Daniel Hutton had no idea what planning was when he started college at the University of Delaware. It wasn’t until he took “Introduction to History of City Planning” in his senior year that he was exposed to the field. He was fascinated and went on to pursue a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Rutgers University. Now a senior planner with Urban Engineers, Dan specializes in multimodal planning, placemaking, and public engagement. He enjoys knowing each day will lead to something new and different, always challenging him to learn. “That was one of the big things that first attracted me to Urban and the private sector,” Dan says. “I like taking on challenges and learning new things. Urban’s size and breadth of services make it possible for me to do this on a daily basis.”

The Cumberland County Bike-Ped Safety Action Plan was one of the first projects that Dan was tasked with at Urban. The plan was developed to identify and create safety improvement projects, with an emphasis on bicyclists and pedestrians. “Through our analysis, we found that bicycle and pedestrian crashes represented 2.9% of all crashes in Cumberland County,” Dan said. “However, they were 22% of all fatal and serious injury crashes.”

Continuing their assessment, Dan and the team found that bicycle and pedestrian crashes were disproportionately occurring in the county’s most economically challenged neighborhoods. Developing conceptual plans for improving safety and completing funding applications to advance these improvements in these often-forgotten communities is exactly what led Dan toward this career path. Recently, over $30 million in funding has been awarded to advance these concepts into design and construction. “I look forward to seeing these built in the near future,” he said.

For the past couple of years, Dan has volunteered as a mentor and judge for the Future Cities Greater Philadelphia competition. Urban is an ongoing supporter of the competition, which introduces middle schoolers to the field of STEM. “Putting myself in the student’s shoes is fun for me,” Dan said. “It is important for STEM professionals to be accessible to students and people who do not necessarily understand what we do and how we got to this point in our careers. It is especially important for us to be intentional in how we support students and neighborhoods where engineering and planning are not thought of as possible career paths.” Dan recently volunteered with a school from Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. “It was important to communicate to the students that the color of their skin or background should never stop them from exploring their future opportunities.”

As his career progressed, Dan always felt it was important to continue his professional development. He became a licensed Professional Planner in New Jersey and earned his certification through the American Institute of Certified Planners. More recently, he became a level-one Road Safety Professional, which shows he has demonstrated proficiency in the foundations of road safety principles. While client work always remains a priority, an experience like working with the Future Cities competition helps to keep Dan grounded. “How best to communicate the ‘Why is this important’ for what we do and to make technical aspects of our jobs exciting/understandable to those who are not familiar,” he says.