Cultivating a Transportation Safety Culture

Transportation safety investment benefits everyone — it saves lives, supports health, improves emergency response, protects workers and makes the movement of goods more reliable. Burns & McDonnell provides long-term support and guidance for the allocation of resources toward continuous transportation safety improvement. Our strong safety culture guides us in all projects, informing our holistic approach to shaping policy, analyzing data, identifying priorities, communicating strategies, changing behaviors and evaluating success. Using a range of data and innovative analysis approaches, we identify opportunities to design and build transportation infrastructure and safety treatments that support safer mobility for all.

Howard Lubliner, PE, PhD

Project Management & Highway Safety

20+ Years of Experience

Howard is a leading implementer of highway safety initiatives, focused on quantitative safety analysis for design projects and working with transportation agencies to make stronger, data-driven safety policies. Howard led the safety analysis for the Burns & McDonnell-implemented Beyond the Loop Planning and Environmental Linkages Study, which won the 2019 ACEC Missouri Engineering Excellence Award and used the safety benefit-cost analysis to secure a BUILD grant for the first construction phase. Previously, Howard led the Kansas Department of Transportation’s (KDOT) Highway Safety Manual implementation and conducted studies with KDOT, Nebraska Department of Transportation and Kansas Turnpike Authority to perform systemwide reviews of safety performance, provide recommended countermeasures, and implement enhanced analysis procedures and policies. Howard has served on or chaired numerous Transportation Research Board (TRB), American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) assignments in the areas of geometric design and highway safety, including the panel of NCHRP 17-71, tasked with oversight of the development of the AASHTO Highway Safety Manual, Second Edition.

Jessica Hutton, PE

Safety Innovation & Safety Plan Development

15+ Years of Experience

Jessica is a traffic engineer and project manager in Burns & McDonnell’s Kansas City headquarters office. Prior to joining Burns & McDonnell, Jessica spent 13 years conducting transportation safety research at MRIGlobal with a focus on urban and suburban arterials, the relationship between safety and speed, and vulnerable roadway users. Jessica supported the urban and suburban arterial research that eventually became Chapter 12 of the Highway Safety Manual (NCHRP Project 17-26). She also served as a technical editor for the predictive safety methodology chapters (10-12) during the production of the manual (NCHRP Project 17-36) and led research for FHWA using naturalistic driving study data to evaluate the relationship between operating speed, safety, and roadway characteristics on urban and suburban arterials. She played a key role evaluating the impact of motor vehicle safety countermeasures on pedestrians and bicyclists in NCHRP Project 20-07, Task 393, and contributed to research developing safety performance functions for pedestrians and bicyclists for inclusion in the forthcoming second edition of the HSM (NCHRP Project 17-84). She drafted a new chapter on roundabouts for the third edition of the Human Factors Guide (NCHRP Project 17-80). As a project manager at Burns & McDonnell, Jessica is leading a safety analysis of the entire Kansas Turnpike and is also helping the Kansas Department of Transportation develop new procedures for identifying, evaluating, and prioritizing safety projects.

Todd Shutts

Director – 1898 & Co.

31 Years of Experience

Todd is an experienced analytical software builder and entrepreneur, effective in leading teams to create innovative technology that delivers value to both the organization and its customers. He has a long history of success — building products, strategies, technology, teams, culture, processes and organizations. Todd is adept in transforming technology through effective strategy, thought leadership and a critical thinking skillset.

Allison Karagiorgas, PE

Highway Safety Modeling

6 Years of Experience

Allison serves as a lead highway safety modler at Burns & McDonnell. Her complex crash models and safety crash analyses have informed interstate, highway, and bridge design and reconstruction projects nationwide, including the I-44 Bridge Rebuild project and various roadway safety efforts across Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Utah. As a traffic studies specialist for the Missouri Department of Transportation, she performed numerous roadway safety audits and oversaw highway safety, traffic modeling and crash modeling initiatives across the state. Previously, Allison also supported the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Navajo Nation in analyzing statewide and regional safety data, developing crash mitigation techniques, and contributing to the development of the Arizona’s Statewide Safety Plan and the multistate Navajo Nation Safety Plan.

Josh Robertson, PE

Planning & Traffic Analysis

11 Years of Experience

• 11 years of experience specializing in schematic design, traffic studies and analysis

Josh specializes in transportation schematic design, planning and feasibility studies, traffic studies, and traffic analysis. His team combines geospatial data from computer-aided design, geographic information systems and open data systems with advanced analytics to provide clients with intelligent digital models and decision-making tools. He has played key roles in feasibility and planning studies for numerous city and state agencies, including the North Texas Tollway Authority, North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Texas Department of Transportation.

Cheryl Kelley, PE

Civil Engineer

10 Years of Experience

Cheryl contributes to the safety, design and management of highway and road projects for state and local government agencies. Her primary responsibilities include geometric design, safety analysis, construction sequencing, maintenance of traffic, stormwater management and roadside safety. Cheryl has extensive experience in highway safety, roadway design and traffic analysis. She previously served as a road design engineer with the Kansas Department of Transportation, where she worked on in-house and consultant transportation projects with a range of services, including roadway reconstruction, bridge replacement, mill and overlay, and roadway safety. She has also coordinated with stakeholders at public meetings. Cheryl is proficient in a number of software applications that support design and collaboration on transportation projects, including MicroStation, GEOPAK, IHSDM, RSAP, Synchro and VISSIM.

Bobby Cottam, PE

Senior Civil Engineer

10 Years of Experience

Bobby has extensive experience as a safety data analyst, specializing in database and geographic information system (GIS) environments that help teams link, visualize and interpret safety data sets. His research focuses on planning for advanced vehicle technologies and future transportation system utilization, as well as transportation system resilience. He supports safety projects with data analysis and provides insight on future‐proofing safety investments.