Lyssa Leitner, AICP
Gold Line BRT Project Manager
Washington County
Lyssa Leitner started out as a residential landscape designer but when the market crashed and she got laid off, she went back to school to get a degree in transportation planning. Her first day on the job interning in Washington County, Minnesota, was the day the RFP went out the door for the alternatives analysis for the Gold Line BRT project and she was charged with the public involvement. Since that time, there have been 650 coordination and public involvement meetings.
Being the first bus rapid transit project in the region with a dedicated guideway, explaining it to people has been one of the most challenging parts of her job. Beyond explaining what BRT in its own lanes can do, and how it can move people, getting people to understand these larger transitways are intended to do so much more and making that connection with the public, getting people to understand the cost-benefits is one of the things she enjoys most.
In 2015 she was promoted to project manager of the project and she now manages a multi-million dollar consultant contract to conduct the draft EIS – currently one of the largest engineering consulting contracts the county has had.
Since 2013, Leitner has served as an adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She teaches two graduate courses: Transit Planning and Management and a capstone course on community and economic development.
Leitner co-led mobile workshops for the Rail~Volution Steering Committee in 2014. Her and her co-chair leveraged the power of Twin Cities transit professionals and pulled nearly 30 people in to plan tours for the conference. She has also served on boards for the Women’s Transportation Seminar’s Minnesota Chapter nd the Minnesota Chapter of the American Planning Association.
She is first and foremost a communicator: listening to her elected Board and agency partners, working to navigate and negotiate small wins that add up to one big project—a project that has the capacity to improve lives through transit. Gold Line BRT traverses two counties and six cities where 20 percent of the region’s zero-car households are located. Her fierce commitment to finding the right transit solutions to meet community needs is a strong reminder of why we do what we do in the transit industry. She is the first to share that the process is messy. She is also most-committed to making the transitway development process better.
“I wanted to be involved in the world of mass transit was because I was fascinated by how people function within their environment … looking at how transportation affects all of our lives and all of our development patterns.”
Fun Fact: The Gold Line bus rapid transit is 12 miles through 2 counties and six cities.
MassTransitmag.com/12219045
