Opening a water faucet means something to Miki Esposito.
The first woman to lead what for years was known as the city's public works department, Esposito began her tenure in 2012 amid a drought that prompted mandatory water restrictions in Lincoln. And before moving into the private sector last year, Esposito managed another crisis, as too much water messed with Lincoln's water wells on the Platte River and threatened the city's supply of drinking water.
Her time with Lincoln Transportation and Utilities (the modernized version of public works) included other bumps in the road — literally and figuratively — such as potholes, prioritizing street improvements, plowing snow from residential streets, and yes, even timing the traffic lights.
"Everybody has a driver's license," she said. "They're impacted directly by that red light that's stopping them from progressing to where they want to go."
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Esposito moved on to Olsson, the Lincoln-based engineering firm where she's the director of marketing, helping the rapidly expanding company as its consultants strive to assist cities with many of the same issues faced in Lincoln.
Esposito talked with the Journal Star recently about her old job, her new job — and how to get that traffic light timed just right.
What attracted you to Olsson?
They’re very customer-centric. That's a mission that I fully support, because I’m a public servant at heart. That’s where I’ve been working forever. To be able to do that across the country and help other cities in that space has been really exciting.
What are the biggest infrastructure issues facing Lincoln?
I guess I would say the biggest and most challenging thing for Lincoln is water. How do we prepare for what might be another flooding event? Or a drought?
We have traffic congestion, absolutely, but, boy, with some of the cities, I’m able to get perspective on how fortunate we really are here, and if we plan well and if we are creative and innovative in our thinking, we can really avoid a lot of those big-city problems as we grow.
How does Olsson help cities like Lincoln?
During my time with the city, we leveraged a partnership with Olsson to develop a transportation strategy with us. Olsson did a peer review of cities that look like Lincoln and feel like Lincoln, and bigger cities that have grown really quickly like Austin (Texas), to understand and take from those examples how we can grow mindfully. As a result, out of 26 recommendations, we had 21 recommendations implemented to change policy, funding mechanisms -- to change design standards, to create a more robust financing mechanism for streets.
Does it always come down to funding?
Transportation issues like potholes and snow removal, these are typical problems that any city has, but they are symptoms of funding policy. That's the real challenge. How do cities balance the interest of the public for safety and security and a need for aesthetics to draw and attract residents with taxpayer dollars?
Esposito singled out innovations like Green Light Lincoln, the project to improve the timing of traffic lights, and building roundabouts in place of traditional intersections.
Olsson is a great designer of that solution, and it really does save cities money in the long term.
Is there a big transportation idea out there for cities?
One is coming back to that shared community space where you have Uber and Lyft, and you have people who are opting out of buying vehicles, and autonomous vehicles are in play. That kind of technology just is extraordinary to think about in the transportation space from a safety standpoint, from taking pressure off of a transportation system, reduction of greenhouse emission gases. It just has incredible potential to solve some of our world’s problems while keeping people from getting killed on highways.
And what about that red light?
Our engineers are working in these worlds where vehicles are talking to traffic signal systems, and they’re timing each other up for when the light is going to turn red. How that impacts traffic flow and efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, that realm of transportation is very exciting.