior Transportation Planner Erin Thoresen, AICP, Senior Transportation Engineer Zack Lammers, P.E., and Senior TSM&O Manager Andy Phlegar, P.E., will present during the technical sessions. In addition, Sarah Blackburn, P.E., Georgia Roadway Design Department Leader, will participate in the conference as the Georgia Section President of ASHE. Below is a summary of their presentations.

Technical Session #2A – Multi-Modal Facilities Transforming the Chattahoochee RiverLands Study into Design (Trail Design – Planning and Engineering)

Presented by Gresham Smith’s Zack Lammers, P.E., Senior Transportation Engineer, and Erin Thoresen, AICP, Senior Transportation Planner

The Chattahoochee RiverLands Greenway Study is an ambitious, regional-scale project. It spans 100 miles, from Buford Dam to Chattahoochee Bend State Park, and involves seven counties and 19 cities. This project, funded by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Cobb County, Trust for Public Land, and City of Atlanta, started as a vision for 125 miles of greenway trails, as well as blueways and park spaces across Metro Atlanta. The plan seeks to develop a safe and connective multimodal corridor; connect communities to public spaces that promote economic development, remediation and restoration; and provide an ecological refuge for the region.

This presentation will explore the conceptual Pilot Project that helped demonstrate design strategies in Cobb County that will ultimately lead to a cohesive network of public trails, Phase I of Cobb County’s Chattahoochee River Trail Pedestrian Improvements, and how they informed and were informed by the RiverLands Design Guidelines.

Technical Session #2B – Technology GDOT Signal Operations (Sig-Ops) [Traffic Operations]

Presented by Andy Phlegar, P.E., Senior TSM&O Manager at Gresham Smith and Gul Amir, Traffic Engineer III at the Georgia Department of Transportation.

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) has raised the bar on traffic signal operations and maintenance throughout the state over the past decade. During this time, GDOT has developed a suite of tools and resources to support the efforts of the engineers working in the Signal Operations (SigOps) programs.

This presentation will discuss various GDOT tools available to signal timing engineers and real-world scenarios where these tools were implemented to identify solutions to underlying problems and/or respond to real-time incidents causing major congestion.