TRANSPORTATION ENGINEER

Professional Background

Brian Ketcham is an innovative transportation engineer with expertise in all transportation-related fields: traffic, transit, air quality and noise impact analyses; truck routing, parking plans, pedestrian flow, and associated socio-economic analyses.  With more than 40 years of professional experience, he has performed dozens of complex traffic and mobile source air quality studies, managed environmental assessments of large-scale transportation projects (highways, shopping centers, residential developments, hospitals) and prepared several extensive truck route plans. Most have been prepared for New York City and State agencies.  As a New York City official in the early 70s, he authored the nation’s first transportation control plan to meet federal air quality standards, pioneering strategies that have come to be known as transportation systems management programs.  Brian Ketcham is also a nationally recognized researcher on full cost accounting of transportation systems.

Primary services offered by this consortium member can be found on the following pages (click on links):

Traffic Studies
Advocacy for Neighborhood or Environmental Groups

Relevant Experience

Directed large scale traffic analyses:

• Traffic simulation and modeling of traffic plans for the reconstruction of the Triborough Bridge (MTA), the Kosciuszko Bridge (NYSDOT), and the Queens Boulevard Bridge (NYCDOT).
• Regional Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategy study; modeled entire New York metropolitan area to identify sites for application of intelligent transportation systems strategies (NYS Thruway Authority).
• Impact and mitigation for the Manhattan West 1,100 residential dwelling unit development on upper West Side including 140 block traffic network (Private Developer).
• Impact and mitigation of the College Point Corporate Park, Queens, NY including 30 industrial and commercial trip generators (NYCEDC).
  Modeling and mitigation, and development of three alternative diversion route for more than 100 intersections in a 4 square mile area of Long Island City, Queens, NY (NYCDOT).
• Countywide impacts of 16 potential sites in Middlesex County, NJ for resource recovery facility, transfer station analysis, truck route study, traffic analysis of selected site, redesign of complex traffic circle (Middlesex County).

Performed air quality, noise impact analyses of traffic generated by large-scale developments:

• Route 347 expansion in Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT)
• Grand Central Parkway safety improvements (2 studies), Queens (NYSDOT)
• Van Wyck Expressway safety improvements project, Queens (NYSDOT)
• Bronx River Parkway safety improvements project, Bronx (NYSDOT)
• FDR Drive at 116th Street safety improvement project, Manhattan (NYSDOT)
• La Guardia Airport expansion, Queens, NY (PANYNJ).
• Expansion of Long Island Expressway at the Sagtikos Parkway, Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 25 widening, CR 83-Cr 21, Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT).
• I-495, Exits 63-67, service improvements, Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 112 widening, Route 25-I-495, Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 25A widening, Suffolk County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 211 widening, Orange County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 9/I-84 reconstruction, Dutchess County, NY (NYSDOT).
• Route 240/Harlem Road widening, Buffalo, NY (NYSDOT).
• Merck World Headquarters, Reddington, NJ.
• Middlesex County, NJ resource recovery facility.
• Passaic County, NJ resource recovery facility.

Developed procedures for evaluating transit and pedestrian impacts of major land use changes:

• Developed methods to analyze impact of large-scale residential development on line haul subway capacity, bus service levels, pedestrian levels of service on subway entrances and platforms.
• Initiated study of large transportation node at portal to Manhattan for large-scale commercial project in Long Island City.
• Developed strategies for transit and pedestrian improvements on Lexington Ave. and on 34th Street.
• Developed pedestrian analytical techniques for NYC Department of City Planning; calibrated the pedestrian chapter of the Highway Capacity Manual (NYDCP).
• Developed white paper for Secretary of USDOT on transportation strategies for 1980s related to alternative land use scenarios.

Developed enforceable refuse truck routes:

• Passaic County, NJ resource recovery facility.
• Middlesex County, NJ resource recovery facility.
• Somerset County, NJ resource recovery facility.
• City of Newark, NJ for Essex County resource recovery facility.

Developed transportation management studies:

• Studied existing and future patterns of export of waste from New York City (NYCDOS).
• Directed study of avoided trucking and emissions due to Brooklyn containerport and barging (PANYNJ).
• Author of 1973 New York State Implementation Plan-Transportation Controls (NYSDEC).
• Advisor to USDOT/USEPA on Public Participation Guidelines on Transportation Planning Process.
• Managed study for NYCDOT, Reducing Taxi VMT in Manhattan CBD.
  Prepared report on congestion in Manhattan for Borough President.

