Baton Rouge, La. (ASCE-LA) - There has been a need for establishing a Technical Group for Transportation Professionals. A few unsuccessful attempts were made in past to form a group to represent this expertise. Inspired by the presentation made by Jon Esslinger, T&DI in September’08 at Louisiana Civil Engineering Conference and Show in New Orleans, I decided to form a Technical Group for Transportation Professionals.

After meeting with New Orleans Branch and Louisiana Section of ASCE it was decided that this local chapter of ACSE Transportation and Development Institute will be formed under Louisiana Section and will serve whole State of Louisiana. It will be called ASCE-T&DI Louisiana Chapter.

Several transportation professionals were invited to join the Executive Committee of this group and the first executive committee meeting was held on November 18, 2008 and elected Om P. Dixit to serve as its Chairman. The Executive Committee has about half the membership from Baton Rouge area and the other half from New Orleans area. The committee will meet monthly to plan the activities for transportation professionals in Louisiana. We would like members from private sector and government agencies. The area represented on the committee will be from road and bridge design, planning, environmental, traffic, safety, ports, and railroad. There are several vacancies on the committee. Anyone interested in joining Executive Committee should contact Om Dixit, Chairman.

The Executive Committee has decided to meet in New Orleans area and Baton Rouge area at the same time while being joined via video conference. This will avoid a lot of traveling by members and increase participation. The arrangements for video conferencing are underway. I will introduce the Executive Committee members in my next newsletter.

National T&DI has approved our chapter formation and our group is the second behind Colorado to become T&DI Local chapter.

The activities of this group will arrange seminars, workshops and other activities for benefit of the ASCE and T&DI members. One does not have to be an Engineer to join T&DI. The Institutes are formed for the benefit of ASCE and non-ASCE members to participate and interact with other transportation professionals.

The Chapter is currently planning its first activity as a seminar to be announced soon. The TDI Louisiana Chapter is currently only 1 of 3 in the nation.

Om P. Dixit, P.E., F.ASCE, Chairman, ASCE-T&DI-LA