Making a career switch to transit planning.. (in Canada)

Transportation

Hey, I currently work as an engineer in the transit space, but much more on the technical, engineering, side (and not as a civil engineer). I've been interested in transit/transportation planning for a long time and its starting to crystallize for me that it may be the next step that I'd want to make in my career. How do I go about re-tooling for this? Does it mean going back to school to try and do a planning masters? Learning certain software in my spare time? I'm in Canada if that helps.

Thanks!

Posted Jan 24, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

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VancityPlanner•7 yr. ago

Can you clarify what you mean by "technical, engineering, side" of transit? It is very vague. Depending on your response, I don't see the need for you to go back to school to complete a planning master's. Use your network and/or apply to transit planning (or general transportation planning) positions at public agencies or private consulting firms.

neonvisualOP•7 yr. ago

currently, mechanical consulting for commuter rail and also o&m planning for LRT. should add I also graduated 1.5 years ago from university so I am not super established yet.

your_internet_frend•7 yr. ago

What exactly are you interested in doing?

Planning new routes/road network modifications?

I work in transportation planning in Canada. In a municipality of about 100,000.

The people who run the software analysis, plan the routes, and make the final decisions are engineers with PHDs and 5-15 years experience. From what I’ve seen, you need to start off doing grunt work like choosing new stop sign locations or planning which bus stops get sidewalks. Also, you need an engineering degree.

Maybe someone from a different municipality will have different answers :)