Abstract Manager

Over the last 20 years, attitudes around road design, road safety, and even vehicle ownership have shifted away from prioritizing vehicles to emphasizing safety, sustainability, and multimodal access.

Those who were originally taught to consider the speed that people will drive, instead of the speed that we should want them to drive, and to relegate pedestrians and cyclists to whatever space happened to remain understand how far the roadway design has come. The shift to a more equitable transportation system was not an instant change, it has been an incremental movement supported by increasing focus on traffic fatalities, climate impacts, and the role that design plays in influencing driver behaviour. 

For those in the early stages of their career, they have grown up in a time of changing travel preferences which has reduced the importance of private vehicle ownership and reinforced policies that reallocate road space to walking, cycling, transit, and safer, lower-speed streets.

From the early-career perspective, the Complete Streets framework has always been a starting point to build from, whereas from a senior engineer perspective, there is an understanding of past culture that built the world around and appreciation of the changes that can be made.  Continued advancement will come when early-career staff can contribute contemporary thinking around safety, equity, and multimodal design, while senior staff provide essential context related to legacy conditions, institutional processes, and public resistance to change.   Through highlighting some of our past experiences, we will discuss practical strategies for fostering collaboration across generations, creating space for new ideas while grounding them in experience.