Protective planner: Danielle Baer 

School/College: Tyler School of Art and Architecture 
Degree/Year: MS, city and regional planning, 2020 
Hometown: Merion Station, Pennsylvania 
Current Job Title: Senior planner 
Current Employer: Urban Engineers 

From Center City streets to rural backroads, severe crashes among motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians are an ongoing problem across the Delaware Valley. Danielle Baer, TYL ’20, is part of the solution. As a senior planner at Urban Engineers, Danielle oversees traffic engineering and planning projects that revamp a range of routes, from the tiniest municipal roads to the largest interstate highways in the region, making them safer for all road users. 

In Old City, Danielle worked with local business owners to create a plan ensuring smooth access for delivery vehicles and customer parking along Market Street during the construction of a road diet, signal upgrades, elevated bike lanes and other improvements to protect travelers. The project will prove crucial this year as visitors descend on the neighborhood for the America250 celebrations.

In South Jersey, Danielle spent several years working with the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization to develop four countywide local road safety plans and implement them immediately upon plan adoption. And across Pennsylvania, she used drone footage and AI technology to identify near misses and heavy braking instances at newly installed roundabouts on state highways, feeding the information to PennDOT to make proactive safety improvements.  

Temple trained. After deciding she wanted to become a professional planner as an undergrad at Bucknell University, Danielle quickly landed on Temple to pursue a master’s degree. The university’s city and regional planning curriculum is accredited by the American Institute of Certified Planners, which allowed Danielle to become certified at an accelerated pace and the availability of evening classes allowed her to work and intern during the day. Plus, she noticed many professional planners across the region are Temple alumni. 

Real-world ready. At Temple, Danielle benefited from the instruction of Adjunct Professor of Planning and Community Development Eleanor Sharpe, who was then the executive director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Every week Sharpe would regale her students with the latest “crazy story” about what was going on in City Hall and bestow invaluable, real-world advice. “She was the executive director of the city planning commission at that point, so having her take the time to teach the next generation of planners was a really inspiring and rewarding experience,” Danielle says.