The Major Event Development Changemaker

With a background in acting, Reed Alvarado brings compassion to recognize contextual cues — subtle signs that help him understand people and anticipate concerns around major events and infrastructure development that connect communities.

United States | Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Reading Time : 6:30 minutes

Reed Alvarado began his career on set as an actor, but his artistic passion led him to want to tell, and eventually shape, the story of how we make cities more livable for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. This journey instilled within him adaptability, a problem-solving mindset, presence and emotional intelligence, which he now brings to his role as Vice President for Major Event Development and Infrastructure Advisory at WSP in the U.S. Reed is passionate about leveraging communications and public involvement to build trust, empower communities and improve outcomes for strategic transportation investments.

At the forefront of his work are technology, innovation and sustainability. Whether aiding discussion on fleet transitions or implementing strategies for major event planning and development, Reed is dedicated to driving the transition toward a net-zero future and ensuring that large-scale events become opportunities for cities to invest in more livable and resilient infrastructure.

What inspires your career?

I would say my primary passion is for creating cities that I would actually want to live in. One where I can safely get from one end of town to the other – and without ever having to parallel park. When I decided to go car-free in Los Angeles, I was working on a Disney show, which, ironically, was filmed across the street from WSP’s Los Angeles office. I sold my car when I realized that I could walk to work, and that showing up to a meeting or an audition after a nice walk outside put me in a much better headspace than if I’d just spent the last 30 minutes fighting for a parking spot. While a car is often shown in the movies as a symbol of freedom, my experience of having a car was the opposite. For me, traffic was stressful and isolating. Shifting to a car-free lifestyle allowed me to embrace community, interact more with the city I lived in, and inspired me to investigate transit further. After I finished the show, I started documenting the experience of Angelenos living car-free through a blog called Getting There, which grew in popularity, and slowly, what started as a passion became a lifestyle, and ultimately a career.

I’m proud to say that I’ve been car free in Los Angeles since 2017! I think transportation is a unique field to work in because it affects all aspects of life. The fact that I’ve been able to weave public transportation into my day-to-day informs every aspect of my career. My lived and professional experience of listening to client needs and being focused on how we are translating our work from the executive level to the community level.

Reed Alvarado

Vice President, Management Consultancy

United States

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What are some of the biggest challenges in your field that you're working to help resolve?

I would say three main things.

First, we are doing fantastic work with LA Metro’s grants team through the LA Metro Grant Assistance Project. Securing funds for the LA region to advance meaningful projects is incredibly important, especially as project costs continue to rise due to economic factors like inflation. In particular, WSP led the team that supported Metro and other cities in LA County across three active transportation program (ATP) cycles, successfully delivering more than 30 applications. This effort helped secure $261.7 million out of the $2.2 billion available statewide, representing 12 percent of the total ATP funds. Given that LA County received $567 million in total, we are very proud of the role WSP has played in securing these funds.

The two other concerns for me — and opportunity for transportation — that are inherently linked are the zero-emission transition and how we are responding to the largest disruption in transportation from the user experience in my lifetime, and in last 60 some years: the COVID 19 pandemic. And then comparing that to the fact we are in the decade of a special events here in Los Angeles with the FIFA World Cup 2026 and 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Reed participates as a panel member on “Surpassing Standards: Tailored Approach to Outreach” at the California Stormwater Quality Association Annual Conference.

So, when you think about needing to scale from the mindset of how we get people back on transit to how we prepare for more transit users than we have ever had, the need for transit definitely requires some big ideas. And there has been some really amazing work done by WSP for LA Metro and clients around the country to really prepare for the transit needs of tomorrow.

What are some of the most impactful projects that you've been a part of that WSP?

There have been a range of projects that have inspired me, fueled my love for what I do and my admiration for WSP and our values. When I served on the communications and public involvement (CPI) team, I got to stretch outside of transit, my number one passion. As I mentioned, I live and breathe bikes, buses and trains.

One project that has stood out to me was the Faro Mine remediation project. This was a fantastic collaboration in Canada’s Yukon on how to responsibly conduct stakeholder interactions as part of a multi-decade land restoration, returning the indigenous people to the area.

A project closer to home that has had a huge impact on my career has been the Inland Empire (IE) Commuter Program in Southern California. This rideshare program spans Riverside County and San Bernardino County. I worked on the marketing and outreach strategies for the program serving the largest county by land area in the country — San Bernardino County — and one of the most populated in the country — Riverside County.

Reed hosts a safe clean water program open house for Sierra Madre Boulevard.

Transportation Demand Management is a dynamic industry, one that is often not maybe at the forefront of everyone's mind, but it is really important to think as we are reconnecting communities and looking at a post monoculture of single occupancy vehicles. How can we stitch our communities back together through multimodal transportation?

Why do you enjoy working at WSP?

First and foremost, it's the people. I have never heard of any industry colleagues talk about a culture that rivals the one here at home with WSP. I look to my own boss, Jannet Walker-Ford, as a real testament to the quality of individuals that we attract here at WSP. National leaders and practice leaders and industry professionals are really moving the needle. You see that reflected in the positions that those individuals hold at institutions like the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), WTS, Latinos in Transit and Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. For me, WSP is an amazing opportunity to be surrounded by people who just call you to be better.

WSP puts people and community at the center of our purpose as an organization and in the work we deliver, how does or can the work you do positively impact the communities WSP serves?

I would say, particularly in here in California, my work with LA Metro to support them in that transition from a post COVID rider recovery to what's coming to be probably one of the most exciting second half of the decade in LA's history — with both the World Cup and the LA Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games — is a very large and important task.

While it sometimes seems like we are just preparing for a giant party and hosting athletes in our city, if you look beneath the surface of the fanfare, we have an opportunity to really look at how we can make sure that our special events are also concurrently improving everyday rider experience. If we look at these mega events as opportunities to drive forward our goals in zero emission transportation and a multimodal shift, we can use these dynamic once-in-a-generation events to cause the circumstances for the changes that we need.

These events can help us meet our climate goals and show Angelinos on a day-to-day basis that they have options when they're going to work in the morning. And to me, that's really, really impactful work.