NELSON\NYGAARD - Key Persons
Adija Manley is passionate about providing people with more options for reaching the places they want to go.
Adija Manley is passionate about providing people with more options for reaching the places they want to go. She joined Nelson\Nygaard in 2017 and has contributed to transit, parking management, and complete streets projects in the Northeast and Midwest. Adija earned her Master's in City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she focused on transportation planning. She also explored land use planning and economic development and is interested in how these three areas of planning influence each other. Prior to joining Nelson\Nygaard, she assisted with station area planning for a planned light rail extension in Pennsylvania.
Alejo is passionate about working with communities to identify and address mobility needs.
Alejo is a passionate advocate for racial justice in the built and social environment. Having begun their career as a tenants' rights organizer, they bring an anti-displacement framework to all that they do. Alejo's planning and research practice is rooted in a critical geographic perspective, examining the intersections of place, identity, and power. They've assisted in groundbreaking studies for UC Berkeley's SafeTREC and Center for Community Innovation while independently researching the intersections of race and road safety enforcement in the City of Oakland.
Prior to joining Nelson\Nygaard, Alejo worked with Bay Area nonprofit and governmental agencies such as Just Cities and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. They continue to be passionate about road safety, active transportation planning, anti-displacement, and community-based participatory research and engagement.
With experience in architecture, planning, and data analysis, Alex has been studying and responding to the built environment for nearly a decade. His interest in spatial analytics and equitable planning strategies bridge the gap between the qualitative and quantitative worlds of planning.
From affordable housing policy development to low-carbon community design, Alex has worked on a wide variety of projects at the intersection between transportation planning and urban life. Previously, Alex studied the effects of street network design on urban development with the City Form Lab at Harvard University. Prior to that, he worked as a designer in Oakland and San Francisco.
Alexandra believes improving transit access through multimodal solutions is a key step toward ensuring more equitable cityscapes.
Alexandra combines her experience in active transportation planning and community development to create community-based first/last-mile solutions. She is passionate about increasing equitable transit access in cities through multimodal means, and she uses her mapping and design skills to create engaging projects with community involvement at the forefront.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Principal
- Expert
Alyson Fletcher is an expert in bridging planning and design.
With a background in landscape architecture and architecture, Alyson brings an interdisciplinary approach to transportation planning. She has specific expertise in multimodal, parking, and transportation demand projects as well as drafting designs for improved intersections and streetscape facilities. Alyson also creates provocative renderings for public outreach to help people understand.
From Kansas City to Western Massachusetts, Alyson has developed concepts to improve intersection safety and rendered station and street alternatives to help communities visualize a more walkable future. She has led numerous efforts in parking studies, from running survey and inventory field work to leading pop-up street workshops and walkshops. For the City of Newton, she led the design, installation and program planning for a tactical urbanism pilot demonstration. She serves as the co-chair of the APBP Boston Chapter and she is the former co-chair of the BSA's public planning and design festival, Common Boston.
Amanda believes that walking, wheeling, riding a bike, and public transit are at the center of how we design happy, healthy, resilient, and connected communities.
Amanda's background in environmental science and urban planning inform her commitment to design transportation systems that support a more sustainable future. Amanda believes planning is most successful when it is accessible, and she is passionate about communicating complex ideas in ways that are easy to understand. By doing so, she creates data-driven mobility solutions that are supported by the community.
Prior to joining Nelson\Nygaard, Amanda returned to her hometown Austin, TX, to work as a transportation planner. She has experience with rural, small, and large systems with both short- and long-range plans, including comprehensive operational analyses, bus network redesigns, and high-capacity transit corridor projects. She creates transit plans that effectively get people to where they want to go, when they need to go there.
Amy knows firsthand how transit can lead the way in creating vibrant, equitable communities.
Amy is skilled at communicating the value of transit and building trust between transit agencies and communities. From more than 20 years of public- and private-sector experience, Amy understands the organizational challenges of transit agencies, as well as their potential to have significant positive impacts on economic development, public health, and sustainability. She makes the most of constrained resources to lead transformative projects that highlight the fundamental role quality transit plays in supporting vibrant cities and regions, and her successes have led to more investment in transit in the communities she has worked.
