Phil Longenecker graduated from Portland State University's Master of Urban and Regional Planning (MURP) program in 2021. He now works as an Associate Planner at Alta Planning + Design specializing in bicycle and pedestrian network planning and facility design, cartography, data analysis and visualization, and new mobility projects.
What do you do in your current role, and what does a typical day look like?
Working for a consulting firm means I get to work on projects in many different places, which gives me a fun perspective on just how many communities are working toward safer streets. Progress is rarely linear, so even when there are setbacks or delays in one place, it’s really rewarding to see major progress happening somewhere else.
I work on a team that does all kinds of active transportation work, helping cities, counties, and states plan for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. I appreciate that this work operates at different scales: from higher-level active transportation plans, safe routes to school plans, trail and recreation plans, to more site-level planning that comes with things like bikeshare system planning and corridor redesign projects. A typical day for me might include making maps showing existing conditions data, interviewing city staff on best practices related to bike and scooter share policy, working with our engineers to develop recommendations, leading walk audits around schools, or troubleshooting a data analysis task with our analytics team.
How did your experience at PSU shape your path into the transportation field?
I knew coming into the MURP program that I wanted to pursue a career in active transportation, and one of the big draws for me was the program’s proximity to the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). Between the extra seminars, research opportunities, and friendly staff with a wide range of disciplines, it was a resource that I found to be an amazing compliment to my studies in the MURP program.
What advice would you give to current students or recent grads interested in a career in transportation?
One thing that I think is nice about transportation as a career path is that the needs are (seemingly) unending, so the work will always be there. Transportation policy, planning, and engineering decisions affect so many other systems (environment, health, land use, etc.), so there are a broad range of jobs that do transportation work. My advice is to find the angle that is most compelling to you and keep that as your north star, and opportunities will show up to plug in, whether that’s through advocacy and community engagement, at an agency, or in the private sector. Knowing what kind of work is most exciting to you (community engagement, research and data analysis, engineering and design, etc.) and what subtopic areas you are compelled by (safe routes to school, trails and recreation, network planning, etc.) will help define a path.
What’s one project or accomplishment you’re especially proud of in your career so far?
I recently presented some research our team conducted in collaboration with PSU at the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals conference in Pittsburgh on the strategies and materials cities are using to separate bike lanes. I was proud to contribute to the conversation about how to make our streets safer for everyone, despite the efforts by the current administration to cancel research and funding on this subject.
