Beyond Parking: Rethinking Mobility for the Modern University
Large universities increasingly function like small cities: serving simultaneously as major employment centers, event destinations, research hubs, and dense mixed-use districts. As campuses continue to grow within constrained urban environments, transportation planning is shifting away from simply accommodating cars toward broader strategies focused on mobility choice, access, safety, and transportation demand management.
This panel explores how institutions can balance the competing mobility needs of students, faculty, staff, visitors, and event traffic while advancing diverse transportation modes like transit, e-micromobility, pedestrian infrastructure, and programs and policies intended to influence transportation behavior change. Panelists will discuss lessons learned from planning from Texas university campus planning projects, including managing emerging mobility modes, improving participation in TDM programs, coordinating with regional transit partners, and navigating large-scale infrastructure disruptions. The session will also examine the growing role major employers and institutions play in shaping regional mobility patterns and influencing how people move through rapidly growing cities, especially as major infrastructure projects disrupt the transportation network, causing transportation users to rethink how they get around.
Panelists
Jackson Archer, AICP, is an Associate Principal in NelsonNygaard's Austin office, having worked as a transportation planner in the Austin area for nearly 15 years. Jackson specializes in developing strategies that make it easier for people to shift from driving a car to walking, biking, or taking transit. His professional niche has become university campus transportation projects, where limited space requires each mode to work together seamlessly to produce an effective transportation network. Jackson is an advocate for parking reform, having served on the ULI panel that successfully argued for the removal of minimal parking requirements in Austin in 2023.
Veronica Castro de Barrera is a licensed architect and LEED Accredited Professional with nearly three decades of experience in civic, urban design, and multimodal transportation systems. At UT Austin, Veronica chairs the Campus Design Review Committee and contributes to interdisciplinary education through mentoring students in engineering, architecture, and urban design. she also serves as Chair of the Austin Transit Partnership Board of Directors, overseeing implementation of the voter-approved Project Connect transit program. Veronica's contributions to the profession have been recognized nationally, including being named a "Woman Who Moves the Nation" by the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials in Washington, D.C.
Sarah Hyden is a Senior Associate in NelsonNygaard's Austin office with nearly seven years of experience working in Texas and across the country. Her passion for planning is driven by an understanding that the built environment can improve quality of life and access to opportunity for all people, and she believes that high quality transit and multimodal options are vital to equitable, resilient, and beautiful places. Sarah's project work is primarily focused on transit and multimodal corridor planning and how land use, zoning, and urban design help make these modes safer and easier for people to use.
Tracy McMillan, PhD, MPH is a Principal in NelsonNygaard's Austin office. Tracy has over 25 years of experience in transportation planning and health and enjoys helping communities find solutions that support the transportation needs of all residents and support the health and sustainability of the community. She leads projects on active transportation, transportation safety, multimodal planning & design, program evaluation and technical assistance in California, Texas, Arizona and Colorado, particularly for traditionally underserved communities. Tracy has a Masters in Public Health from Emory University and a PhD in Urban & Regional Planning from the University of California, Irvine.