Meet Board Member Brianna Goodman
Posted on: October 31, 2022 5:09 pm
Board Member Brianna Goodman
Brianna Goodman is a fourth-generation San Lorenzo Valley resident. She first volunteered with the Valley Women’s Club’s River & Road Clean Up while attending SLV High. She was a two-time champ for bringing in the most giant trash collected after she and her late father pulled first a refrigerator and later a car’s wheels and axle from the river. Born in Lompico and raised in Felton, Brianna had an affinity for nature, water, and the redwoods, particularly after growing up across Highway 9 from Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
After graduating with honors from SLV High in 2003, Brianna received her Bachelor of Architecture from UC Berkeley while working as a librarian at the undergraduate library and volunteering to build houses in the East Bay for Habitat for Humanity. Upon graduation, Brianna spent three months working and traveling alone in Spain. During this trip, she developed her passion for human-centered design, transit, and cities and towns designed around people instead of cars.
All aboard! Brianna working as a train conductor.
Her career began as a part-time project manager for a local architecture firm. During the other part of her time, she served as a conductor on Roaring Camp’s Big Trees and Pacific Train from Felton to the Boardwalk. The look on little girls’ faces when they realized the “captain of the ship” was a young woman is still a special memory to this day.
After another three-month solo journey, this time by train through nine more European countries, Brianna returned to school to earn her Master of Science in Transportation Policy from UC Davis. Summers at home were spent interning at the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC) and volunteering with Save Our Shores.
Nate and Brianna
Brianna has been a member of the VWC since 2017 when she joined the Environmental Committee as a representative of the SCCRTC to collaborate with the committee on the Highway 9 San Lorenzo Valley Complete Streets Corridor Plan. This plan intends to improve safety and quality of life by transitioning Highway 9 from a high-speed route to a vibrant Main Street accessible for all modes of transportation while reducing dependence on cars and protecting the local environment. She is now a transportation planner for SCCRTC and the Program Manager of the Highway 9/SLV Complete Streets Program.
When she’s not working, Brianna organizes within her local community in south Felton, networking with her neighbors by hosting a thrice annual neighborhood gathering and managing multiple neighborhood mutual aid platforms that grew exponentially during the CZU Lightning Complex Fire. She strongly believes in the power of knowing your neighbors and helping them get to know each other.
Brianna, her husband Nate, their young daughter Lucy, and Border Collie mix Basil enjoy sailing on their 1958 wooden cutter sailboat in the Monterey Bay, gardening, bicycling through Felton to the playground, and especially international travel.
The community’s next opportunity to see Brianna and the Hwy 9/SLV Program in action will be Thursday, November 3rd, at 6 pm at the Felton Community Hall. The SLV Schools Circulation and Access Study will present initial design concepts for improving access to and past the SLV elementary, middle, and high schools north of Felton. This project seeks to make it safer and easier for students to get to school by bicycling or walking, improve transit access, and improve safety and reliability for all modes of transportation. For more information, visit https://sccrtc.org/slvplan.