Joshua B. Diamond
Project Manager & Transit Service Planning Practice Lead
Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning
- One word to describe yourself: Open-minded
- Alma Mater: University of Pennsylvania
- Favorite book: “Slaughterhouse-Five” Kurt Vonnegut
- Favorite TV show: “LOST”
- Favorite movie: “The Shawshank Redemption”
- Favorite hobby(s): Photography, Traveling, DJing (mostly ElectroHouse / Electric Dance Music), football and video games
- What is your favorite transit system (outside of the one you work for or have worked for): Budapesti Metro, Budapest, Hungary. Because it is the oldest underground electrified railway in continental Europe (opened in 1896), and the Metro 1 line, which announces stops with orchestral music chimes, and delivers Diamond to the front door of his favorite place – the Szechenyi Baths.
With 16 years of transit service planning experience, Joshua Diamond, Project Manager / Service Planning Practice Lead at Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning Inc. (Foursquare ITP), is at the forefront of his field, leading a number of recent and on-going big ticket and highly publicized bus planning efforts, including the complete system redesign of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) system in Baltimore, Maryland (BaltimoreLink), and a Transit Development Plan (TDP) for Arlington, Virginia.
Diamond values taking the road less traveled in his professional and personal life, and like the passengers that his plans serve, Diamond takes transit wherever and whenever possible, whether to work – he and his wife once walked miles up a mountain to their hotel from a small town rail station in rural Slovenia just to utilize transit. For Diamond, immersing himself in his passion for transit enables him to gain insights to transform the field of service planning.
As an elementary student in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, Diamond’s stop was always the last on his public school bus route. Every day, he would sit next to his driver and talk about buses and public transit.
Since starting at Foursquare he has been given the freedom to explore creative and funky solutions to transit quagmires. Diamond expands upon past analytical and systematic practices by relying on the latest technology and innovation to explore the ever growing mountain of available transit data.
BaltimoreLink encapsulates Diamond’s prowess as a service planner who observes, listens, and analyzes throughout the planning processes. This project, which will revolutionize transit in the City of Baltimore and the surrounding region, evolved from Foursquare ITP’s work on MTA’s Bus Network Improvement Project (BNIP).
"Anytime I work with a really small agency, especially one that's kind of isolated and their transit system hasn't been changed in years or decades. You really get a feeling that their system isn't working for them - so fixing that kind of system and making sure that it works the disadvantaged in those small communities that need it the most is really what I find most gratifying."
Fun fact: Diamond played college football at the University of Pennsylvania on their Sprint Football team.
