UVA getting new parking and transportation director

Becca White will retire from the position of director of Parking and Transportation after serving for many years. 

“She leaves behind quite a legacy for our system of parking,  transportation, transportation demand management, regional transportation collaboration, and just the enthusiasm that she would bring to everything that she did which will be hard to replace,” said Bill Palmer, UVA’s non-voting representative on the Charlottesville Planning Commission. 

UVA last updated its Transportation Demand Management Plan in July 2019.  (view the plan)

The job of implementing the plan will now be up to Scott Silsdorf, the person hired to replace White. Silsdorf has most recently been the director of transportation and parking services at Old Dominion University. 

“He had been managing their parking and transportation program for the last 20 years,” Palmer said. 

In other personnel news, the City of Charlottesville has finally hired a bike and pedestrian coordinator after the position remained vacant for two and a half years. Tommy Safranek, a former manager at the National Park Service, started work this week. His work on building trails was profiled by the Daily Progress last year as part of the Distinguished Dozen series. (read the story)

“If you’re playing along at home, that means we’ve fully staffed up our transportation planning team,” said James Freas, the city’s director of neighborhood development services. 

The hiring of Safranek follows the hiring of Ben Chambers as transportation planning manager. Charlottesville is still working to complete design work for several streetscape projects that have not yet gone to construction. Chambers briefed Council in March on efforts to get things moving. 

Pun intended.  

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