Fort Worth’s Transportation & Public Works Department added two members to its leadership team. They join the staff in January. Tanya Brooks will be assistant director overseeing the Traffic Management Division. Brooks is currently assistant director responsible for the Mobility Planning Division in Dallas’ Department of Transportation.
Brooks is currently assistant director responsible for the Mobility Planning Division in Dallas’ Department of Transportation. She has worked for the City of Dallas for 20 years in transportation planning in the departments of Public Works and Transportation, Sustainable Development and Construction and Planning and Urban Design. She oversees Mobility Planning Division activities covering a wide range of services essential to economic viability and growth.
Brooks was a pioneer in the City of Dallas advocating for streets as corridors for all modes of transportation and led the Complete Streets Initiative. She specializes in complete streets planning, conceptual design and project implementation, especially retrofitting existing transportation corridors. She is an accomplished leader in forming multidisciplinary teams to enhance how multimodal transportation networks contribute to healthy, vibrant and livable communities by creating streets that facilitate walking and bicycling. The Complete Streets Design Manual received the 2015 Urban Design Award from the Greater Dallas Planning Council and was adopted by the Dallas City Council in 2016.
This year, Brooks led the effort for Dallas to become a full member of the National Association of City Transportation Officials, whose mission is to build a strong network of peers and foster open communication and collaboration between cities. Brooks works in close collaboration with multiple agencies, including Dallas Area Rapid Transit, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Dallas County, Texas Department of Transportation, McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, where she is currently a board member, to develop and implement a comprehensive and efficient multimodal transportation system.
Brooks holds a master of public policy degree from the University of Northern Iowa and received her bachelor of science degree in transportation from Southern University.
Chad Edwards will be the mobility and innovation officer. He comes to Fort Worth with nearly 20 years of experience in transportation planning. Most recently, Edwards was assistant vice president of capital planning at Dallas Area Rapid Transit, where he had oversight of several areas, including corridor development, feasibility assessments, transit system planning and travel demand modeling.
Edwards also managed the agency’s $36 million General Planning Consultant Contract, where outside consulting services are utilized to support transit corridor, system, environmental and transit-oriented/economic development planning work.
Recent efforts included project development for extending station platforms along the Red and Blue light-rail lines; refining a locally preferred alternative for the Downtown Dallas Second Light Rail Alignment (D2 Subway); completing the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Cotton Belt Corridor Passenger Rail Line and developing the next DART Transit System Plan.
Prior to DART, Edwards worked as a transportation planner for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, the region’s metropolitan planning organization. His activities included air quality planning and conformity determinations, thoroughfare planning, transit/rail planning and coordinating the region’s long-range transportation plan.
Edwards is a member of the American Planning Association. He earned a bachelor degree in geography at Texas Tech University and later earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of Texas at Arlington.