Creating Great Communities through Transportation: A Perspective on Becoming More Relevant to the Public

Communities are redefining and re-evaluating how we move and connect people and invest in our built environments to create unique, safe, and prosperous places. The new planning paradigm places a much greater emphasis on serving, connecting, and moving people with a focus on access to service and activities, multimodal transportation options, environmental quality, economic competiveness, a community's unique desired quality of life, economic vitality of the individual and jurisdiction, and public fitness and health. As a result, the transportation professional working in 2015 and beyond must possess a number of unique skills and experiences, as well as be properly equipped to identify and develop key stakeholder partnerships in a highly effective manner. Transportation professionals must foster a certain level of healthy anxiety to avoid becoming the status quo, developing a greater ability to accept new challenges and uncertainties without being satisfied with solving today's challenges with yesterday's solutions. Transportation professionals can chose to inspire and empower others to move away from mediocrity and demonstrate the innovation factor that we have the ability to employ in our projects and communities.