Innovation Fall 2025

Traffic flows around the upgraded 216th Street Interchange along Highway 1 in Langley. P hoto : M inistry of T ransportation and T ransit

Plan, plan and plan again Traffic-flow engineering starts with a plan – usually a community or neighborhood development plan outlining how a community will grow and evolve, Liem noted. These plans guide policymaker decisions on land use, housing, infrastructure, public services, and environmental sustainability. It also reflects the community’s long-term goals and priorities to improve quality of life and support economic and social development. “Once they have that [community] plan, [municipalities] approach a consultant or the ministry to talk about what sort of infrastructures they need,” Liem explained. “And that’s when the planning begins.” Traffic engineering projects bring together an array of engineering specialists: transportation engineers, civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, environmental engineers, software engineers, and surveying engineers,

just to name a few. They all look at the proposed community plan and help determine the project’s feasibility and needs, starting with understanding the existing infrastructure, if any is already built and available. Transportation demand management (TDM) plans are another important roadmap for traffic engineers. A “transportation demand management [plan] is typically required now for developments to support non-auto use,” Liem said, and they outline “ways to improve or ways to support people going around, connecting to other neighborhoods without using a car.” These documents lay out policies, programs, and/or strategies to optimize transportation resource usage and reduce traffic congestion, and their comprehensiveness can vary. A TDM could be as simple as prioritizing “more bicycle parking and bicycle maintenance facilities so that people can use bikes instead of the cars,” Liem

Innovation Fall 2025

31