The Proof Is in the Pandemic

It’s unfortunate we’re all having to live through the worries and woes of the novel coronavirus pandemic, but it is providing an important proof point of the theory underlying accessibility.  What’s interesting is that we will be able to both prove and quantify the relationships behind the theory once the pandemic passes.  

And here it is.  

Point 1:  The world’s economy is driven by connections.  The current slow down in the economy is directly caused by our inability to physically connect.  Thank goodness we can connect virtually and will likely rely on those connections even more moving forward, but they have not nor cannot overcome the loss of physical connections. 

Point 2: Physical connections require travel (mobility).  Given daily time budgets, we can only spend a portion of our time traveling to make physical connections.  We rely on two strategies to stay within our travel time budgets, proximity (getting destinations closer) or speed (overcoming distances to destinations). 

If you can think of theory behind accessibility in economic terms – the ability to physically connect as foundational to our economy – then you can appreciate the importance of the concept and measure.  Our livelihoods and well being literally depend on and are shaped by those connections.  If you can think of multimodal system productivity as a measure of both the productivity and efficiency of travel needed to physically connect, regardless of proximity or speed strategy used, then you can appreciate its importance as a concept and measure.

There certainly more to this story, but this is it in a nutshell. We now have the evidence of how physical connections influence the economy.

Ysela Llort Makes Florida Transportation History

Renaissance Principal Ysela Llort was honored at the the annual CUTR Transportation Achievement Awards event on Thursday, November 7, 2019. Llort has been selected as the 2019 Florida Transportation Hall of Fame™ Inductee and the first woman to be inducted into the Transportation Hall of Fame.

Llort leads Renaissance’s Miami office where she directs business development activities and serves as Principal in Charge on several Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and local government contracts. For the last few years, her project work has focused on providing technical assistance in compliance, grant management and implementation support to agencies receiving Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding.

Prior to joining Renaissance, Llort was responsible for the Miami Metrorail extension to Miami International Airport from 2011-2015 as the Miami-Dade Transit Director. The metro’s Orange Line connected to Miami International Airport and restored the community’s relationship with transit. In 2015, Llort was honored with the “Celebrating Women Who Move the Nation” award from the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO). Llort was also recognized by Cien Latinos/Hispano’s de Miami-Dade for her tireless efforts in the state of Florida.

Llort also acted as the Florida Department of Transportation’s Assistant Secretary for Intermodal Systems Development. Llort established direction for planning and program development. She worked alongside community members and collaborated with elected officials to find equitable and innovative solutions for transportation and planning issues.

Prior to her work in Miami, Llort was responsible for the transportation system in the Virginia area of Washington, D.C. She was instrumental in the development of the first sub-area transportation plan for the four-county region. Llort directed all planning and operation programs including traffic engineering, traffic management systems (ITS), a land development review, access management permitting, and transportation planning.

"Have a desire to change the world? Ysela Llort has not only the desire, but the drive as well…. And she is being recognized for it!” said Commission Sarnoff. “Ysela is being honored as Florida Transportation Hall of Fame inductee for her impact on transportation in Florida. She will be the first woman to be inducted into the Florida Transportation Hall of Fame and it’s about time!"

“Ysela is not only knowledgeable of transportation issues, but she is also genuinely concerned about the communities she affects in her decision-making,” said Dr. Robert L. Bertini, director of CUTR and the National Institute for Congestion Research. “Ysela is an asset to the state of Florida, and we are thrilled to honor her with this distinction.”

“It is a great honor to become the first woman inducted into the Transportation Hall of Fame,” said Llort. “It has been a greater honor to serve the wonderful communities in Florida, especially the Miami-Dade region.”

Llort is most proud of her work in developing the state’s Strategic Intermodal System (SIS), Efficient Transportation Decision Making (ETDM) process, the Port of Miami tunnel, the north terminal at Miami International Airport, the Orange Line extension of the Metrorail, developing effective working groups within organizations, and engaging communities towards finding and implementing sound solutions. “Nothing achieved in my long and interesting career has been done by me— it has all been a product of the hard work and dedication of wonderful and committed teams of professionals. I have been privileged to work with these great folks,” said Llort.

