My name is Ryan Richter and I am an urban transportation planner. My work involves the planning for public transportation systems, land use planning for transportation, and community and economic development.
I have extensive experience with public transportation as well as transit-oriented development planning, and spatial analysis. I have worked in some capacity or another for all three public transportation operators in the Chicago region.
Additionally, I am the President Emeritus and Co-Founder of Jefferson Park Forward, a non-profit 501(c)(3) community organization in Chicago, IL.
I come to the planning profession by way of an undergraduate degree in geography with specialization in geographic information systems (GIS) from the University of Iowa and a graduate degree in urban planning and policy with specialization in transportation planning from the University of Illinois at Chicago. More information about my professional experience and qualifications can be found here.
Transport Nexus was developed out of a few questions that I have asked myself ever since I was a child, moving from my childhood home on the northwest side of Chicago to the far northern suburbs as a teenager: why do the suburbs feel less free? As in, why could I no longer ride a bike to visit all of my friends? Why could I not walk to school? Why could I not do anything without a car? As I have learned over the years, through both anecdotal personal experience and my academic and professional knowledge, the built environment, codified through land use zoning and transportation engineering have a symbiotic relationship. Thus, low density single family homes built on a quarter acre (typical land uses in modern suburbs) cannot adequately support public transportation and are almost exclusively served by private automobile. I seek to examine this relationship, this nexus, between transportation and land use, along with other transportation and urban planning related items in this blog.
I will strive to keep my personal hobbies, brewing beer and learning to play the ukulele, out of this blog unless I find a transportation and land use nexus between them.
For any professional inquiries, please contact me below.