Prior to joining Nelson\Nygaard, Amy served in various leadership roles, including Interim Chief Executive Officer, at the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. At RIPTA, Amy successfully oversaw implementation of Rhode Island's first rapid bus corridor and numerous capital investments, including passenger infrastructure investments at major bus hubs, Rhode Island's first dedicated bus lanes, and the state's first electric buses. She has led short- and long-range plans, from corridor studies to comprehensive service analyses to strategic plans. She helped her agency change fare technology and implement one of the first fare capping policies in the country. Her policy achievements include a successful statewide transit bond referendum, expansion of Rhode Island's UPASS program to public colleges and universities, and permanent funding for a low-income fare program.
Andrew focuses on providing effective and meaningful transportation demand management solutions through employee engagement and commute programming.
With a background in community outreach and development, he seeks to tailor solutions to individual transportation circumstances, facilitate impactful employee education, and design non-SOV commute tools.
Before joining Nelson\Nygaard, he worked on business to business relationship management, as well as social media and digital marketing. Andrew has an active role in the City of Seattle's bicycle and pedestrian community as a core member of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways since 2015 and a Board member of Queen Anne Community Council since 2015. His focus is on inclusive infrastructure that prioritizes access for all Ages, Languages, Ethnicities, Gender, Race and Abilities.
Anna believes mobility is about creating opportunities to connect people to places and people to people
Anna specializes in public transit and curbside management. She understands the high demand for valuable curbspace across all modes and advocates for a data-driven approach to balancing need and access. Anna's graduate work focused on community and sense of place, which she brings into her transportation-focused practice by centering program and policy development on people. Anna previously worked at the Seattle Department of Transportation in the curbside management team and on state and federal policy and communications in Washington, D.C.
Aria strives to create seamless urban mobility for all, where people of all backgrounds can step into a network of transportation possibilities and get wherever they need to go, whenever they want. They work to bridge the disconnect between complex transportation ideas and the everyday rider's experiences, by harnessing their knowledge of GIS, graphic design, multimedia design, and urban placemaking.
Aria previously aided the implementation of LADOT's New Service Plan, leading the redesign of multiple bus routes in Los Angeles. Their efforts enabled the deployment of live bus tracking information for the DASH bus network and the roll-out of nine new bus routes in the downtown region. Aria also has a background in education policy, which in conjunction with transportation planning, helps synthesize people-oriented solutions in tackling our urban challenges.
Asif is fascinated by the connections people have with cities, held together by the bonds of transportation networks. He is intrigued by how transportation and related investments facilitate healthier, stronger relationships between people and places. Asif's academic background includes transportation planning; urban and regional planning; environmental law, policy, and economics; and news and information. His range of skills include spatial analysis, statistical analysis, data visualization and storytelling, community engagement, and quantitative and qualitative analysis at large. Before joining Nelson\Nygaard, Asif served the City of Portland and State of Oregon in planning, research, public involvement, data science, and transportation roles. He engaged in local and statewide projects and helped progress plans and policies at similar scales, seeing actions and ideas come to fruition.
Bethany has 25 years in the public transportation industry, with a focus on transit service development, design, and feasibility and financial analyses. She is skilled at interpreting data to influence project design as well as communicating complex information to communities and helping transit agencies articulate the tradeoffs associated with service design, serving different markets, and financial sustainability.
Bethany spent more than six years working in Asia, planning transportation services designed to move millions of people. She has worked across the U.S. from Madison, Wisconsin, to Wake County, North Carolina. An expert in state transit policy development, she led or played a leading role in two transformative statewide transit policy studies as well as several state level human service transportation policy studies.
Bibhas has widespread research and project experiences in transportation planning, modeling, engineering, and data analytics. His expertise covers shared mobility demand modeling and forecasting, transportation policy analysis, route choice modeling, travel behavior modeling, transportation infrastructure performance analysis, big data analysis and processing, econometric modeling, statistical analysis, and GIS mapping. His PhD dissertation consists of an assessment of shared economy systems' (e.g., Airbnb, bikeshare, ride hailing services) demand and destination choice behavior, employing different econometric and machine learning methods and finding significant factors influencing the choice decisions. He was also involved in several projects sponsored by Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT). Through these experiences, he is familiar with technical programs such as VISUM, GAUSS, ArcGIS, AutoCAD, SPSS, SAS, RStudio, Python, C++.
