On behalf of the San Francisco Bay Area Section, your Western District leadership, and the San Francisco Palace Hotel, we invite you and your family to the Bay Area and hope that you, “Leave Your Heart and Find Solutions” at the historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco from June 27-30, 2010, at the ITE Western District 2010 Annual Meeting. More than just a stunning landscape in the country’s most beautiful city, San Francisco is blessed with unparalleled transportation and innovation.

Why Attend?

Professional development is important, now more than ever, to help advance your career. The Annual Meeting will provide new knowledge and opportunities that you can apply immediately. Your participation will ultimately benefit you, your employer, and your community.

Training provided by an innovative practices Technical Program

With the diverse assortment of technical sessions, you can learn about the various projects, people, and programs in the transportation planning and engineering profession. In addition to over 100 technical sessions in a four-track technical program, we will offer extended training sessions on Transportation Modeling, Curve Advisory Speed Categories, and Multi-Modal Level of Service. The paper presentations and technical sessions will include updates on the 2010 HCM and MUTCD. You can earn PDH credits needed to maintain your professional registration.

Learning through Real World Technical Tours

The San Francisco Bay Area provides a rich transportation environment. We will offer several technical tours that will complement your Annual Meeting experience. Be sure to include at least one of these in your program: the Golden Gate Bridge Tour, Bay Bridge Eastern Span Tour, San Francisco Bicycle Tour, San Francisco Airport Tour, the Central LRT Subway Tour, and a San Francisco Walking/SFgo Tour. There is enough variety to suit everyone’s transportation interests!

Increasing knowledge from state of the art Exhibitors

The newest products, software, and services will be on display in the vendors exhibit hall from Sunday through Tuesday afternoon. Stop by the exhibit hall to see the latest products and innovations in transportation.  There are still spaces available for exhibitors; contact Steve Fitzsimons at (510) 440-8127 or sfitzsimons@republicits.com for more information and to reserve your space.

San Francisco!

San Francisco is the #1 rated destination in the United States year after year! To round out your Annual Meeting experience, there are several networking events planned including the inaugural James H. Kell MiteY Race on Sunday afternoon, modeled after the hit television series “The Amazing Race.” Other events include a transit-oriented Pub Crawl by the Bay, Family night at AT&T Park, the annual Traffic Bowl featuring a Jeopardy-style competition, and numerous events organized specifically for ITE student members.  The theme of this year’s Annual Awards Banquet is “The Gold Rush of 1849!”

The Local Arrangements Committee and the San Francisco Bay Area Section worked hard to make this affordable for ITE members and their families. There are many low budget airlines that fly into San Francisco and Oakland. BART trains from either airport can take you right to the hotel, and the LAC has arranged for free Muni passes for full and spouse registrants that allow you to take cable cars, buses, and light rail for free all week. You will not need a rental car!

You can walk or take transit to all the famous sites. Union Square is a few blocks away. Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square are easy to get to – just take a cable car ride over one of San Francisco’s hills. The Family Night event will be at AT&T Park, where the Giants and Dodgers will see who can hit the most homers into San Francisco Bay! There are also a number of free things you can do that will keep you and your family busy for a week: stroll across the Golden Gate Bridge, enjoy Golden Gate Park, visit the historic Cable Car Museum and Ferry Building, enjoy the spectacular waterfront,

and head to the hotel to take a dip in the Palace Hotel’s indoor pool (one of the very few in San Francisco)!

For more information about the Annual Meeting, please visit https://westernite.org/

annualmeetings/meeting.htm.  Come Leave Your Heart and Find Solutions with us in San Francisco!