When I transitioned from the public to the private sector as an urban planner more than seven years ago, I found myself in a whole new world. Not only was I moving from being a client to a consultant, but I was also entering a sector where women are (even less) represented.

According to the American Planning Association’s 2018 Salary Survey, 43 percent of urban planners in the United States are women. While this certainly leaves room for improvement, it is vastly better than women’s representation in the architecture and engineering fields, which was only 14 percent in 2016, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I was often the only woman on a project team, at an interview or in a meeting. Looking up the ladder at company organizational charts wasn’t very promising either — it seemed the higher you go, the less women were represented. This problem is not unique to this sector or ArchTam. According to the Pew Research Center, women are underrepresented across the board, from university presidents, to CEOs and corporate board members, to the U.S. Senate. Women’s stark underrepresentation was apparent to me and influenced my thoughts around my own role and future with our company.

Rather than being discouraged by this reality, I found opportunities to find allies, engage and serve and support other women to advance equity and diversity in our workplace.

Copyright 2019 John Livzey

I was and am fortunate that ArchTam is fully committed to the Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS), a professional organization dedicated to advancing women in transportation. Stephen Polechronis, LA Metro Transportation Business Unit Leader, recommended and assisted me in becoming a board member for the Los Angeles Chapter, where he is also a director at large. I served three years on the Los Angeles Chapter board as a chair of the mentorship and membership committees. With Stephen, we launched an executive mentorship program that helped women connect with senior executives throughout Los Angeles and learn how to break the glass ceiling.

I’m now serving my second year as a mentor for the WTS Bay Area Chapter, repaying the assistance to the WTS community that was invaluable to me. Through WTS, I have also engaged with and found a network of like-minded women within ArchTam through our WTS Chatter group. WTS helped me expand my network and find allies and mentors (both men and women) who helped me define my own place in the industry. Importantly, it also enables me to connect with and mentor other women entering the field, creating a virtuous loop of support.

Copyright 2019 John Livzey

Over time, I have also had the opportunity to engage with amazing women leaders within ArchTam from the local to the corporate level: Kelli Bernard, Executive Vice President, National Cities Lead; Carolyn Flowers, former national Transit Practice Leader; Lara Poloni, Chief Executive of EMIA; Carla Christofferson, General Counsel; and Heather Rim, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, just to name a few. These women, their allies, and others like them throughout the company are changing the dynamic at the highest leadership levels. Through their work on issues such as the gender pay gap, their service to community organizations such as those addressing women’s homelessness, and their presence they serve as an inspiration and provide hope for an even more equitable, inclusive ArchTam.

Underrepresentation of women and a lack of diversity in our industry is widespread, however, each of us has a role to play in changing this, and a responsibility to do so. If we don’t represent ourselves and support increased diversity and inclusion, who will? Luckily, with 87,000 employees worldwide there’s no need to feel alone at ArchTam. Find an ally, engage with a professional organization that advances diversity and inclusion and serve and support those you are working with.

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Many of us have envisioned a future filled with flying cars, homes run by artificial intelligence and travel at supersonic speeds. As new technologies make these ideas a reality and begin to revolutionize our infrastructure, we take a look at some of the emerging trends and imagine a day in the life in the year 2030.

Sustainable infrastructure designed for you

It’s 2030 and you’re asleep in your environmentally friendly home, constructed more durably, precisely and cost-effectively than those built just a few years ago, due in large part to 3D printing technologies.

Your home lighting and temperature controls automatically respond to the elements outside to create an ideal inside atmosphere. Every fixture and feature is designed to sense and react to your needs. Some, such as your smart walls, are made of programmable materials that respond to external stimuli. Others are directed by sensors you control with a word or a flick of the wrist.

Systems built into homes, offices and other buildings also capture, store and treat rainwater for everyday use. And more and more homes are powered by super batteries that store and use energy generated via solar panels and other renewable sources.

Alternate transit = space for living

More people rely on walking, biking, public transportation and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) providers, who integrate multiple modes into a single transportation service platform, including fleets of autonomous electric vehicles. As a result, urban and curbside real estate once filled with vehicles is being reclaimed for communities.

Your home is located in a former multi-story parking lot, re-purposed in record time using 3D printing, providing sustainable, affordable housing for the city’s growing population.

It’s good to talk

Your transit agency app alerts you that your usual multi-modal journey is congested and advises you of a new plan that includes a shared, electric, connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) to get to the office.

The introduction of CAVs, combined with MaaS, improved “connected vehicle” services, shared vehicle use and sustainable fuels have revolutionized transportation, improving safety, easing congestion, improving air quality and increasing social inclusion and mobility options.

Connected vehicle technologies allow transport systems, roads, infrastructure and smart devices to speak to each other and process big data. Automated technologies enable vehicles to respond in real time to avoid potential dangers, such as missed red lights, speeding vehicles and sudden stops, as well as congestion or travel issues.

Charge as you go

Smart powered lanes help CAVs go the distance, using wireless technology that enables vehicles to charge their batteries as they drive on the road at full speed. Any excess energy generated can be used to power people’s homes, workplaces and communities.

As your CAV bus drops you off at the nearest mobility hub to your office, you complete the last part of your journey with a Pod on Demand (PoD). These next-generation PoDs are a sustainable, cheap and fast way to move around, helping people, businesses and communities better connect with each other.

