Tony originally hails from the suburbs of southern California. Not designed for beach weather or suburban bliss, he moved to San Francisco in 2000 and has been there ever since. Though he grew up riding bikes with friends, he never thought about cycling as a serious transportation alternative until he bought his first car. Whoops! So while his car collects dust all day parked on the streets of San Francisco, he can be found with a backpack and handle bars full of groceries for his wife and cat on his bike ride home from work.
He obtained his BA in geography and certificate in GIS from San Francisco State and has sought out innovative ways to blend his passion for cartography with the geography of human interaction. The way people interact and blend within cultural and natural landscapes drives his interest. He has worked on a variety of GIS projects in many different fields and feels it is the best tool (besides being outside and visualizing first hand) to perceive geographic interactions.
For Tony, the appeal to Alta Planning is that they embrace a geographic approach to planning and that they help promote healthy living environments for a sustainable future. He aims to further Alta's mapping and GIS abilities to take the non-motorized cause world-wide!
Tony joined Alta in the Spring of 2008 as the team’s GIS Specialist. His background in cultural geography gives him a unique geographic perspective on transportation planning. He has a passion for cartography and using maps to raise awareness of social and environmental issues.
His interest in transportation planning is driven by the way people perceive and interact within their fluctuating cultural and environmental landscapes. He aims to capture this interaction using GIS to demonstrate how environmentally sustainable transportation networks can be used for everyday commutes and other activities.
Prior to Alta, Tony worked as a GIS Specialist at firms in a variety of public and private sectors, spanning from environmental justice, marketing and geotechnical engineering. His experiences have all contributed to his strengths and passions for communicating spatial phenomena through GIS analysis and cartography.
Recent Projects
- City of Los Angeles Bike Plan
Tony was responsible for putting together a terrain dataset for the City of Los Angeles’ street centerlines database. Tony used a variety of surface analysis tools in GIS to create elevation models. The models created were integrated with the street network to allow for the analysis of the City’s fluctuating street grades. The model was used by Alta’s planners to determine the best locations for a new bikeway network in LA. - San Jose ADA Implementation Plan
The City of San Jose needed an inventory of street segments, sidewalks and curb ramps in order to make scheduled improvements to meet the American Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. Tony used those three features to create a priority ranking model in GIS based on the feature’s proximity to a variety of building and land use types. The data created and mapping done for this project had a significant mathematical aspect and are being used by the San Jose Department of Transportation to implement necessary improvements. - Round Valley Charette Bicycle and Trail Plan
This project called for the compilation and analysis of a variety of demographic data pertaining to health and income. Tony was instrumental in gathering census data and maintaining data integrity. By giving the census data a spatial quality in GIS, Tony produced several maps and tables to support the region’s new bikeway and trail implementation plan.
Professional Organizations
Bay Area Automated Mapping Association
North American Cartographic Information Society
Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals
