City engineer outlines new Transportation and Streets department after reorganization

Allison Timkew, Senior Director and City Engineer for Transportation and Infrastructure, presented the city’s reorganized Transportation and Streets department, a consolidation of capital project management with transportation and streets operations.

Timkew said the reorganization combines project delivery, in‑house design, right‑of‑way and real estate functions, traffic engineering and operations, transportation planning, and business operations under a single city engineer reporting to the city manager. The change is intended to align resources for both transportation system operations and capital projects.

Why it matters: the reorganization centralizes oversight of day‑to‑day street operations and capital project management, with the intent of improving project delivery and operational coordination across maintenance, design, construction and planning.

Structure and staffing
Timkew described five divisions reporting to the city engineer: street operations (potholes, resurfacing, sweeping, weather response), project engineering (CIP delivery, contract administration, inspection), design/engineering and real estate (in‑house design, estimates, right‑of‑way acquisition), traffic engineering and operations (traffic studies, neighborhood traffic management, signal and ITS operations), and transportation planning plus business operations (financial planning, IT, community engagement).

Timkew said the department has five senior managers and business operations staff; four of the five senior manager positions are filled. She reported several vacancies: the street operations senior manager position was open and the pavement manager had left the city in April and is being filled on an interim basis. Timkew said the proposed budget includes requests for two new project management positions, a project coordinator, an information technology position and a budget analyst.

Commissioner questions
Commissioner Cardella asked whether any positions had been eliminated; Timkew replied that no additional positions had been eliminated and that there were no plans to do so. Commissioners also asked about recruitment plans for vacant roles; Timkew said recruitment is under way for several positions.

Quote: "The combination of the two departments was to better align resources and make oversight and delivery of transportation system operations and capital projects more efficient," Timkew said.

Next steps
Timkew said staff will return as needed with updates and that the department will continue filling vacancies and implementing the new structure. The commission thanked Timkew for the presentation and expressed interest in future updates.