In Conversation With an Expert: Melany Alliston of Toole Design

Melany Alliston, PE, of Toole Design.

With over three decades of experience in civil infrastructure projects and an unwavering commitment to centering the experience of pedestrians and vulnerable road users in street design, Melany Alliston, PE, is an expert on the built environment. 

She’s also the current North American civil engineering practice director of Toole Design, a mid-sized, American-owned planning and design firm. Even with clients ranging from federal to municipal agencies, the firm isn’t shy about its values: 

From day one, Jennifer Toole pledged that the company would not generate revenue from projects that conflict with our core values. We have stuck to that pledge—Toole Design does not engage in work aimed at moving more cars, faster.

Back in February of this year, Strong Towns invited Alliston to serve as a panelist in the inaugural Crash Analysis Studio, which examined a fatal crash in Indianapolis. Her background proved indispensable when it came to understanding the crash site from both an engineering and design approach.

Strong Towns was able to catch up with Alliston and ask her what excites her about her work, what challenges exist in ameliorating our built environment today, and what stood out in the crash she analyzed. (The following conversation was edited for clarity.)

As an expert in planning and design, you were invited to provide your insights at our inaugural Crash Analysis Studio, which centered on a fatal crash in Indianapolis. Did anything stand out to you in that crash?

In terms of the site: the clutter. Between the amount of signs posted, the activity, and the driveways, this is a cluttered corridor. 

As for the analysis itself, something we were encouraging people to do is to look beyond the confines of the crash, beyond the intersection where it happened. In fact, looking at what’s going on in the area outside of the crash should be standard for law enforcement, traffic engineers, and anyone who is interested in making sure it doesn’t happen again. Doing so will definitely bring up questions about land use. If you look at that corridor, it’s full of restaurants and driveways. In some ways, even though establishments are within walking distance—in some cases across the street from one another—the way the area is constructed definitely discourages people from crossing it by foot. It’s easier and safer to get in your car to go across the street.

A first step to take for that intersection would be to form visual cues, whether it’s through lane narrowings or more prominent gateway signage, to condition motorists to form the expectation that a person outside of a vehicle is likely to be there. Over the long term, if you want to help drivers understand that they’re sharing space with pedestrians and cyclists and use the appropriate caution, you need to change the entire character of the corridor.

In general, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges in our built environment today?

There’s roads built like this one in Indianapolis all over the U.S. in part because traffic engineers have traditionally been taught it’s important to move as many cars as efficiently as possible.

Now, we’re starting to come around. We’ve recognized the unintended consequences of these priorities. So, moving cars shouldn’t be the first thing we think about when we think about streets. To some extent, this probably involves recognizing pedestrians and cyclists more prominently in college curricula for those studying to be transportation professionals or engineers.

Conversely, what have you been seeing in your work that gives you hope?

To lead with an example, I’m a member of the Women’s Transportation Seminar, and a few years ago we hosted a panel discussion. The mentees were all 20-somethings and the mentors were all 40-, 50-plus. The latter was all about planes, trains, automobiles, whereas the mentees were asking how they can get to work on their bike.

So, what gives me hope is that, over time, the younger generation becomes the bulk of the people doing this work and they become the bulk of the government employees who are managing this work.

In general, the tide is changing. In our work, state agencies are typically more resistant to change, but we’re starting to slowly see them come around. We’re noticing federal entities being way more willing to lend funding, support, and encouragement in general to initiatives that calm traffic and focus on the pedestrian and cyclist experience. This will, in turn, probably influence state actors in a positive direction, even if it takes a while.

Is there a project you’ve worked on recently that gave you hope for the future of our cities?

Probably the work Toole Design did in Charlottesville, Virginia. In fact, it’s one of the most bike-friendly small cities I’ve gotten to work in. 

We developed the Streets That Work plan which was focused on the character of their downtown, commercial, and residential streets. In it, we broke down how those should look, feel, and perform from the perspective of the most vulnerable road users. Then we helped develop design standards through a separate manual. What this did was provide the city—and developers—with a toolkit to essentially get the streets right.

There was another project we worked on that focused on rebuilding an area that actually was hit by a water main break. As part of repairing that damage, we had the opportunity to redesign the street through a road diet. 

In just three years there were 16 crashes in basically one area: the street that you’d get on right after hopping off the highway. With that in mind, we eliminated one turning lane and to my knowledge, there hasn’t been a crash since. It goes to show that making the roadway legible to its users really prevents a lot of crashes, as well as near misses.

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