Job Titles:
- Principal
- Expert in Americans With Disabilities Act
Bill Schwartz understands that true mobility is rooted in equity and independence.
Since he began his multimodal transportation consulting career in the early 1980s, Bill's work has covered a broad range of transportation topics for clients throughout the U.S. He's passionate about helping people travel independently and seamlessly, particularly people whose travel options don't include driving.
Bill is an expert in Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance and in active transportation. He managed and edited the Federal Transit Administration's ADA Circular, a widely used and popular technical guidance document for the transit community. He is a strong advocate for helping people plan for their driving retirement.
Bill's active transportation experience includes leading the Massachusetts Statewide Bicycle Plan, helping to implement the Bay State Greenway bicycle network in the Pioneer Valley, and leading the plan for MassDOT's Safe Routes to School infrastructure program. In addition, he has completed parking plans and transportation corridor studies and helped permit development projects, including large office buildings, hospitals, and ski resorts.
Job Titles:
- Senior Associate, Visual Communications Manager
For 10 years Brendan has used planning and design to make communities healthier, safer, and more resilient. He works on projects involving transit, walking, biking, curb management, commute strategies, and integrating transportation options.
Brendan specializes in transforming technical information into clear, jargon-free communication. He designs both internal and public-facing materials for a wide range of audiences - from community members and key stakeholders, to practitioners and elected officials. His work includes infographics, maps, community engagement activities, summary documents, websites, and guides.
In addition to visual communication, Brendan is proficient at data analysis, geographic information systems, and project management.
Prior to Nelson\Nygaard, Brendan worked on a variety of projects in Canada and abroad, focusing on walkability, public health, transit-oriented development, and data literacy.
Briana Weisgerber has experience planning and designing multimodal transportation networks and facilities. She applies her technical skills to support safe, accessible, equitable, and efficient walking and biking. She has assisted in the development of several Complete Streets studies and programs, and specializes in identifying improvements throughout transportation networks that will be the most effective at improving not only traffic flow and circulation, but also safety and usability of public streets for all users. Her technical skillset includes traffic, geographic, and statistical analysis and roadway design.
Prior to joining Nelson/Nygaard, Briana contributed the planning and design of Complete Streets and other roadway projects in urban, suburban, and rural communities within the state of Massachusetts. While studying in Glasgow, Scotland, she analyzed social inclusion programs in bike share in the US and the transferability of these programs for the UK.
Job Titles:
- Leader
- Principal, Portland Office Lead
Brie Becker is a leader in organizational development and strategic planning, helping communities collaborate and meet transportation goals.
Through focused community outreach and thorough data analysis, Brie has managed community processes for major transportation planning efforts. She has specific expertise in transportation demand management projects, strategic plans, and transit master plans.
At the local, regional, and state level, Brie works to transform community transportation programs by developing visionary yet practical goals. Brie has led numerous organizational assessments that focus on identifying partners and funding opportunities to expand transportation options including projects for the state of Oregon and Lincoln, NE. In Boulder, CO,. Brie has worked closely with the city on the Sustainable Streets and Centers and the Transportation Master Plan Update.
Bryan helps cities and transit agencies get the most out of their data to better navigate a world of uncertainty.
Bryan has more than six years of experience professionally collecting, organizing, and analyzing transportation data. His current specialty is developing bus transit data dashboards for transit agencies to facilitate improving specific bus routes and entire bus networks. He has also worked on transit ridership modeling projects in the context of the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, parking demand and financial analyses, travel demand management analyses, and many other projects as part of Nelson\Nygaard's Data Team.
Job Titles:
- Principal, LA Office Lead
Job Titles:
- Director of Partnerships and Programs
Job Titles:
- Marketing / Proposal Manager
Job Titles:
- Assistant VizComm Manager
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- Principal, Austin Office Lead
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- Principal, Bay Area Office Lead
Job Titles:
- Senior Principal
- Head of Nelson
Job Titles:
- Principal & Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
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- Senior Principal, Boston Office Lead
Job Titles:
- Director of Business Strategy
Job Titles:
- Senior Principal, Orlando Office Lead