City of Del Mar As-Needed Traffic Engineer​

ZONE has served as the acting Traffic Engineer for the City of Del Mar on an as-needed basis since 2024, with adjoining experience with the City dating back to 2013. He works with staff on citywide civil and traffic improvement projects.

The role generally advises the City and makes recommendations to keep the City’s traffic infrastructure and policies in compliance with standards. This includes citywide speed zoning, roadway striping, on-street parking, neighborhood traffic calming, and other traffic related items. The position often requires outreach and cooperation with the San Diego Fairgrounds for event traffic and improvements around its grounds.

In the past 11 years, the City, with the Traffic Engineer’s support, has added miles of sidewalks and numerous enhanced crosswalks along its primary corridors. It has also updated all of its bikeways by adding buffers and green conflict zones, lowered traffic speeds as part of its Vision Zero planning, and has modernized its Downtown Village streetscape with more accessible walkways, pedestrian-scale lighting, and dedicated bike facilities. The City continues to evaluate areas that it could improve, monitoring the effectiveness of its transportation system regularly with the assistance of Mr. Zellers.

Through partnership with Del Mar staff, the City won the 2020 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) San Diego Public Agency of the Year Award for its transportation contributions. The award recognizes a governance that has made a significant contribution toward the development of sound transportation-based public policy, dedication to research to enhance the transportation profession, and the implementation of innovative transportation solutions within the County of San Diego.

Indian Wells Safer Streets Project

The Safer Street Project was initiated after receiving requests for safety improvements from citizens and the completion of the City’s Safety Action Plan to evaluate optimized locations to address transportation safety concerns around the City.

This project features 4 prominent roadways in the City of Indian Wells, exploring options for complete streets and traffic calming improvements. Two streets were identified for Phase 1 (Eldorado Drive and Fairway Drive), while the other two would be done as part of Phase 2 (Cook Street and Rancho Palmeras Drive).

As the Senior Traffic Engineer, Ryan led the development of the Traffic Calming Toolbox, concepts alternatives, and community meeting presentations. Options for the improvements included reviews with City staff and revisions based on feedback from the community. Several alternatives were put forth using the traffic calming toolbox for inspiration for localized treatments. The team offered concepts to address pedestrian connectivity, slow traffic speeds, and maintain community character. Presentations were customized to fit within the City’s requirements and Ryan’s expertise was useful in explaining the technical background and traffic engineering reasons for making specific types of improvements.

Ryan led the team’s production of graphics, cross sections, and 3D renderings to help the public understand the appearance and feasibility of the variety of options suggested.

Imperial Beach Boulevard Improvements Project

Ryan managed the design team for this multiple award-winning road improvement project dedicated to increasing active transportation utility within the City while also upgrading existing infrastructure deficiencies. The project enhances safety and improves active mobility and access along 1.6 miles of Imperial Beach Boulevard using complete and green street design concepts. The Imperial Beach Boulevard corridor runs east-west the length of the city, from its border with the City of San Diego and terminating at the Pacific Ocean, connecting several key points of interest, such as the City’s Civic Center, library, three schools, skate park and recreation center, Tijuana Estuary, and the beach. Median islands were removed and lanes reduced in some sections of the corridor to provide for bike lanes, wider walkways, parking, and landscaping areas for water quality. The project highlights a 24’-wide multi-use “boardwalk” along the Tijuana Estuary as part of the City’s Eco Bike Route. A Mobility Assessment was prepared to validate the overall benefit of the design for all modes of transport.

The City constructed this project with support from several key stakeholders, including the Port of San Diego, Metropolitan Transit Service (MTS), local school districts, Department of Natural Resources and the Tijuana Estuary staff. In total, over 20 outreach events were conducted between February 2018 and February 2019. Involving the community was important throughout the project. To foster involvement, the team created a contest for local schools that would feature student artwork conveying the project’s message of active transportation and healthy living. Three pieces of student art were etched into the sidewalk as part of an “Active Walkway”: a 1000’ portion of sidewalk with distance markers to show students how much exercise they get just by walking to and from school.

Additionally, a project website was created and regularly updated to keep community members engaged and informed. This gave the public access to project history, goals, FAQ list, and allowed for a transparent process. As phases of the project were completed or when construction moved to different locations within the corridor, the website was updated. The final use of the website will be for a community-wide survey to learn about user experiences pertaining to the project.

Carlsbad Safer Streets Together

In 2022, City officials declared a state of emergency after two pedestrian deaths occurred in a 10-day span. Carlsbad took immediate action, allocating $2 million for a comprehensive plan that focuses on education, engineering, and enforcement. The City mobilized staff and consultant teams, removing barriers towards making significant systemwide changes.

Carlsbad’s approach was distinguished by its data-driven strategy, which included identifying collision hotspots when installing new active transportation improvements for bike lanes, intersections, and lane restriping. This project was very visible by the public and required expedited deliverables to meet the demand for quick and effective change.