Participated in regional and national transportation planning efforts:

• Principal U.S. investigator, The Four World Cities Transport Study, comparing New York, Paris, London and Tokyo.
• Using extensive database compiled for World Cities Study to develop master transit plan for Brooklyn, NY, extensively utilizing geographic information systems format (Community Consulting Services).
• Member of advisory committees on Long Range Transportation and Congestion Management Systems Plans, Congestion Management and Air Quality projects.
• Member, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Air Management Advisory Committee.
• Founding member and former Member of Board of Directors, Tri-State Transportation Campaign.
• Founding member and former Member of Board of Directors, Transportation Alternatives.

Developed innovative ways of characterizing the full cost of transportation:

• Wrote “Win-Win Transportation: A No-Losers Approach to Financing Transport in NYC and the Region” with C. Komanoff, presented at the AAAS Annual Meeting, Boston, February 1993.
• Presented “Making Transportation Choices Based on Real Costs” at the Transportation 2000 Conference on “Making Transportation a National Priority,” Snowmass, CO, October 1991.
• Prepared “The Societal Costs of Congestion in New York City” for USEPA, December 1979.
• Developed an innovative model, which is being refined, for estimating the hidden costs of motor transport by vehicle and roadway type (Tri-State Transportation Committee).
• Organized a report to Congress on the hidden costs of motor transport nationwide for use in the debate over the 1991 Surface Transportation Assistance Act.
• Organized first-ever all day conference on the full-cost of roadway travel at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers, Detroit, MI, 1973.

Education

Case Institute of Technology, B.S.M.E., 1962

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all course work for Masters Degree in mechanical engineering, 1966

Professional Registration

Licensed Professional Engineer, 1969, New York State #045144

Societies

Institute of Transportation Engineers

Selected Professional Publications

“The Four World Cities Transport Study,” The London Reseach Centre, November 1998.

“Win-Win Transportation: A No-Losers Approach to Financing Transport in NYC and the Region,” with C. Komanoff, presented at the AAAS93 Annual Meeting, Boston, February 12, 1993.

“Making Transportation Choices Based on Real Costs,” presented at the Transportation 2000 Conference on “Making Transportation a National Priority,” Snowmass, Colorado, October 6, 1991.

“A Validation of the Time-Space Corner and Crosswalk Analysis Method,” co-authored by J. Fruin and P. Hecht, Paper No. 870389, Transportation Research Board, January 1988.

“Beyond Autocracy:  The Public’s Role in Regulating the Auto,” co-authored with S. Pinkwas, Government, Technology and the Future of the Automobile, edited by D.H. Ginsburg and W.J. Abernathy, 1980.

“Diesel and Man”, co-authored with S. Pinkwas, New Engineer Magazine, April 1978.  (This article won the 1978 Business Journalism Award.)

“Environmental Impact of Goods Movement Activity in NYC,” co-authored with M. Arrow and J. Coyle, Transportation Research Record No. 496, Urban Goods Movement, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 1974.

“The Implications of Present Trends for Air Quality,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Transportation Research, Bruges, Belgium, Transportation Research Forum, Chicago, IL, 1974.

“Automotive Pollution Control: An Alternative Approach,” International Conference on Transportation Research, Bruges, Belgium, June 18, 1973.

“Urban Transportation,” co-authored with J.P. Romauldi, C. Stark and W. Sprietzer, Public Affairs Report No. 2, Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., New York City, January 1973.

“Problems Associated with Air Quality Control Region Implementation Plans,” co-authored with J.C. Fensterstock and M.P. Walsh, Conference Proceedings: The Relationship of Land Use and Transportation Planning to Air Quality Management, Center for Urban Policy Research and Conferences, Department, Rutgers University, May 1972.

“Urban Goods Movement and Environmental Quality,” Proceedings: Metropolitan Goods Movement Symposium, United Engineering Center, New York City, March 27, 1972

“The Restructuring of Cities Through Transportation Planning,” co-authored with J.C. Fensterstock, Proceedings Urban Technology Conference, American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics, Paper No. 71-517, May 1971.