Twists and Turns

Twists and Turns: Keeping an Open Mind in My Transportation Career

user Roger Henderson

I am a “plan-gineer.” I began my career as a highway engineer, then, thanks to keeping an open mind I transformed my thinking into a much broader planning view and am now a complete streets “plan-gineer.” My career has had plenty of twists and turns like that. I’ve had the good fortune to work on a wide variety of transportation projects over a 40 year career. I began in the urban highway design business in Chicago. After three years I changed jobs and moved to California with what ended up as an evolving series of job changes that allowed me to see the built environment from a new perspective. On a few trips I’ve gone out of my way to see the completed projects that I helped plan or design. As many professionals do, I looked at my old work with fresh eyes, wishing for a do-over. This is my story about twists and turns in a long career, which has been made much better by the extraordinary people I’ve worked with. It’s a reminder to keep an open mind and listen to people who see things differently, making adjustments large and small in how we view our assignments and the world. How did we do our jobs before Google Earth? I can visit some of my projects from the convenience of my laptop. One that I designed in 1985 was never built to my specs and I’m glad for that. It would have been “carmageddon.” I traded in my “Move More Cars” mentality 25 years ago. Before that, I would calculate volume-tocapacity (v/c) ratios to four decimal points just to get a land development project approved. My firm would design the road widening to fit the specs. Thankfully, a wise city planner changed the design to something reasonable. If not, the intersection of Hopyard Road and Owens Drive in Pleasanton, California would be a nightmare to walk or bike across. A traffic impact study I prepared showed that this busy intersection would need four through lanes, triple left turn lanes and triple right turn lanes. The resulting v/c ratio, with the new development, would operate at 0.9049; when rounded off it would be an acceptable 0.90. The development was approved, but the intersection was never widened. Pleasanton has grown from a population of 40,000 in 1985 to about 82,000 today. The City made a wise

decision not to build such a big intersection. I’m glad. The experience opened my eyes to a new way of envisioning the built environment, furthering my path away from my “move more cars” approach. Pleasanton was bustling. Investors saw big opportunities for this community located 30 miles southeast of San Francisco, at a crossroads connecting California’s Central Valley with the economic powerhouse of Silicon Valley and the East Bay. Fearing being overrun by traffic congestion, City officials and the development community worked together. I was impressed that developers paid to widen interstate highways and build interchanges. When our traffic studies assumed 25% of trips could be discounted for people who would walk, roll, stroll, work from home or otherwise flex their commute times to avoid congestion the City made us follow through. The first Transportation Systems Management (TSM) Ordinance (now known as Commute Alternatives or Employee Commuter Programs) was in Pleasanton, California (Curry & Fraser-Middleton, 1984). The City required it before allowing consultants to use big traffic discounts in studies, and our developer client very much wanted to continue those discounts. Thus, every company in the business park had to submit an annual report and follow through on the progress of trying their own ideas; anything to get workers to avoid driving alone in the peak hour. One of the byproducts, of course, was an opportunity for short trips conducive to walking and cycling. Fresh winds were blowing through the transportation realm, so I changed my career path to follow the breeze. The changes brought by the federal transportation bill known as ISTEA were enough to open my eyes to the fact there were other ways of seeing the built environment, continuing my evolution away from a “move more cars” philosophy. I took a job as Senior Transportation Planner with a Congestion Management Agency (CMA) based in Oakland. CMAs were unique to California; emerging from a successful state initiative to boost funding for transportation projects while putting a governor on growth – what was called growth management. Based on a pact between pro-growth advocates and environmental stewards, the CMAs were born. Growth management strategies in CMA legislation included system level of service standards, transit standards, trip reduction and travel demand management, database and modeling, land use development analysis, capital improvement program, monitoring and conformance, and a deficiency plan. Soon the amassed work programs of 20 or so CMAs amounted to more than Caltrans’s budget. I worked on leading edge studies including parking cash-out, dynamic tolling (i.e. congestion pricing), and one of the first demonstration programs for telecommuting. The telecommute demonstration was a total success with one exception; our boss didn’t like it, so back to the office for us. The internet was relatively new in 1995 and our little agency assigned our receptionist to be the person to type in a question. Search engines were in their infancy so the questions we asked on the internet produced little in return. My time at the CMA was a game-changer, allowing me to clearly see how transportation planning and investments affect people and the built environment. I contributed to the work of a big team with an update to the long-range countywide transportation plan. I learned how to review large development proposals with a critical eye, as that was part of our mandate – to report potential impacts to the regional transportation system to our Board, comprised of 14 mayors and a County Commissioner. I also learned how to review draft legislation and write about it.

