2024 40 Under 40: Andrew Zalewski, AICP

Andrew Zalewski, AICP, vice president and senior project manager, Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning (ITP), helps guide the strategic direction of the company, managing the implementation of its strategic plan and overseeing the client experience.

Since joining Foursquare ITP in 2011 as a transportation planner right out of graduate school, Zalewski has played many roles, allowing him to expand his wealth of knowledge and experience, and gradually increase his responsibilities. He has been integral in growing the company from the five employees when he joined to the nearly 70 people it has today. He helped launch Foursquare ITP’s original Boston, Mass., office in 2016 and now oversees Foursquare ITP’s Philadelphia, Pa., office, where he runs the office and helps mentor more than a dozen staff members.  

Zalewski leads the company’s Strategic and Financial Planning practice and previously helped stand up Foursquare ITP’s Micromobility Planning practice. Some of his most notable projects in this area include leading Hampton Roads Transit’s Capital Improvement Plan for the past decade and playing a key role in Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s inFocus strategic plan in Kansas City, Mo., in 2024, the 2022 strategic plan for CapMetro in Austin, Texas, and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority’s MOVE2027 Strategic Plan in Jacksonville, Fla., among others.      

Through his specialization in micromobility planning, Zalewski has helped secure more than $40 million for bikeshare systems and active transportation infrastructure. He helped lead the country’s first bikeshare expansion plan for Arlington County, Va., in 2012 and has since led similar plans in cities as varied as Washington, D.C., Austin, Philadelphia, Boston and Detroit, Mich.  

Zalewski helped establish Foursquare ITP’s Design Team and has been a key contributor on a variety of urban design and visualization forward projects. He oversaw the team responsible for the public report and renderings for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Interborough Express (IBX) Feasibility Study.  

He has contributed to the industry state-of-practice as a principal investigator and co-author on multiple studies, including a micromobility guidebook for the National Center for Applied Transit Technologies, an American Public Transportation Association report about supporting late shift workers and several Transit Cooperative Research Program reports.      

Zalewski has a bachelor's in urban and Regional Studies from Cornell University and a master's in city Planning with a concentration in Transportation Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, where he has subsequently served as a guest instructor in 2020. 

Is there a specific experience that led you to where you are today?  

I cannot emphasize enough the important role mentors have played throughout my career. I’ve been lucky to have the support of people who both challenged me and believed in me, even in those times I didn’t believe in myself.  

In graduate school, my professor, Dr. Rachel Weinberger, pushed me to see transportation problems in new ways, notably the link between behavior, economics and transportation. I was fortunate to be taught by Dr. Vukan Vuchic before his retirement. His class was eye opening in understanding transit from a system engineering perspective.  

Finally, in my career at Foursquare ITP, our company president, Lora Byala, has been an important mentor for me. I feel like my career has grown with the company, as I was our fourth hire and today we have a team of nearly 70 people. She’s trusted me to take on new roles and responsibilities. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?  

 My favorite part of the job is that every day brings something new. I love the diversity in terms of topics, clients and places.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?  

A new role of mine is sitting on my company’s executive leadership team. While it has been really rewarding to be involved in company leadership, I’ve also found it challenging. I feel a responsibility not just for myself and my own work, but for the wellbeing of my colleagues and the company. 

Accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?  

Early in my career, I worked on the city of Philadelphia’s Bikeshare Business Plan. That plan was one of the first steps in many that resulted in the wonderful Indego bikeshare program. I’ve had the chance to work with Indego on a couple subsequent projects as well.  

As a Philadelphian, it’s rewarding to see out on the street a system I had a small role in helping make it happen. Indego remains (tied with Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, of course), my favorite way to get around town. 

What is an accomplishment you would like to work towards in your career?  

Much of my work at Foursquare ITP focuses on strategic and organizational planning for transit agencies. I’m fascinated by what it takes to implement complex transit projects and the myriad factors that can delay or derail (no pun intended) transit investments. Specifically, I’m interested in how our established ways of planning and building transit infrastructure in the U.S. lead to some of the highest costs and project development timelines in the world. I’d love to one day be part of a team focused on identifying and implementing more cost-effective solutions to build and operate transit. 

Best advice/tip/best practice to share from your area of expertise?  

I encourage everyone to be curious and inquisitive. One thing I’ve learned from several of my mentors is not to be afraid to ask questions. Often if you don’t understand something, that means somebody else in the room doesn’t understand it either. I find a lot of what I do in strategic and organizational planning is trying to ask the questions no one is asking.