Sustainable Buff Q&A with Brandon C. Smith, CU's assistant director of sustainable transportation
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听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鈥檚听Assistant Director of Sustainable Transportation,听Brandon Smith, to get a glimpse of听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听bike stations and repairs, the bike impound program, bike parking, B-Cycle听and holding the fall bike sale.听
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听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听and other stakeholders to create safe听bike paths听and robust active transportation systems to facilitate better access.听
- He organized the ski bus, which provided 23 student bus trips听to the mountains this year.听
- 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听and master's degrees in urban and regional planning.
- He is accredited with听the American Institute for Certified Planners (AICP).
- Prior jobs include being a bike shop manager, environmental enforcement coordinator听at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality,听land use planner for Grand County and a bike planner/employee transportation coordinator听for Boulder County.
- Have a passion and understanding for sustainable transportation.
- You have to be able to work well with students, parents, campus administration,听procurement听and transportation providers.听
How is our university doing building out EV charging stations?
- Many groups have done a great job at听coming听together to provide听EV charging stations听throughout campus, like听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听with听CU Night Ride, which听is听scheduled to replace all听vehicles with electric cars.听The E-Center听covered the gap between the cost of gas-powered and electric vehicles.
- CU now has two electric buses听and two more are coming soon! The E-Center is partnering with transportation services to secure grant funding for another two听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.听
What is your understanding of smart growth?
- From an urban planning perspective, the question is听how do you deal with population increase while also reducing impact?
- It鈥檚 all about density. The idea is to attact people to live in an urban center where services听are听more efficiently provided.
- Public transit works best听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听back and reavaluate听the car-centric sprawling landscape that was created by the outdated American dream prior to having a听U.S. population of ~330 million people.听Collectively, we have to be less autocentric and听share resources and cooperate. Measuring success in life by how big your house is and how much stuff you have prevents听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听and building a bigger more efficient one in it's spot. A听practical term in urban planning is 鈥渋nfill鈥 - taking underutilized space such as parking lots and filling them with compact multi-family housing. Converting large听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听transportation system?
It鈥檚 always helpful to have student support to increase the sustainability of our transportation options. Students should be clear of听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听brandon.c.smith@colorado.edu听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?
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.听