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Roadway Geometric Design 1: Basic Concepts and Principles

Three-course Series

This is the first of three courses in the TRANSPEED roadway geometric design series.

The other courses in this series are Roadway Geometric Design 2: Applications, Methods and Good Practice and Advanced Roadway Geometric Design.

Course Faculty: Bob Layton and Jan Botha

The design of the modern roadway system is a complex business that present the transportation engineer with many challenges.  A practitioner must consider design controls and criteria which go beyond the basic application of standards.  The cost of construction, the price of real estate, increasing traffic volumes, mixtures and size of vehicles, and environmental and ecological considerations are all part of the checklist and challenges the roadway designer faces on a daily basis.

This is the first of three courses in the TRANSPEED Geometric Design series that combine to provide a comprehensive education to the transportation engineer or planner on how deal with today’s challenges on the modern roadway system.  In this course you will be provided an introduction to core concepts, principles, methods, practice and standards for roadway geometric design.  Discussions will cover current policies and manuals, in particular the 1994 and 2001 American Association of State Highway  and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) policy on geometric design and the WSDOT Design Manual.

Course Topics

Design controls and criteria
Horizontal curve design for urban streets
Stopping, passing, and decision sight distances
Vertical and horizontal curve designs
Super-elevation and super-elevation transition design
Cross-section elements
Horizontal curve sight distance

Who should Attend

State, local agency, and private sector design supervisors, designers and/or prospective designers with and without experience will benefit from this short course.

Continuing Education Units and Professional Development Hours

Course participants will earn 2.1 CEUs/21 PDHs upon successful completion of this course. The CEU is a nationally recognized measure of participation in a noncredit continuing education program that meets established criteria for increasing knowledge and competency.