James Parsons, AICP, joined HNTB Corp. as a director of national transit programs and vice president, focusing on the delivery of transit planning and engineering projects. He is a senior technical resource for the firm, located in Seattle, and works with transit clients across the United States.
“I am pleased to welcome Jim to HNTB,” said Kevin Nelson, HNTB chief growth officer and senior vice president. “His experience, outstanding technical expertise and extensive client relationships will increase our ability to provide infrastructure solutions to our clients in the growing transit sector.”
Parsons has more than four decades of experience planning, analyzing and providing engineering for transportation facilities in both the private and public sectors. He is a nationally known expert in major urban transit and multimodal transportation facilities.
He brings extensive regional planning and travel forecasting, and transit patronage forecasting experience. In addition, he has managed the preparation of federal and state Environmental Impact Statements.
Parsons has managed design, planning and impact studies dealing with rail, bus and automated guideway transit facilities, airports and marine transportation. He has developed area-wide and corridor-level comprehensive transportation plans; performed traffic and parking studies; developed transportation policy options for a number of public agencies; and completed numerous financial and economic studies associated with transportation facilities. Parsons also has experience with multimodal terminal planning, airport planning and passenger and vehicle water transportation systems.
Prior to joining HNTB, Parsons served another consulting firm as transit rail market sector lead for the U.S. West. He has worked with many public transit agencies including: Bay Area Rapid Transit, San Diego Association of Governments, Sound Transit, Tri Met, Utah Transit Authority, Valley Metro (Phoenix), MTA Metro-North Railroad, New Jersey Transit, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Port Authority of New York/New Jersey.
He holds multiple degrees, including a Master of Science in civil engineering (transportation planning) from the University of Washington, Seattle and a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from Cornell University.
He is an active member of the American Planning Association and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
