Yingying Huang Fernandes
Seattle,USA
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
Work History
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER IV
King County Metro
Seattle
02.2023 - Current
- Guided Metro-Sound Transit coordination on bus bridging through facilitating difficult conversations, clarifying agency roles, and building shared understanding across agencies’ leaderships to create a more effective interagency partnership in developing practical mobility solutions during Link disruptions.
- Manage Metro’s strategic relationship with the City of Seattle across high-visibility efforts—including Seattle’s investments in Metro’s service through STM, Harrison and Mercer Street Corridors project, and the Seattle Area Service Reinvestment projectaligning agency priorities, navigating political and operational tradeoffs, and building shared understanding and trust amongst staff and leadership to advance coordinated mobility outcomes.
- Served as Acting Service Planning Supervisor for three months. During this time:
- Informed and influenced Metro Leadership Team’s decisions on the size of the Fall 2025 service change, balancing workforce availability, service growth needs, budget impacts and service funding partners’ interests (Sound Transit and City of Seattle)
- Led development of service plans in the Metro’s biennial budget proposal, aligning service investments with service growth needs, budget reality, capital delivery capacity, workforce capacity and service funding partners’ interests
- Strengthened organizational alignment ahead of the return-to-office requirement by communicating transparently, creating space for feedback, elevating staff perspectives to leadership, and modeling empathy as staff reacts to change.
- Delegated leadership roles strategically to build staff capability, empower self-initiative and ownership, and strengthen team engagement while maintaining accountability.
- Manage three service planners responsible for major agency priorities, including Seattle Transit Measure (STM) program management, FIFA planning, and major service restructures. Provide coaching, strategic guidance, and targeted project support.
- Strengthened team culture through retreats, feedback, role clarity and creating space for shared learning. Utilize situational leadership and recognition to help staffs feel supported, valued, aware of their strength and how they fit in as part of the team, and empowered to take higher level of initiatives.
- Shaped Zero Emissions transition and Central Campus conversion planning by clarifying the service-related criteria for ZE decisions, developing future service scenarios, and informing fleet size and fleet type requirements to align capital planning with long-term service needs.
- Provided strategic guidance and influence over the Metro’s Next Stop– a project that shapes Metro’s potential investments across service, capital, and programs with an additional $xx.
- Developed new process and methodology for post-implementation analysis in partnership with Customer Research team, Service Planning analysis team, Fare Policy team, and Scheduling team, establishing repeatable practices for evaluating outcomes after major service restructure and strengthening Metro’s ability to make data-informed service decisions.
- Championed equity and inclusion by leading a countywide ERG, fostering cross-departmental relationships, and creating spaces for King County staff to share experiences and build belonging.
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER III
King County Metro
Seattle
04.2021 - 02.2023
- Led the Lynnwood Link Connections Mobility Project, including developing scope, schedule and budget, managing project changes, leading a project team of 15+ staff representing scheduling, capital, government relations, community engagement and service planning, developing network decision-making criteria that balanced complex technical, political and policy tradeoffs, and briefing Metro leadership, partner agency and jurisdictions staff, and elected officials to secure alignment and support for the final network.
- Managed partnership with the City of Seattle to develop, track and implement STM investments in Metro service
- Serve as the lead planner for Metro’s Emergency Snow Network planning. This includes coordination with Metro Scheduling, Service Quality, System Impacts and other Metro internal stakeholders.
- Developed service changes to respond to workforce shortages, changes in travel demand, and pandemic recovery.
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER
WSP Inc.
Seattle
05.2018 - 04.2021
- Supported TriMet’s Facility System Master Plan, including
- Inventorying existing transit layover capacity and utilization rates based on HASTUS scheduling data and operating procedures at layovers
- Identifying layover needs and operational and space impacts of using en-route chargers for Battery Electric Buses (BEB) at transit centers and off-street layover locations; recommending performance, operational, and design features to transit centers and off-street layover locations considering BEB range and charging needs.
- Identifying potential site locations for a new bus base
- Supported Sound Transit I-405 BRT project, including
- Conducting operational capacity analysis at end-of-line transit centers and updating fleet requirement calculations
- Synchro and Vissim modeling, evaluation, and technical reporting of potential bus route pathway and transit preferential treatments near the future S Renton Transit Center and the Burien Transit Center
- Developing I-405 BRT the evaluation and prioritization of station access projects for the ST3 System Access Fund
- Supporting the crash data and traffic analysis for SEPA Transportation Technical Report
- Led development of conceptual fixed-route networks for Community Transit, conducting system-wide market and transit need assessment, examining existing transit service performance, and estimating future available service hours based on sales tax forecast
- Participated in business development by preparing and coordinating competitive proposals, shaping project pursuit strategies, and successfully winning project work.
- Ensured project success by tracking project scope, schedule, deliverables, budget and managing risks
- Communicated project outcome and technical analyses through written reports and presentations
- Coordinated across multiple agencies and jurisdictions to ensure effective collaboration and optimal project outcome
ASSISTANT TRANSPORTATION PLANNER
Concord Engineering
Seattle
01.2016 - 03.2018
- Coordinated with Seattle City Light on signal and streetlight infrastructure design, gaining foundational utility partnership experience.
- Conducted traffic signal design, temporary signal design, and street lighting design and respective cost estimates, applying city, county, state and national design standards to relevant traffic signal and lighting designs.
- Conducted traffic analysis using Synchro for traffic impact studies and multimodal corridor projects.
Education
B.A. - Urban Planning (Community, Environment, and Planning)
University of Washington
01-2016
B.A. - Economics
University of Washington
01-2016
Skills
- Cross-functional program leadership and project management
- Policy planning and strategic planning
- Interagency partnership management with cities, transit agencies, and utilities
- People management and team culture development
- Data-informed evaluation and decision-making
- Capital-service alignment and scenario-based decision making
- Executive communication, briefing, and stakeholder alignment
Timeline
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER IV
King County Metro
02.2023 - Current
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER III
King County Metro
04.2021 - 02.2023
TRANSPORTATION PLANNER
WSP Inc.
05.2018 - 04.2021
ASSISTANT TRANSPORTATION PLANNER
Concord Engineering
01.2016 - 03.2018
B.A. - Economics
University of Washington
B.A. - Urban Planning (Community, Environment, and Planning)
University of Washington
QUALIFICATIONS
- Familiar with King County Metro guiding policies, including Strategic Climate Action Plan (SCAP), Mobility Framework, Strategic Plan, Service Guidelines, and Metro Connects
- Familiar with King County Metro’s organizational structure, operations, and decision-making structure
- Experience leading team on complex, high-visibility efforts and through uncertainty while maintaining motivation and momentum
- Experience coordinating across divisions/sections/workgroups and across agencies to align priorities and resolve conflicts
- Direct experience shaping zero-emission transition criteria, transition scenarios, and fleet/facility needs
- People and team management experience