Some New Years News from the Firm

JWlogoSquareWe are going to get back to more frequent posting here soon, but I hope this post explains why it’s been a busy time.  First, a bit about the interesting range of places we’re looking forward to working this year.  Then a bit about our hiring.  (Yes, we are still looking for senior staff!)

Meanwhile, we’ll be working an a great spectrum of places this year, including:

  • San Jose and Silicon Valley.  We’re helping out the local transit agency, VTA, think through their bus network design in the context of updated goals and the arrival of rapid transit from Oakland and San Francisco.  We’re excited to be working in the backyard of so many tech giants, and wading into the debates about how disruptable (to use their favorite word) transit is, or should be.
  • Richmond, Virginia.  We’ll be helping the city think about how its bus network should evolve, including but not limited to the impact of a new Bus Rapid Transit line.
  • Anchorage.  We’ll be running some transit visioning workshops for Alaska’s big city.  This is not our northernmost client, however, because of:
  • Reykjavík. We had a great time doing stakeholder workshops and elected official briefings in Iceland last year, and we’ll be doing further analysis of their bus system this year, to help them think about their options.  And most exotically:
  • Yekaterinburg, the Russian city where the last czar’s family was assassinated, now an industrial and university town.  We’ll be working through the local NGO Gorod.pro to help the City explore options for simplifying its amazingly complex transit system.  (This is just the tram network, for example.)  The legal issues have been daunting, but if all goes well with visas and geopolitics, I’ll be there for a week in late April for the intensive work.  Here (in Russian) is how they are pitching the plan.

Hiring

We’re really grateful to everyone who’s applied for positions with us.

From last fall’s search we’re happy to announce Daniel Costantino will be joining us as a new Senior Associate.  Dan has been an emergency planner in recent years but has strong bus network planning credentials from earlier in his career, including a fine thesis on bus network redesign in Montréal.  His French is also better than mine.

We’ve also added GIS analyst and planner Gavin Pritchard and planner Tam Guy.  These folks join our longtime Senior Associates Michelle Poyourow and Evan Landman to help us excel at delivering more projects at once.

And yes, we are still looking for an experienced transit planner to join our team in a more senior role, but there’s no deadline on that.  This is such a consequential hire that it’s more like finding a romantic partner: we’ll know it when we see it, and there’s no point in trying to rush the process.

 

3 Responses to Some New Years News from the Firm

  1. Peter Laws January 15, 2016 at 9:02 pm #

    Being a Montreal native (and married to another McGill alum), I’d like to see Mr Constantino’s “honours” thesis.

  2. Joe Brant January 16, 2016 at 4:24 pm #

    Looking forward to hearing about the team’s work with VTA in Silicon Valley!

  3. Kathy January 19, 2016 at 2:53 pm #

    Congratulations on your growth and new staff! Will you be incorporating dog sled and troika routes on your northern planning lines? (jk,haha, couldn’t resist)