Llort served on the executive committee of the Transportation Research Board; she is also the Chair of the CUTR Advisory Board, a member of the executive committee at the Transportation Research Board, and a member of the National Academy of Science, Medicine, and Engineering.

The Florida Transportation Hall of Fame™ distinction is awarded annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to transportation. Some recent inductees into the Florida Transportation Hall of Fame™ have been Maurice Ferré, Commissioner for The City of Miami; Buddy Dyer, Mayor of Orlando; Bill Johnson, Florida Secretary of Commerce, and Jim Sebesta, Florida Transportation Commissioner and Florida Senator (2014).

Cities That Work: Moving Toward Integrated Planning and Analytics

Urban economists have long known that urban patterns emerge in response to individual residents and businesses optimizing the time it takes to connect.  One optimizing move (a family moving into a far-flung neighborhood) creates another move (a grocery store moving into the neighborhood because the new family is enough to create a critical mass of customers) that in turn prompts more moves. This ongoing optimization act is guided not by a centralized decision-making mechanism, but rather by relatively simple rules—most notably, the need to make daily connections within a limited amount of travel time, an hour on average. Consistent urban patterns form. In large metropolitan regions, a “circus tent” of urban form emerges from the balancing act, with downtowns at the center and the first ring of three to four “edge cities” around 6 to 9 miles from downtown. Metropolitan areas have grown beyond the tent to form recognizable megaregions stretching along high-speed transportation corridors. A hierarchy of job-oriented centers is spaced in regular intervals along the megaregion.

Cities are technological engines using proximity and speed to optimize connectivity. The balance of either strategy varies across urban landscapes and regions. The density of development in city centers shortens trip distances to enable relatively slow travel modes, such as walking, biking, and slow speed car and transit. High speed roads and transit move people from far away suburbs into major jobs centers.  

This concept of travel time is a powerful measure that illuminates and quantifies the way development happens. It is the key factor in market studies prepared for private developers, retailers, and others when determining when and where the next opportunity lies. 

City planners continually seek ways to create great communities—places with a diversity of opportunities for people to work, play, socialize, recreate, etc. that can be accessed in a reasonable travel time. Tensions start to emerge when travel times stretch far beyond an hour a day. As region’s become more dispersed and suburbanized, speed becomes increasingly important and congestion is the key measure of transportation system design. Ultimately, longer suburban trips overwhelm roadway network capacity resulting in diminishing returns. They also create negative impacts to air quality and promote sedentary lifestyles.

Attention is shifting back towards increasing development density so that proximity carries more of the connectivity load. But how and where does that density occur? Can the relatively small geographic footprint of exiting city centers move the needle, or will we need to densify the suburbs? Research has demonstrated that traditional neighborhood development (TND), touted as a way of densifying the suburbs, has not noticeably shifted the need for speed. Transit oriented development (TOD) creates density along premium transit corridors and is moving the needle, but it requires significant investments and supporting land use plans and policies. Can new cities, in vogue in the 1960s, with dense downtowns and premium transit corridors, appreciably shift us towards connectivity through proximity?

All of those weighty questions can be answered using the simple rule that guides city emergence; optimized travel times to frequently accessed destinations. The rule has been and continues to be used to measure success, unfortunately it focuses on level of service, with a focus on maintain speed, because most land development over the past 80 years has been in the suburbs. Level of service has its own narrative that plays out in front page headlines over the negative impacts of density induced congestion. Seldom do those headlines note that density brings destinations closer, thereby reducing the need for speed.

A new set of travel time-based measures is needed.  Multimodal accessibility (MMA) quantifies the number of destinations reachable to any given location by any and all modes. It provides insight into where opportunities and tension exist. Multimodal system productivity (MSP) quantifies the productivity of connections to provide more detailed feedback on opportunities and tensions. Both measures are agnostic regarding proximity or speed, change in one or the other, or both, will influence the results of both. Because they are agnostic, they provide a common analytical platform and language for land use and transportation planners. 