Your PoD moves seamlessly from road to sidewalk, directed by connected and autonomous technologies, navigating around pedestrians and other vehicles efficiently and safely.

The only way is down

Urban real estate remains at a premium, driving many businesses to locate themselves in deep-basement offices. When you get to work, you go down. Energy-efficient trap lights, which run throughout the building, use photoluminescent pigments to capture and give out light. This, alongside a glass atrium, helps keep the structure bright.

Express delivery

In the morning, your packages are delivered via Hyperloop. This high-speed technology enables goods and passengers to be transported comfortably and seamlessly in pods capable of traveling at subsonic speeds through low-pressure tubes. Crossing hundreds of miles in a matter of minutes, people and businesses are no longer limited by their location. The Hyperloop system works in conjunction with other transit and pod systems, helping to balance and drive economic growth.

A virtual journey

In the afternoon, using augmented reality (AR) as part of your work, you digitally recreate a planned finished building, using photorealistic textures, materials and lighting to take a walk through an upcoming project. Incorporating digital building information modeling (BIM) data, you’re able to highlight potential delays and issues, and contact other team members to discuss possible fixes — weeks in advance.

You have a catch up with colleagues, who beam in from around the world as holograms.

Catching a flight home

At the end of the day, you take an aviation taxi home. The sky is increasingly populated by delivery drones, running alongside flying autonomous vehicles, and governed by strict air traffic control rules and initiatives, such as designated flight lanes and tolls.

After a short wait, your taxi — an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft — arrives to fly you home ready for tomorrow and what the future will bring.

For the full article and source material, visit: https://www.archtam.com/infrastructure-innovation  

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Electrification of the vehicle fleet will decrease reliance on fossil fuels, with resulting benefits for air quality and the environment. And perhaps most impactful, connected and autonomous vehicle technologies can open mobility options for people and places that currently lack access, can be harnessed to provide new and better forms of public transit, and can increase safety.

Los Angeles Metro’s bike share program provides a new option for on-demand, shared mobility.

Each of these trends in the industry has implications for infrastructure and policy. Ride sharing and TNCs shift the value of space from parking areas to curb zones for passenger pickup and drop-off, with design implications for both. Bike share works best when supported by a network of dedicated bike lanes. Electric vehicles require either static charging stations or inductive charging infrastructure in roadways.

In the near-term, autonomous vehicles may require dedicated infrastructure to realize some benefits such as vehicle platooning. Connected vehicles, on the other hand, will require lane striping, signage and traffic lighting, wireless and mobile networks, and connectivity for data transfer to enable vehicle to infrastructure communication (as well as ongoing maintenance of this infrastructure). Over time, as the vehicle fleet mix transitions, autonomous vehicles could operate in narrower lanes and be parked in smaller, more remote locations, freeing up land for new development and public benefits, and allowing localities to reimagine how road right of ways are designed. For example, McKinsey estimates that such vehicles can occupy parking spaces that are 15 percent smaller than current designs as they wouldn’t need open-door space for passengers when parked, which could free up more than 2,200 square miles of parking space in the United States.¹

Bikes are ready when you need them and riders can integrate payment with the TAP cards they use for Metro buses and rail lines.

In addition to infrastructure implications, whether these trends result in benefits to public mobility depends on the policy and regulatory choices made today. Shared mobility and connected and autonomous vehicles have the potential to complement high-capacity transit, but they could also induce more and longer vehicle trips. As rides become more convenient, those who can’t drive now become future riders, shifting from using public transit to lower-occupancy vehicles.

As a senior project manager with ArchTam Ventures, I am fortunate to work with transit agencies and local governments across the country and the world to channel transportation technologies and their resulting infrastructure impacts into increased safety and mobility choice and access. Rather than asking what we need to do to accommodate changes in technology, I work with clients to proactively plan for how new transportation technologies can be harnessed to support public goals. This includes:

• Working with the Tennessee Department of Transportation on a statewide strategic plan to identify how emerging mobility solutions can increase safety and eliminate the roughly 1,000 deaths that occur on the state’s roadways a year²;
• Piloting autonomous bus technology for the Minnesota Department of Transportation in cold weather conditions so it can be deployed in areas that experience snow or ice conditions;
• Studying the feasibility of autonomous technologies for Oklahoma City’s streetcar to improve service reliability and safety while decreasing operational costs;
• Supporting a safety assessment of Dubai’s autonomous shuttle and planning for their bus rapid transit program, which provide new options for local circulation and long-distance travel.
• Assessing mobility needs and creating an operating plan for the Los Angeles Metro Mobility Hubs project, that combines bike share, car share, and on-demand shuttle services with transit.

Electric vehicle use is incentivized with charging infrastructure and priority parking spaces at ArchTam’s downtown Los Angeles office.

Fully realizing the benefits of recent trends in transportation technology requires a proactive approach focused on directing technology to further public goals. Now is the time to establish policies, build strategies, pilot projects and ready infrastructure. I’m inspired by the potential for transportation to have a real and lasting impact on public safety, equity and opportunity, regardless of where people come from or where they’re going.

Sources:
1. Urban Mobility at a Tipping Point, AutoParkit prepared for changing parking landscape
2. Tennessee Traffic Fatalities Historical Report 2012 – 2016

Photo credit: Dale Griner

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