State Transportation Secretary Addresses Safety and Climate in Visit to UCI Samueli School

April 30, 2024 - “The number of traffic fatalities, including bicyclists and pedestrians, are going in the wrong direction,” said California’s State Transportation Agency Secretary Toks Omishakin to engineering students when he visited UC Irvine in April.

Omishakan was on campus for a colloquium addressing “The Future of Traffic Safety,” a joint initiative of the UCI Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) and UCI School of Medicine Emergency Department. The transportation colloquium, now in its ninth year, features presentations from leading scholars and practitioners in urban planning, public policy, engineering and transportation.

He first attended a civil engineering class where he addressed undergraduate students. Omishakin stated the agency’s core priorities for the state of California: safety, equity, climate action and economic prosperity. “People often ask me, should we focus on growing the economy or on sustainability, and the answer is both, we can do both,” he said. “For 20 years our environmental policies have been working in California and our GDP has grown. Our economy has doubled in the past 20 years.”

Tristan Lee, a freshman who hopes to major in environmental engineering, said Omishakin was very inspiring, “especially when he explained the great impact we can have”. She said she didn’t realize the wealth gap had a relationship to traffic safety because those at the lower incomes use public transportation the most.

"Having the Secretary of Transportation discuss the importance of transportation on social justice and economic opportunities with my students was extremely valuable,” said Jean-Daniel Saphores, professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

“This visit was a great opportunity to engage and connect with UCI students on critical issues like safety and climate action,” the secretary said. “Students are the future leaders who will move us forward in academia, government and the private sector.”

The three-hour afternoon colloquium involved panel presentations and discussion. Panelists included Barbara Rooney, director of the California Office of Traffic Safety and chair of the Governor’s Highway Safety Association; Kristofer Kusano, road vehicle safety researcher for autonomous vehicle technology company Waymo; Daniel McGehee, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering and director of the Driving Safety Research Institute at University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center; Johnathon Ehsani, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and driver training, testing and licensing expert. The panel was moderated by Dr. Federico Vaca, professor and executive vice chair of UCI School of Medicine Emergency Medicine Department.

Engineering Dean Magnus Egerstedt, Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar and ITS Director Stephen Ritchie all welcomed the 70 attendees, in person and virtually via Zoom. In his keynote speech, Omishakin said safety is the utmost priority. “Let’s remember people are behind this important work you are doing. Let’s keep that in mind always. If people are not safe and secure, then you have nothing.”

Vaca appreciated that ITS was embracing safety in transportation into the scope of research possibilities. “The colloquium revealed a true feasibility and expectancy of success,” said Vaca. “The expertise of ITS faculty can pave a new complementary path for work in transportation among ITS, its collaborators and partners. 

Khargonekar said a key takeaway was the “safe system” approach to the goal of improving traffic safety. “This systems approach of combining safe users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads and post-crash care is both a major challenge and a large opportunity.”

“Transportation’s role is to help people achieve what they want to achieve in life,” Omishakin said. “We believe the most important things we should be doing in transportation are about safety. Our efforts need to be equitable, have good sustainable outcomes (climate action) and provide upward economic mobility to everyone.“

– Lori Brandt