While both measures are new to the planning profession, they rely on theoretical constructs that have been used by market researchers and regional travel demand models for years. Renaissance is on the forefront of developing, refining, and applying the measures. We believe that the MMA and MSP create a much needed and insightful planning framework for the 21st century that can help planners answer a wide range of questions.

Why Join Us?

Renaissance exists for one reason: to create cities that work.

We do this by working with communities to reframe issues, rethink what is possible, and reinvigorate systems-level thinking to help solve complex city problems. We do this using the lens of integrated land use and transportation planning to create plans, policies, and strategies that better connect people, places, and opportunity.

And right now…we are growing. We have several new projects underway that present great opportunities for new ideas and new leadership.

People

Renaissance doesn’t make things; we foster ideas that can spark new calls to action to solve community-level challenges. That means we are a people-powered company supported by innovative technical tools and decades of industry experience. We are at our best when we can harness the collective curiosity and the talent of individuals at all levels of the organization and from multi-disciplinary backgrounds to implement creative approaches to the work at hand.

With five East Coast offices, we’re big on cross-office collaboration and insights that emerge from knowledge exchange between people with diverse life experiences.   

You can stay plugged in through our firmwide weekly touch point meetings and by participating in our regular tech lunches that highlight projects, tools, and new topics of interest.  

Got questions? Need support? Want to share that intriguing article you just read? Our team loves curious minds and people with a fire in the belly to share and do good work.

Professional Development

Upward mobility is a big focus at Renaissance. We value passion, reward initiative, and support professional growth.

As a Renaissance professional, you’ll have access to some of the sharpest minds in the industry, freedom to hone your professional areas of interest, and the opportunity to elevate through increased levels of ownership and exposure to different project types, clients, and geographies.

Got a suggestion for improvement? We want to hear it. Have a niche you want to carve? We say, “sky’s the limit.”

We encourage our staff to network in the industry and attend events. We offer reimbursement for association dues. We support growth in thought leadership. We expect lifelong learning.

Innovation

If you often say to yourself, “there has to be a better way to do this” you have the right mindset for our company. We are passionate about innovation in tools, techniques, and the processes of planning. If this strikes a chord, we want to hear from you.

When we see a community that is stuck or out of balance, we seek to surpass what’s been done, explore what’s possible and break down barriers needed to create a new path forward. Calling all change-makers!

Yeah, we’re boundary-breakers too.

Benefits

Renaissance offers a competitive benefits program that includes healthcare with vision and dental.

We’ve got a 401(k) with employer match and a profit-sharing plan.

We offer paid holidays and PTO, and we encourage unplugging so you can recharge.

Our staff members run marathons, chair committees, teach yoga classes, volunteer, and raise families. If you’re looking for a place that promotes balance, we’ve got it.

Interested yet?  If so, head over to the “Join Us” page on our site to tell us why you’re the candidate we’re seeking to make cities that work.

Ysela Llort Named CUTR Advisory Board Chair

Renaissance is pleased to announce that the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) has appointed Principal Ysela Llort as the CUTR Advisory Board Chair. Ysela can be found in our Miami office, bringing over 30 years of experience with transit agencies and departments of transportation.

"I get energized from collaborating with people to find practical solutions to the complex problems that enable such places to be," says Ysela.

Prior to Renaissance, Ysela directed all aspects of planning, construction and operations of Miami-Dade Transit (MDT), the 15th largest system in the United States and the largest in Florida. Ysela has been recognized by the National Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) and serves on the executive committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB).

Renaissance Represents at National Planning Conference 2019

Project Manager Caroline Dwyer, AICP, of Durham, NC, represented Renaissance at the American Planning Association’s 2019 National Planning Conference in San Francisco.

Caroline presented as part of the "Investing in Health, Revitalizing Rural Communities" session at the conference, and helped organize the Women & Planning Division’s annual reception, of which Renaissance was a sponsor.

Caroline serves on the APA Women & Planning Division’s Executive Committee as the Director of Communications, and serves on the City of Durham Public Art Committee. Her professional motivation is developing public engagement and outreach techniques that encourage and support participation from un/underrepresented community residents and stakeholders.