Alison (Henning) Voigt ’18 stands on the Beaver Island Trail, one of the many she works with in the area as a transportation planner for the Saint Cloud Area Planning Association.
Alison (Henning) Voigt ’18 is passionate about her community and how people go about getting from one place to the other. In her short time since graduating from St. Cloud State, she has made an impact around the Greater St. Cloud area by working to make transportation safe and accessible for all.
As a transportation planner for the Saint Cloud Area Planning Organization (APO), her work drives policy and decision making for our roads, highways, bridges, trails, crosswalks and sidewalks located in the communities of Benton, Sherburne and Stearns Counties.
Voigt, a graduate of Tech High School, earned her bachelor’s degree in geography with a minor in planning and community development. With other career paths in mind when she began at St. Cloud State, she took an urban planning course with Professor David Wall, where he highlighted how we can impact the future and make changes for the betterment of communities.
She enjoyed learning about the built environment and how policy can affect change.
According to Professor Wall, a common thread in Urban Planning (GEOG 394) is whether or not the actions planners are engaged in would be classified as reactive planning, reacting and trying to solve something that has become a problem, or anticipatory planning, trying to anticipate future problems and take actions now.
Wall recalls Voigt made the most of the class. “Alison was always in class, always positive, always ready to participate,” he said.
Voigt couldn’t do what she does today without the skills and knowledge she gained while at St. Cloud State. She describes the Department of Geography and planning as “knowledgeable, caring, understanding, and efficient” and attributes her success mostly to her professors and the hands-on experience she received.
Planning and Community Development professor Luis Estevez served as Voigt’s advisor. Estevez said Voigt distinguished herself as a self-driven and self-motivated student.
Alison (Henning) Voigt ’18 on the Beaver Island Trail.
“Probably a common thread that inspired her and inspired me was that our relationship was driven for having the in mind the best interest of her as a student and her classmates,” said Estevez. “Alison looked out not only for herself, but also for her peers.”
In addition to being active in her classroom studies, Voigt completed an internship at St. Cloud Metro Bus as a marketing intern. While it wasn’t in her field on study, she gained a general knowledge about transportation and the community she wanted to work for some day.
“Reading the material is important, but applying it makes it stick,” said Voigt.
The Saint Cloud APO is small, but mighty, with a staff of five. The team works together to create and fulfill federally mandated documents such as: The Metropolitan Transportation Plan; Transportation Improvement Program; Stakeholder Engagement Plan; and the Unified Planning Work Program.
Working alongside local mayors and other public officials who serve on the APO Policy Board, they also create other plans such as Safe Routes to School, Active Transportation, and Performance Measure.
Active transportation is beneficial to the community because it provides environmental sustainability, is affordable, can boost a local economy, and improves physical health.
Two cyclists enjoy the Beaver Island bike trail near campus. The Beaver Island Trail is one of many the Saint Cloud APO monitors and studies.
One of Voigt’s current projects is an active transportation plan for the area, collecting data to outline what the current infrastructure is in the community and what gaps need to be filled.
“This plan is important for all community members. It will show how to get around without a motor vehicle and hopefully show the connections needed for active transportation users to live in the Saint Cloud APO region harmoniously among other transportation users,” Voigt said.
Voigt gets to experience her work when she commutes on her bike in the summer – Centennial Drive to the Highway 15 pedestrian bridge to connect to the healthy living trail and finally to County Road 4 to the APO building.
She understands that many people do not feel comfortable riding alongside traffic and wants to fill in the gaps that are missing.
“All users should have the opportunity to commute using active transportation regardless of their comfort level and riding ability.”
Voigt also had a hand in the local Safe Routes to School planning. In 2018, District 742 teamed up with the Saint Cloud APO with a MnDOT Planning Assistance Grant to gather data and draft plans to make getting to school safer for students.
Five site-specific schools in either densely populated neighborhoods or with high ratio of students who qualified for free and reduced lunch were selected within District 742. Meetings, conversations and planning soon followed.
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With this project, Voigt was able to get out into the community and study the areas around the selected schools. Data on crosswalk distance, traffic speeds, ADA compliance, traffic signals, among others were collected, analyzed and turned into recommendations.
That data was then put into a map to illustrate, visually, where potential improvements were located.
Voigt finds the politics involved in her work one of the most interesting things so far – beyond what she would experience as a citizen.
“It’s hard not to be an advocate for the community, but in this line of work, the APO’s job is to research and inform our elected officials so they can make multi-million dollar transportation decisions,” Voigt said.
She hopes the work she is doing will allow the St. Cloud area continue to develop into a well-managed metropolitan hub for the future.
