Transportation Planner

The Transportation Planner performs field work, technical analysis, street design, public education, project management and interdepartmental coordination around multimodal mobility planning, engineering and urban design in New England’s most densely-populated city.  Candidates for this position should be highly motivated to ensure that public and private investment advance Somerville’s goal to become the most walkable, bikeable, transit-accessible city in the nation. Candidate will support program design, program management and project delivery of activities associated with implementing the mobility goals outlined in the City’s Five-Year and Annual plans under its federal Community Development Block Grant program and consistent with “SomerVision”, the City’s legally-adopted Comprehensive Plan; “Somerville Climate Forward”, the City’s official plan to eliminate carbon emissions; and the City’s Vision Zero Action Plan to eliminate crashes resulting in severe injuries and fatalities.

Position requires field work with public safety and public works professionals, desk-based design development and project/financial management, and high-intensity public engagement. Employee is required to perform all similar or related duties.

Essential Functions

• Performs transportation planning work in one or more functional areas such as policy planning, project development and design, financing, construction and/or traffic and parking operations.
• Collaborates with the City’s Traffic & Parking Department, Police Department, and Department of Public Works around capital projects, construction management, operations & maintenance activities (including preparation, implementation and evaluation of Standard Operating Procedures), traffic calming interventions, bike / pedestrian facilities and signal operations.
• Plays a support role in street design efforts, ranging from temporary, low-cost pilot projects to large-scale capital projects.
• Supports in-house review of consultant-generated transportation analysis and reports, including traffic studies.
• Assists interdisciplinary staff teams of community planners working on neighborhood or corridor plans.
• Performs field work including multimodal turning movement counts, parking utilization counts, crosswalk compliance audits, and performs associated data entry and analysis tasks.
• Supports pavement markings installation for new bike lanes, crosswalk facilities and traffic calming treatments by meeting crews in the field (often during overnight mobilizations) and ensuring installations are made according to plans.
• Plays a support role in program administration tasks, including neighborhood traffic calming, public bike share contracts and Transportation Management Association (TMA) / Transportation Demand Management (TDM) activities.
• Interfaces with project and program partners including the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, MBTA bus operations, neighboring municipalities, nonprofit and advocacy organizations at the local, regional and national scale.

Recommended Minimum Qualifications                                                    

Education and Experience: Bachelor’s Degree in transportation planning, engineering, or a closely related field and three (3) years’ experience in municipal government, state agency positions or relevant consulting roles; or any equivalent combination of education, training and experience which provides the required knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the essential functions of the job. Master’s Degree preferred.

Special Requirements: Engineer in Training (E.I.T.) certification preferred.  American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) certification desirable.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skill

Knowledge: Knowledge of principles and practices of multimodal transportation planning, engineering, and design; Knowledge of federal and state regulations and guidelines such as the Highway Capacity Manual, Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), NACTO guidebooks including Urban Street Design Guide, Urban Bikeway Design Guide and Transit Street Design Guide, and MassDOT Separated Bike Lane Planning & Design Guide.  Knowledge of municipal and state project development processes from visioning and scoping through design, permitting, financing and construction.

Abilities: Ability to read and understand engineering plans and supervise implementation of lane markings plans.  Ability to work effectively with the City’s Traffic Engineer, Highway Superintendent, and other relevant interdepartmental staff.  Ability to prepare conceptual street design graphics using AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite, ArcGIS or SketchUp.  Perform field data collection and analysis to ensure accurate and up-to-date pedestrian counts, bike counts and traffic counts.  Ability to interpret traffic simulation models (i.e. Synchro, Simtraffic, Vissim, etc.). Ability to formulate findings and recommendations to interdepartmental staff, elected officials, outside agencies, contractors, engineers, advocates and the general public. 

Skills: Skilled public speaker; excellent customer service, planning and design skills. Design software skill (i.e. AutoCAD, ArcGIS, Sketch Up, Adobe Suite) is preferable;  strong quantitative analysis skills including Microsoft Excel; strong written and oral communication skills with peers, consultants, contractors, and representatives of other agencies. Excellent public speaking and facilitation skills are required for public presentations; proven skills managing multiple tasks and deadlines essential.  Multilingual skills in Spanish, Portuguese, and/or Haitian Creole preferred.

Work Environment                                                                            

The work environment involves everyday discomforts typical of offices, with occasional exposure to outside elements.  Noise or physical surroundings may be distracting, but conditions are generally not unpleasant.  Employee may be required to work beyond normal business hours in response to attend evening meetings or complete work assignments.  When in the field or attending meetings, the environment can be at construction sites and outdoors.

Physical and Mental Requirements

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the position’s essential functions.

Physical Skills

Minimal physical demands are required to perform the work. Work effort principally involves sitting to perform work tasks, with intermittent periods of stooping, walking, and standing. Work requires some agility such as moving in or about construction sites or over rough terrain. There may also be some occasional lifting of objects such as office equipment or photocopy paper (up to 30lbs.).  When in the field, more physical skill may be required to accomplish the duties required.

Motor Skills

Duties are largely mental rather than physical, but the job may occasionally require minimal motor skills for activities such as moving objects, operating a telephone, personal computer and/or most other office equipment including word processing, filing and sorting of papers.

Visual Skills

Visual demands require constantly reading documents for general understanding and analytical purposes.

Send your resume and cover letter by February 19, 2019 to:

City Hall Personnel Office
93 Highland Avenue
Somerville MA 02143
Fax: 617-666-4426
TTY: 1-866-808-4851
Email: employment_opportunities@somervillema.gov

City of Somerville residents are especially encouraged to apply.

The City of Somerville is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, age, national origin, disability or any other protected category. Women, minorities, veterans, and persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply. Auxiliary aids and services, written materials in alternative formats, and reasonable modifications in policies and procedures will be provided to qualified individuals with disabilities free of charge, upon request.

Individuals with disabilities who need auxiliary aids and services for effective communication, written materials in alternative formats, or reasonable modifications in policies and procedures, in order to access the programs and activities of the City of Somerville or to attend meetings, should contact the City’s ADA Coordinator, Nency Salamoun, at 617-625-6600 x2323 or NSalamoun@somervillema.gov.