ASCE OC President's Column: Collaboration in Redefining Cities

My term as President of the Orange County Branch comes to a close at the end of September. It has been my honor to serve the civil engineering community. We hosted some great events and programs, and I am sure that attendees left our events learning something or strengthening their network. I got my start with ASCE as a working professional with the Younger Member Forum (YMF). In my opinion, the Younger Members are where so much of the energy are and fresh ideas are. I am an advocate for all Younger Members to get more active in the civil engineering community. I find it fitting that the last event of my presidency was co-hosted between the OC Branch and YMF.

On Wednesday September 17th, we hosted a panel discussion, Redefining Cities: People-Oriented Development & Infrastructure. We had a diverse four-person panel which included: Elizabeth Hansburg is a city planner who co-founded People For Housing OC that advocates for new affordable housing in Orange County. Paul Martin is a traffic engineer who serves as the City of Costa Mesa Transportation Services Manager. Dr. Mojgan Sami is a professor for CSU Fullerton who has worked as an urban planner with a focus on public health. Emilio Ramirez is a citizen activist with Santa Ana Active Streets that advocate for active transportation.

The panel had a lively discussion and some of the takeaways that I came away with:

• We civil engineers should leverage our technical expertise to advocate for improved infrastructure and development in our communities.

• Advocacy at the local level has a large and more immediate impact. Our local political leaders are accessible. There is a need for younger people to advocate at the local level and can be as simple as making a short comment at a city council meeting, contacting the office of a local leader, or attending a local leader’s meetup.

• Poor development and infrastructure design can lead to poor public health due to increased pollution, reduced activity, and reduced social interactions. Healthy societies provide spaces for people to interact with their neighbors, meet their needs in an accessible manner, and are lively places.

• Public transportation is for everyone. Improvements to the public transportation system are about creating viable alternatives to car transportation where people would choose to use their cars less because of the accessibility and ease of multimodal public transportation.

• If we want to improve public transportation, we need to experience firsthand the current state of Orange County’s public transportation network. For one day, go to work and back on public transportation.

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About the Author:

Nestor Godinez is a Senior Engineer at SLR International Corporation. He is currently the ASCE OC Branch President. Nestor can be contacted via email at ngodinez@slrconsulting.com.