Tyler Patterson

Tolling Engineer ,
Washington State Department of Transportation

Degree: MURP, 2005 | Policy Area: State and Local Policy
Location: Seattle, Washington

A native Californian, Tyler Patterson spent a decade as a river guide in the Western U.S. before making the switch to transportation of a different sort via a dual degree at the U. He now advises Washington State in its foray into using toll bridges and toll lanes as revenue generation and traffic mitigation tools.

What motivated you to pursue a career in planning?
My undergraduate work was in history and chemistry, but I’ve always been into logistics. On a river trip down the Green River in Utah, I had a traffic engineer from the Bay Area Regional Transit system in San Francisco as a guest. I kept pumping him for information. He was sort of the spark that got things going.

Who at the Humphrey School had a major influence on you, and how?
I think that my experience working for Lee Munnich in the State and Local Policy Program was really unique. I got to go to a number of conferences and really use his network as a springboard to meet other transportation professionals throughout the country. I’m not sure I would have had the same advantages had I not worked for him.

How did your Humphrey education help you to get where you are today?
I thought I would go into bike and pedestrian work but, because of Lee, I became interested in tolling, the hot-lane program, what was next in transportation finance. I got plugged into a more national network and started realizing how much we don’t know about tolling in the United States and how the ability to price things in real time really is changing the tolling industry.

Do you have any advice for incoming and current students interested in a career like yours?
One thing that was really helpful for me was getting to know a lot of professionals in the field. That was advantageous in a number of ways. In transportation, people are eager to share advice and really want to interact with students. In some ways, they’re looking to reminisce. Through these contacts, getting a job in Washington State was very easy.

What do you like best about your work?
There are a lot of policy implications that I get to consider because tolling is so new to Washington State. That’s really exciting because I have a lot more influence than I thought I would in terms of the direction of the department and how things are done. That’s why I’ve been excited to stick with it.