When thinking about game-changers for my career, my graduate studies at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley taught me how to apply the fundamentals of engineering to all modes of transportation. Many engineers learn capacity analysis for vehicles passing through an intersection or on a highway segment, while we learned passenger flow on trains, platforms, escalators, and turnstiles. Others learn geometric design with a highway interchange or a road on a new location, while we learned by designing a bikeway along a river with interchanges at the roads crossing over the river. We even put in loop ramps for cyclists – so cool! Faculty were constantly challenging students to approach problems with an open mind and to test our bias and presumptions. Lending a helping hand to colleagues often leads to good things. After a successful relocation to North Carolina, I was asked to step in to help colleagues in our Atlanta office who were pushed by a municipal client to be less traffic engineer, more multimodal planner. The work went well and even included a health impact assessment prepared by team members at Georgia Tech. The work was peer-reviewed by public health professionals at the nearby Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who praised the emphasis on active transportation. The study won accolades and awards, which led to a national speaking tour for the Mayor and Planning Director. My contribution to the study was noticed by the founders of the Complete Streets movement. Barbara McCann and Michael Ronkin spent several years crisscrossing the country giving workshops and lectures. They were ready to share the load, so they recruited workshop instructors. I was invited to join the original group, went through training and embarked on a wonderful experience over the span of nine years visiting 60 communities across the country to help convince community leaders to adopt Complete Streets policies and then begin implementing them. A community-based proposal in Raleigh to transform a four-lane urban thoroughfare to a complete street came about after a local citizen raised funds to hire Dan Burden and his team. With input from hundreds of participants over the span of a week, Dan introduced the idea of narrowing Hillsborough Street to one lane in each direction with a raised median and replacing signalized intersections with modern roundabouts. Over the span of ten years I directed the consultant team in the planning, analysis, and design of the improvements. During construction, I served as Director of the new business improvement district in the benefit zone. It was the summer of 2008 and business and property owners in the construction zone didn’t think of it as offering much benefit to them; the economy soured, NC State University students left for summer break and front loaders tore up the street and made access difficult. I worked hard to help them keep an open mind. A study done six years after project completion showed the City’s initial $10 million investment in the street project was rewarded 30 fold (30 to 1 return-on-investment) with over $300 million in private real estate investment in the affected area and another $800 million invested in the greater area (Murison, 2016). Many people kept an open mind during the arduous process of securing approval and funding for such an innovative street design. The national focus now on safe streets, vision zero, complete streets, active transportation, and multimodal safety weren’t on my radar when I started my career. I certainly didn’t have that vision. But through many twists and turns I managed to work my way into a rewarding and fun career. Some of it was certainly

serendipity – lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Some of it was just saying “yes” more than “no.” I believe some keys to success include keeping an open mind, listening to others, and updating our thinking. The current ideas around equity, diversity, inclusion and access excite me. Applying fairness, differing perspectives, welcoming everyone and removing barriers will be hard work, but so rewarding.

About the Author

Roger Henderson

As the Director of Multimodal and Complete Streets at TJKM he is building a practice in Florida. Roger has expertise in the planning, policy, design and management of transportation projects. He served as an instructor for university courses and contributed to design manuals. He helped launch a new business improvement district in Raleigh, North Carolina after planning and leading the design team on a transformational road diet in the district. He led more than 60 workshops in 26 states for the National Complete Streets Coalition. His work contributed to several clients being recognized with awards by the American Planning Association and the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

References

Curry, D. and Fraser-Middleton, K. (1984). Pleasanton TSM ordinance: a new approach to traffic mitigation. Transportation Research Record 1018. Murison, J. (2016). 2016 Development Report. Hillsborough Street Community Service

Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.hillsboroughstreet.org/about/studies.

Cover photo: Aerial view of highway interchange (Pexels)