To streamline the implementation portion of this project, the City of Carlsbad reached out to consultants to help generate signing and striping plans for its most challenging roadways. Ryan led a team that designed striping for over 16 miles of arterial roadways, modifying bikeways along the City’s primary east-west corridors. Attention was given to reduce vehicular lane widths, maximizing the buffered spaces between travel lanes and bike facilities, and drawing attention to conflict zones with green striping. This combination of striping modifications is intended to reduce vehicular speeds and create separation, which is key to lessening the probability of severe injuries and death for vulnerable users in bike lanes and walkways.

Caltrans coordination was also key to the project. Mr. Zellers led the lengthy documentation process required, completing the Design Standard Decision Document (DSDD) for the I-5 freeway interchanges within Carlsbad. Ryan’s expertise and partnership with Caltrans’ staff allowed the team to quickly navigate design adjustments and provide supporting narratives. This expedited approvals for the project would allow the City to make critical bikeway improvements at busy interchanges.

Transportation Project Prioritization Study (TPPS), Regional Arterial Cost Estimate (RACE), Active Transportation Plan (ATP), and Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee (TUMF)

Mr. Zellers was the Project Engineer (2005) and Project Manager (2010 and 2015), managing the efforts in providing the Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) with Transportation Project Prioritization Study (TPPS) and Regional Arterial Projects (RACE), Active Transportation Plan (ATP), and Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee (TUMF) Nexus Study. This project studies a list of regional arterial projects identified within the Riverside County sub-region and nine incorporated cities. The results of the study include a ranking system for evaluating the need for infrastructure improvements. It is typically completed every 5 years and serves as a useful monitoring program which will allow CVAG to address changing conditions of their arterial road system over time. The suite of documents guides CVAG to make budgeting decisions for major transportation projects for the entire valley region.

Ryan was responsible for reaching out to member agencies to assist in determining viable projects to compete for funding, collecting data on study segments, and leading discussions on determining scoring priorities. The team identified all of the potential projects throughout the entire study area, including pedestrian, bicycle, and transit projects, then evaluated if they were considered regionally significant. The project data was scored using the approved scoring criteria, and a ranking was given to indicate the projects that were in the greatest need for funding for improvements. All data was uploaded into GIS layers to be available in user-friendly format.

The region’s travel model was used to calculate the traffic volumes brought on by future development as part of a minimum “per-trip” fee calculation to support the funding of the needed improvements. Through the application of the TUMF program, new developments are charged this fee based on proposed land uses, and collected fees help fund the transportation system costs identified in the TPPS, ATP, and RACE documents. The program continues to this day, replicating most of the same processes sustained over the previous cycles.

Palm Desert Bicycle and Pedestrian Gap Analysis

This two-phase project identified systemic gaps and developed conceptual designs for pedestrian and bicycle improvements in the City of Palm Desert. Ryan was responsible for managing the project through its planning and conceptualization phases. The project involved a detailed GIS analysis of the existing facilities as well as community engagement to determine the needs and types of improvements that align with the City’s goals and policies.

For this project, the team created feasible concepts to implement planned recommendations from the client’s strategic plan and the general plan to create a more complete network of pedestrian and bicycle improvements. The team provided the client with a multimodal transportation system that balanced the operation of vehicular circulation with other mobility options.

Palm Desert Walk and Roll Phase 2

After the planning phase of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Gap Analysis (since referred to as “Walk and Roll”), the project implementation was done in multiple efforts. Phase 2 of this implementation effort added Class IV and Class II bicycle facilities over 15 miles of arterial roadways. The team, led by Ryan, generated concepts that are being shared with the public, for eventual approval of a PS&E package. The project will create dedicated spaces throughout many of the city’s busiest corridors for bicyclists and qualifying neighborhood electric vehicles/golf carts to further enhance the City’s growing multimodal network

Linda Vista Comprehensive Active Transportation Strategy (CATS)

This unique project in the City of San Diego was a first in the region, with an objective to blend the pedestrian and bicycle master planning processes into one active transportation plan effort. The “Linda Vista Comprehensive Active Transportation Strategy” sought to create a method that can be replicated in other San Diego neighborhoods, with a focus on GIS modeling and public outreach to arrive at data driven results to develop active transportation projects.

To do this, the team, led by Ryan Zellers, overlayed pedestrian and bicycle demand models with existing and planned transit routes to determine the high score areas for active transportation propensity. Typologies were created to understand the existing street network and how it relates to land use, so that context-appropriate solutions can be implemented. Two public workshops and an online survey were developed to gain community opinions that would help identify specific areas of need that may not have been captured by modelling efforts.

The project team then developed concepts aimed to address issues that had been identified, with the objective to enhance the access, connectivity, mobility, and safety of the community’s active transportation network. After all concept plans have been developed, costs were estimated for each improvement and a priority system was used to evaluate the various projects for inclusion into near- and long-term Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

As part of a value-added effort, the project team also delivered to City staff a “marketing brochure”, that could be passed on to decision makers, summarizing the goals, process, and outcomes of the Linda Vista CATS. This was used to help toward securing funding for the needed improvements identified in the report.