Hennepin County Profile

To learn more about the work of Hennepin County, the District 3 team profiles employees of the county who live in the district. Each month we spotlight a different person from varying departments and occupations. Find out about the day-to-day aspects of occupational fields and work environments at the county, and how each person’s work affects your life.

Joe Scala Planning Analyst, Department of Community Works Loring Park Neighborhood 9 years working with Hennepin County

Describe your work.

Within the Department of Community Works, I work in Engineering and Transit Planning. At a high level, we provide technical and financial information to management, administration, and the Board to advise them in transit decisions in the region. I delve into specific projects. I was technical adviser to the Metro Orange line BRT for the county, as well as the Riverview Corridor, which serves St. Paul, Ramsey, the Mall of America, and other destinations in Hennepin County, and recently finished an implementation plan update with Dakota County on the Cedar Avenue Transitway. Technical Advisory committees study the issues and make recommendations to policymakers on how to proceed, from choosing an alignment to the type of vehicle that will run on it.

Almost all of the work we do is highly collaborative. Hennepin County is a huge part of the reason our transitways are successful, but we don’t do it alone. Other counties, cities, the state legislature, the federal government, the Met Council, etc. work together to achieve transit solutions for residents.

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What part of your job do you find most challenging?

The transit planning process is very complex, and it is incredibly challenging communicating it to the public. The work that we do is difficult to explain and hard to find analogies for in residents’ lives for them to understand. Finding real-world analogies are difficult, and we struggle to get to the 'aha' moment where it makes sense. I like to explain it in terms of the process of buying a house. Alternatives analysis work starts with a large amount of options for transitways, but as we find deficiencies or prohibitive elements of each route, we begin narrowing our focus until we find an option that fits.

Another challenge is to grow appreciation among residents of the Metro area. Each mode of transportation works together with the others in the system. People talk about multimodal transportation, but I like to think about it as intermodal transportation. All modes of transportation need to work together and find balance, because otherwise there are gaps in service, conflicts, or safety issues. Each mode is more efficient when supported and balanced by another. As a transit planner, I’m equally concerned about drivers and pedestrians, because they need to function together as part of a larger system.

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What do you find most enjoyable?

There are certain moments that encapsulate that feeling. I was at the opening of Union Depot, Target Field Station, the Metro Red Line, the North Star Line, and the Green Line. Those opening days are magical moments because they are the culmination of years, often decades, of work of thousands of people. At those moments, we are incredibly proud of what we have done, but for me, it’s the thought of “what’s next?” Building a better transportation system for the community is thrilling and rewarding, and I’m always looking for the next challenge.

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What is one thing everyone should know about the work you do?

I would advise residents not to look at this work as strictly technical analysis or the building as just the steel and the glass. I hope that people see that what we’re doing is to build something that will be a very important piece of what will make Hennepin County successful in the 21^st century for the people who live, work, and visit the region for years to come.

Joe Scala is a resident of the Loring Park neighborhood in Minneapolis, and is the Planning Analyst for the Department of Community Works. The mission of Community Works is to build and strengthen communities by developing quality, affordable housing and creating healthy built environments that provide transportation choices and community connections, attract investment and create jobs.