Mpact Innovators Presents – Red Line Internship Program: Advancing Youth, Community and Light Rail

The Red Line High School Internship program demonstrates that transit projects that invest in youth workforce development bring immense benefits to the community. The program seeks to engage students residing and studying within the Red Line corridor, providing them with insights into the Red Line Transit Project and exposing them to careers within the transportation industry. The Red Line light rail project in Baltimore was canceled in 2015 (after over a decade of planning and design) and restarted in 2023. Learn about the blueprint for the internship project, conducted for six years and recently relaunched. Hear from internship alumni who successfully entered the transportation industry as a result of the program. Understand best practices and lessons learned for initiating a similar program. Transit and transit-adjacent agencies can incorporate such programs into their own projects to help build both workforce and community buy-in throughout the planning, design and construction of long-term transit projects.

Moderator: Yolanda Takesian, AICP, Principal Planner, Kittelson & Associates, Inc, Baltimore, MD
Allison Scott, Red Line Senior Project Director, Maryland Transit Administration, Baltimore, MD
Tranell Guthrie, Senior Consultant, Kittelson & Associates, Inc, Raleigh, NC
Anton Christian, Police Officer, Maryland Transit Administration, Baltimore, MD
Lyneisha Jackson, AICP, Military Community Planner, HDR, New Orleans, LA