Transportation Planning Specialist 5

State of Washington•Spokane County – Spokane, WA

11d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is a multimodal agency with a global reputation for excellence. Our dedicated workforce plans, designs, builds, and operates an integrated transportation system that safely and efficiently moves people and goods throughout the state. The Opportunity WSDOT is currently seeking a Principal Multimodal Planner (Transportation Planning Specialist 5) in Spokane, WA, to help shape the future of transportation across Eastern Washington and beyond. In this influential role, you'll lead innovative planning efforts that connect long-range planning, project scoping, and design while advancing Complete Streets, active transportation, and inclusive community engagement initiatives that improve safety, mobility, and accessibility for all users. As the region's subject matter expert, you'll lead multidisciplinary teams, advise agency leadership, represent WSDOT with partners and stakeholders, and help develop statewide policies, guidance, and processes that support legislative priorities, including the Complete Streets and HEAL Acts. This is an exciting opportunity to make a lasting impact on how Washington plans, designs, and delivers a more connected, accessible, and equitable transportation system.

Requirements

Multimodal and active transportation expertise: Demonstrated hands-on experience in multimodal transportation systems, Complete Streets, and active transportation planning and design principles.
Project leadership and coordination: Ability to lead and coordinate multidisciplinary project teams across organizational boundaries. Experience developing and managing project scope, schedule, and budget while ensuring deliverables are high quality and on time. Lead teams to generate and implement workable solutions to difficult problems. Improve work processes and efficiency.
Collaboration and stakeholder coordination: Proven ability to collaborate effectively with internal offices, local jurisdictions, tribal governments, and external partners to reach decisions. Ability to represent the agency in working groups and public forums and communicate technical information to non-technical audiences.
Community engagement and equity integration: Experience supporting or leading community engagement activities consistent with the HEAL Act. Ability to develop inclusive engagement plans and integrate community feedback into project development.
Analytical thinking and decision-making: Ability to evaluate techniques and data, identify trends, and make well-supported recommendations. Skilled in documenting and presenting analytical reasoning, considering goals, trade-offs, and outcomes.
Flexibility and creative approaches: Ability to adapt to changing business needs, conditions, and work responsibilities to achieve successful solutions and results in dynamic situations. Skilled in developing and applying novel approaches to navigate policy changes, funding constraints, and community feedback.
Policy and program development contribution: Ability to contribute to the development of agency policies, procedures, and technical guidance related to Complete Streets and multimodal transportation. Knowledge of emerging federal and state active transportation policies and programs.
Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills for preparing reports, presentations, and correspondence for a range of audiences, including executives, policymakers, and community members. Practice attentive and active listening, with the ability to synthesize information from various resources, incorporate current conversation content with earlier discussions, and listen to and be open to other viewpoints. Gain support of others through persuasiveness, credibility, and expertise.
Planning and organizational delivery: Demonstrated ability to manage multiple work packages, schedules, and competing priorities. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills for addressing complex transportation issues. Meets program delivery timelines related to Complete Streets and corridor studies.
Technical Software and Data Analysis Tools: Proficient in MS Office Suite (Excel, Word, Outlook), project planning software, and able to produce accessible Title VI compliant materials for web and social media. Proficient in quantitative data analysis using tools such as ArcGIS, Streetlight Data, Inrix, Tableau, Power BI, and/or other geographic and data analytic tools.
Mobility Requirement: Possession of a valid driver’s license or the ability to obtain one by the time of appointment and the ability to travel independently throughout the service area to attend meetings, consultations, site visits, and community engagement activities.
Travel: This position requires regular travel throughout the geographic area served by the position, including visits to tribal communities, project sites, partner agencies, and community meetings. Travel may include overnight travel.
Growth Mindset: Actively demonstrates a commitment to learning and growth.
Service-Oriented: Takes action to meet the needs of others.

Nice To Haves

Meeting facilitation: Skilled in planning, leading, and facilitating multidisciplinary meetings, ensuring inclusive participation and actionable outcomes.
Organizational Change, Development & Team building: Experience in guiding organizational change, fostering team development across disciplines, and building sustainable collaboration.
Government & Transportation Planning Collaboration: Experience working with local government entities and/or a metropolitan or regional transportation planning organization.
Education Preparation: Demonstrated educational preparation equivalent to a bachelor’s or master’s degree in transportation planning, urban or regional planning, civil or transportation engineering, or a closely related field with coursework or emphasis in transportation, GIS, or related analytical disciplines.
Ability to speak or write a second language or ASL.

Responsibilities

Provide subject matter expertise to the Eastern Region on methods and best practices related to critical active transportation and multimodal planning and design elements, including Complete Streets requirements.
Serve as consulting expert to provide advice and guidance on scope for study methodology in cooperative multimodal planning efforts.
Deliver and track key milestones to ensure the delivery of Complete Streets project concepts to program management.
Facilitate coordination on issues related to Complete Streets among our partners, stakeholders, and the community with the project engineering offices throughout the design and construction process.
Coordinate with Jurisdictions on active transportation plan reviews and activities, including participating in Active Transportation Committees.
Lead for local active transportation planning efforts including plan reviews and committee participation.
Lead multidisciplinary project teams across organizational lines to determine Complete Streets options to inform pre-design and preliminary engineering.
Develop and implement work plans to produce planning, scoping and pre-design deliverables related to planning requirements.
Assign and review work of staff and/or consultants in the development and management of scope, schedule and budget.
Provide oversight of Eastern Region corridor planning, modeling, multimodal transportation analysis, and data functional areas in the region planning organization.
Serve as member of agencywide policy and program development technical groups – emerging federal and state policy direction.