Where can you find 225 miles of coastline, six California Missions, the nation’s largest equestrian parade, and a picturesque highway memorialized in song by the band America? The ITE Central Coast Section! ‘Where the days are longer and the nights are stronger than moonshine’! Comprised of Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo Counties, the Central Coast Section is 9,600 square miles of history, sand and vineyards, and 1.6 million people call it home.

With approximately 100 professional and student members, the Central Coast is also one of smallest sections (by membership) in the District. Still, the Central Coast tackles major transportation projects with aplomb, not the least of which is a 10 mile widening US 101 from the Ventura County Line to Santa Barbara. The project which will add an HOV Lane in each direction, and modify or reconstruct four interchanges and bridges. Once completed, there will be a continuous 40-mile stretch of 6-lane facility between the Cities of Ventura and Goleta, including 32 miles of HOV lanes, and a comprehensive coastal bike route/path between Ventura and Santa Barbara.

We might have only one student chapter, but it’s one hell of a student chapter. Cal Poly ITE has brought home the Student Traffic Bowl title in 2012, 2015, and 2016; the ITE International Collegiate Traffic Bowl in 2015 (and missed by one point in 2016); the Western District Student Chapter Award in 2014, 2015, and 2016; the ITE International Student Chapter Award in 2014 and 2015; individual Student Awards in 2014 and 2016; and inaugurated the Western District Student Leadership Summit. Not bad for a student chapter that was re-chartered in 2005.

Come June of next year, many of us on the Central Coast will be heading (perhaps by train) to San Diego for the 2017 Western District Annual Meeting. We’ll be cheering our student chapter as they defend the Student Traffic Bowl title, and taking copious notes for 2019, when it will be our turn to co-host the next meeting in Monterey with the SF Bay Section!

Justin Link, PE, TE
Central Coast Section President
2019 LAC Co-Chair, Monterey