Transportation/Environmental Planner

The Boston Region MPO seeks a Transportation/Environmental Planner to lead environmental program areas, focusing on Resilience and Air Quality. The role involves developing strategies, evaluating environmental impacts of transportation projects, and collaborating with various stakeholders to address health and environmental disparities. The planner will prepare work plans, coordinate with state agencies, and engage with public health entities, ensuring compliance with federal requirements while promoting infrastructure investments.
The Central Transportation Planning Staff of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) seeks a transportation/environmental planner or public health professional with a planning background to lead the MPO’s environmental program areas. The selected candidate will work across the agency to advance the MPO’s environmental goals and to encourage infrastructure investments that mitigate risks for the transportation system and safeguard communities in the region. This individual will also collaborate with the Transportation Equity Program Manager to address disparities in health and environmental outcomes. In addition, this individual will work with the Communications and Engagement team to build partnerships and engage with environmental and public health stakeholders in the region.

The MPO’s environmental program areas include Resilience and Air Quality. The resiliency program focuses on promoting and implementing activities to improve the reliability and adaptability of the transportation system in the region through the Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) and Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) criteria. The Air Quality program ensures that the MPO’s federally funded transportation programs meet conformity requirements as outlined in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and evaluates the air quality impacts of transportation projects.

Responsibilities
Responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, the following.
• Oversee all aspects of the Resilience and Air Quality programs and ensure that program activities support the MPO’s vision, goals, and objectives and comply with federal requirements
• Develop long-term strategies for the program and ensure that the current year’s tasks are building toward the longer-term strategy
• Prepare an annual work plan with timeline, budget, and deliverables to meet program goals and requirements
• Evaluate the environmental impacts of transportation projects by applying existing criteria and methods, and develop new or revised criteria and methods as needs change and new data and analytical tools become available
• Support the LRTP Needs Assessment by documenting needs related to system vulnerabilities, reliability and adaptability, health, air quality, and the environment
• Propose metrics, data sources, and target-setting methods related to air quality, adaptability and reliability, risk management, and health for the MPO’s performance-based planning and programming activities
• Coordinate with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, regional agencies, and municipalities on resiliency activities in the region. This includes inventorying transportation resiliency plans and activities at the state, regional, and municipal level
• Collect and maintain data and analyses to measure regional air quality conditions and evaluate the air quality impacts of policies, projects, and programs
• Represent the MPO at the statewide Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality and Air Quality Consultation Committee
• Engage with public health and environmental stakeholders, with a focus on an inclusive planning process