At the Environmental Center, we aim to assist you in finding your path in environmentalism. There are endless options for a career that can help you live a life of fulfillment. As a senior political science major at CU Boulder, I've discovered that the Environmental Center is a valuable resource for pursuing my passions in climate justice, human rights and conservation. Through this organization, I've been able to combine my interests in writing and music to educate both the campus and larger community about environmental concerns.
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of interviewing CU’s Assistant Director of Sustainable Transportation, Brandon Smith, to get a glimpse of his job and the background he needed to get here. With a focus on sustainable transportation, he oversees the student bus and bike programs, including student transit passes, campus bike stations and repairs, the bike impound program, bike parking, B-Cycle and holding the fall bike sale.
As the transportation programs manager at CU, what are your main responsibilities?
- Brandon works closely with RTD on programming and management, oversees about $7 million in contracts for CU and helps ensure students get their bus pass with unlimited rides without any additional cost.
- As a transportation planner, he works closely with planning design and construction, parking, local jurisdications and other stakeholders to create safe bike paths and robust active transportation systems to facilitate better access.
- He organized the ski bus, which provided 23 student bus trips to the mountains this year.
- Brandon is focused on making sure that students have transportation options that will allow them to not need a personal vehicle.
What are the primary skills you need in this position?
- He has bachelor's and master's degrees in urban and regional planning.
- He is accredited with the American Institute for Certified Planners (AICP).
- Prior jobs include being a bike shop manager, environmental enforcement coordinator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, land use planner for Grand County and a bike planner/employee transportation coordinator for Boulder County.
- Have a passion and understanding for sustainable transportation.
- You have to be able to work well with students, parents, campus administration, procurement and transportation providers.
How is our university doing building out EV charging stations?
- Many groups have done a great job at coming together to provide EV charging stations throughout campus, like C4C, Folsom parking garage, Wolf Law, SEEC and Biotech. We also work with fleet vehicles as demand continues to increase for both personal and business vehicles.
- He worked with CU Night Ride, which is scheduled to replace all vehicles with electric cars. The E-Center covered the gap between the cost of gas-powered and electric vehicles.
- CU now has two electric buses and two more are coming soon! The E-Center is partnering with transportation services to secure grant funding for another two electric buses, which would bring the total to six e-buses.
- Brandon and his team are also helping to support other campus departments to electrify.
What is your understanding of smart growth?
- From an urban planning perspective, the question is how do you deal with population increase while also reducing impact?
- It’s all about density. The idea is to attact people to live in an urban center where services are more efficiently provided.
- Public transit works best with higher density because it makes it possible to provide high frequency, reliable service in a more affordable and environmentally friendly manner.
- As a country we really need to step back and reavaluate the car-centric sprawling landscape that was created by the outdated American dream prior to having a U.S. population of ~330 million people. Collectively, we have to be less autocentric and share resources and cooperate. Measuring success in life by how big your house is and how much stuff you have prevents us from being able to reverse the impacts of climate change.
- The greenest house is the one that is already built, which is the opposite of tearing down a perfectly good home and building a bigger more efficient one in it's spot. A practical term in urban planning is “infill” - taking underutilized space such as parking lots and filling them with compact multi-family housing. Converting large houses and other buildings into apartments is another way to efficiently house our growing population near service-heavy urban areas.
How can students get involved to shape the campus transportation system?
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It’s always helpful to have student support to increase the sustainability of our transportation options. Students should be clear of their priorities with campus leaders to further their goals. Do students want to increase bike lanes or parking garages? Let us know so we can make it happen! Feel free to email me directly at brandon.c.smith@colorado.edu with your thoughs and ideas. My job is to serve you.
If you could give career advice to a student interested in sustainability, what would it be?
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He stressed the importance of having patience. As with all things in life, it is essential to be humble and be ok with starting at the bottom to work your way up. Especially in environmental enforcement, which is no easy task, you must have a thick skin and tolerance for conflict. Lastly, he thinks students should continue building relationships with people within the fields they are looking to pursue.