UBC Reports | Vol. 47 | No. 09 | May 10, 2001

Social concerns transport engineering grad

Engineer heads out to study the rules of the road

Civil Engineering student Brian Lee has paid close attention to the Vancouver transit strike.

That's because he will be heading to Chicago's Northwestern University, the University of Toronto or the University of California at Berkeley for graduate work in transportation planning after he graduates with a Bachelor of Applied Science this month.

"I have mixed feelings about the strike," says Lee.

While he can see both sides of the argument, he believes that a city's transportation system is one of the most important elements in building a great urban centre.

"I think there is great potential right now if we continue to concentrate growth in the town centres that surround Vancouver and halt the urban sprawl," says Lee.

But along with this strategy, attention must be paid to the transportation planning necessary to move people between these cores, he says.

Lee was born in Edmonton but spent only one month there before his parents moved the family back to Hong Kong where he spent the next 10 years.

He became interested in transportation issues because it is an area in engineering that appealed to his concern about social issues.

Lee was a community consultant with UBC's Downtown Eastside Initiative in 1999 during the program's earliest days.

He worked with non-profit groups, residents and community leaders to help determine how UBC could best contribute and work within the community.

"Actually engineering is very public," says Lee, who maintained an average above 80 per cent throughout his years of study.

"The public must understand the advantages and disadvantages of the choices that they are making.

"We can empower them to make the right choice at the start by helping them to understand the cause and effect of what is being proposed."