2024 40 Under 40: Douglas Teator, P.E.

Douglas Teator, P.E., recently joined LaBella Associates as a private consultant, director of the multi-modal planning and design group and is charged with expanding the transit market across LaBella’s geography in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and southeast. As a private consultant, he has forged partnerships with the agencies he’s worked with to establish more efficient and accessible transportation. 

During the past 15 years, Teator has become an extension of the Capital District Transportation Authority’s (CDTA) internal staff through his commitment to technical expertise, delivery expectations, a high level of communication and an interest in the roles of his agency’s partners and staff and how their work lives can improve through his effort.  

He has led project meetings with CDTA and a team of eight sub-consultants on a bi-weekly basis for a period of more than five years, which spanned the final planning, design, construction and implementation phases of the agency’s two latest bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, Blue Line and Purple Line. He assisted CDTA in securing $26.9 million from the highly competitive Federal Transit Administration Small Starts program and more than $14 million from other federal and state sources for the Blue Line BRT and $60.9 million for the Purple Line BRT. 

Teator’s 18-year commitment to his work in the transportation industry has been constant. In 2019, Teator became the leader of his previous firm’s new transit market sector, then in 2020, the leader of the transit focused discipline group, where he grew over-all revenue and expanded the company geographically. His group was comprised of 12 staff and served more than 10 clients across New York State.  

Teator has dedicated time to elevating himself through the transit industry by participating in the Public Transit Leadership Institute, a year-long training program hosted by the New York Public Transit Association (NYPTA). Through that program, he participated in and embraced learning about all aspects of a transit agency’s responsibility to the public.   

From an understanding of the business, labor and administrative aspects of a transit agency employee’s perspective, to learning about leadership and equity in transit and people in general, he worked to refine his leadership values.  

In his work with the CDTA, Teator has collaborated with the agency’s local municipalities and stakeholders to increase the quality of its BRT service, implementing the first bus lanes, contra flow bus lanes and third generation cloud-based TSP systems. BRT was first introduced in the Capital Region of New York State in 2011 with CDTA’s Red Line, which brought the first BRT “elements” like queue jumpers and TSP. 

Teator’s work included supporting CDTA on expansion plans, including electrification of its fleet. During the past 15 years, Teator has helped CDTA deliver 40 miles of BRT along three lines with more than 13 queue jumpers and 125-plus TSP enabled intersections, expanded bus garages and the region’s first mobility hubs.  

He embraces planning and engineering involvement in a project through team collaboration. Through his leadership, his team has expanded the use of geographic information systems as a transportation planning tool and has embraced data and visualizations as resources in the planning-engineering process, using products such as Replica and Beyond Typicals to enhance the quality of services provided to clients and the public. 

Teator’s efforts led him to be named Transportation Professional of the Year in 2021 by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), New York Upstate Section. He has also been a project manager for multiple award-winning transit projects, including:  

• CDTA’s River Corridor BRT project, which received the statewide Engineering Excellence Diamond Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York (ACEC NY) in 2021
• CDTA’s Purple Line BRT, which received an American Council of Engineering Companies New York Engineering Excellence Platinum Award, 2024  

Teator was also a pursuit and project manager, as the prime consultant on the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s (NFTA) Bailey Avenue BRT project, which will deliver Buffalo, N.Y.,’s first BRT service. This project was funded by a Reconnecting Communities Grant of more than $100 million and is scheduled for delivery in 2028-2029.  

A licensed professional engineer in four states, Teator is also an active member of NYPTA as a previous graduate of NYPTA’s Public Transit Leadership Institute, class of 2018. He is also an active member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers. 

He also works to support up and coming engineers as an academic advisor to Hudson Valley Community College Civil Engineering Technology Program and speaker at industry conferences.

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

Participating in the Public Transit Leadership Institute (PTLI) program, which was hosted by the NYPTA, instilled in me that working with transit agencies requires a full commitment and a genuine interest in this line of work. Through PTLI, I was able to learn how transit agencies function and how it is a team effort to do what they do well.  

To be effective for them, I needed to understand all of the staff’s responsibilities and challenges and be there to support them with my skills as their needs evolve. It reminded me of my experience playing football in college. Every person has a role and needs to understand it and execute it. Because of my experience in PTLI, I will be supporting public transit as much as I can with my skills for the rest of my career.

Accomplishment you’re most proud of and why? 

When CDTA’s Purple Line project secured the Small Starts Construction Grant Agreement, the president [of the United States] tweeted out the announcement. To find out from the president that the project you helped develop was funded and is moving into construction has to be the top of the list. 

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

Working on a significant transit project outside of New York State. Growing a group that once didn’t exist, for a small upstate New York firm, to one working for clients across New York State showed me that there was a need was a need we were serving well. Joining LaBella, who has a presence over much of the east coast, provides a geographic opportunity for me and my team to start serving transit agencies in new states.