TMM 2 Interest List: Build Skills That Move Cities

A single stalled interchange can choke a freight corridor, slow emergency response, and make housing feel “farther away” even when it’s only five miles across town. That’s why transportation leadership isn’t a niche skill—it’s a housing-and-infrastructure skill. When project timelines slip, communities don’t just lose road capacity; they lose access to jobs, schools, healthcare, and the new housing supply everyone says they want.

This is the practical reason the Transportation Mid-Manager 2 (TMM 2) Interest List matters. It’s not just a form on a website; it’s a signal that a professional pipeline exists for the people who actually execute modernization—those who translate policy goals into procurement packages, construction phasing, stakeholder coordination, and measurable outcomes.

If you work anywhere near housing and infrastructure development, here’s the stance I’ll take: we don’t have an “infrastructure funding problem” as much as we have an “infrastructure delivery and leadership problem.” The organizations that win the next decade won’t be the ones with the flashiest plans. They’ll be the ones with mid-level leaders who can deliver.

Why a “mid-manager” list is a big deal in 2025

Mid-managers are where infrastructure strategies succeed or die. Senior leaders set vision; frontline teams build. But mid-managers do the hard translation work: budgets into schedules, environmental commitments into contract requirements, political pressure into an achievable delivery plan.

In December 2025, that translation is getting harder, not easier:

• Housing growth is colliding with constrained networks. New units without reliable corridors create “paper affordability”—rent might be lower, but time and transportation costs climb.
• Project complexity is up. Safety, climate resilience, multimodal access, utility coordination, and equity requirements are now part of the baseline.
• Public patience is down. Long construction seasons, detours, and cost overruns have made credibility fragile.

A well-run transportation agency or infrastructure developer needs leaders who can communicate clearly, manage risk, and deliver projects that keep communities functioning during construction.

A simple truth: If people can’t get to housing reliably, housing isn’t fully “available.” Transportation is housing access.

What the TMM 2 Interest List actually signals

The RSS source is a straightforward TMM 2 Interest Form: name, organization, how you heard about the program, email, and privacy consent. That simplicity is the point. An interest list reduces friction for busy professionals and gives program organizers a clean way to track demand.

But strategically, an interest list tells you three things:

1) There’s a workforce development lane for infrastructure delivery

Transportation modernization is now inseparable from workforce development. Agencies and consulting teams are competing for the same project managers, planners, and operations leaders. An interest list helps identify and shape cohorts early.

2) Your professional development can directly affect project outcomes

If you supervise a team, manage contracts, or coordinate with municipalities, your skill ceiling becomes the project’s ceiling. Strong leadership shows up as:

• fewer scope surprises
• clearer procurement documents
• faster issue resolution with utilities and permits
• better construction staging that protects local businesses
• calmer, more credible public communication

3) It’s an entry point into a network

Infrastructure work is relationship-heavy. The most effective mid-managers have a bench of peers across agencies, MPOs, transit providers, and private partners. In my experience, your network is a risk-management tool—it helps you find proven templates, avoid repeating mistakes, and build partnerships faster.

Transportation modernization that actually supports housing

Transportation gets discussed like a separate sector, but for communities trying to expand housing supply, it’s one of the main constraints. Modernization isn’t just “fix roads.” It’s aligning mobility with land use and delivery reality.

Better transport networks make housing feasible (not just approved)

A city can approve thousands of units and still fail residents if bottlenecks turn every commute into a daily negotiation. Transportation modernization supports housing by:

• expanding access to job centers (so households can live farther out without losing hours)
• improving reliability (especially for shift workers who can’t “flex” their schedules)
• reducing household transportation cost burden (a major driver of total cost of living)

Here’s a useful framework I’ve seen work for housing-and-infrastructure teams:

1. Connect housing growth areas to frequent transit and safe arterials
2. Prioritize “fix-it-first” on corridors that carry buses, freight, and school traffic
3. Stage construction to keep local businesses alive (detours can bankrupt a corridor)
4. Treat sidewalks, crossings, and bike access as core infrastructure (they’re the last half-mile to housing)

The most overlooked modernization move: operational improvements

Big capital projects matter, but agencies often get faster wins from operations:

• bus signal priority on key corridors
• transit stop consolidation + accessibility upgrades
• quick-build safety treatments at high-injury intersections
• curb management to reduce double-parking and delivery conflicts

These aren’t “small” changes when they reduce travel time variability. Reliability is what keeps housing connected to opportunity.

The skills infrastructure leaders need (and why they’re hard to learn on the job)

Transportation mid-managers often get promoted because they’re competent and dependable. Then suddenly they’re managing politics, public meetings, consultant teams, and a dozen overlapping capital programs.

The good news: most of the hardest skills are learnable, but they take intentional practice.

Program and portfolio thinking (not project tunnel vision)

If you manage one project at a time, you’ll miss how they collide—shared detours, shared contractors, shared materials, shared public tolerance.

Portfolio thinking means you can answer:

• What happens if two major corridors go under construction in the same quarter?
• Which projects share utility conflicts, and how do we sequence to reduce rework?
• Where are we most exposed to cost escalation, and what’s our mitigation plan?

Stakeholder alignment that doesn’t turn into endless meetings

Public trust is built when agencies explain tradeoffs plainly:

• what you’re building
• why it’s prioritized
• what construction pain is coming
• what success looks like in measurable terms

A mid-manager who can communicate tradeoffs reduces political churn and keeps projects moving.

Procurement and contract clarity

Many schedule disasters start as ambiguity in procurement. Clear scopes, risk allocations, and performance requirements are a leadership skill, not a legal afterthought.

If you’re working on modernization tied to housing growth, contract language should reflect reality:

• night work restrictions
• maintaining pedestrian access
• transit service continuity requirements
• business access and signage plans
• utility coordination responsibilities

Workforce management in a tight labor market

Even great plans fail with constant vacancies. Leaders need systems:

• role clarity and manageable workload
• coaching that builds bench strength
• cross-training for continuity
• realistic schedules that don’t burn out your best people

I’m opinionated here: if your delivery team is exhausted, your project schedule is fiction.

A practical “next 30 days” plan if you want to modernize delivery

Interest lists are useful, but what people really need is a short, realistic plan. Here’s one I’d use if I were stepping into a transportation mid-manager role supporting housing and infrastructure development.

Week 1: Define the corridor or program you’re responsible for

Write a one-page brief:

• purpose (what problem it solves)
• users (residents, freight, transit riders, school routes)
• constraints (utilities, right-of-way, political sensitivity)
• top 3 risks (and who owns each)

Week 2: Build a “truthful” schedule

Not optimistic. Truthful.

• identify long-lead items (permits, signals, utility relocation)
• map decision points (what must be approved, by whom, and when)
• add a public-facing construction narrative (how you’ll keep access)

Week 3: Set three measurable outcomes

Choose metrics people can feel:

• travel time reliability on the corridor
• serious-injury crash reduction target at key intersections
• transit on-time performance improvement during peak

Week 4: Start the communication cadence

Pick a cadence you can maintain:

• monthly community update
• biweekly internal risk review
• quarterly executive brief focused on decisions needed

This is how mid-managers protect projects from surprise and drift.

How to use the TMM 2 Interest List as a career and community lever

If you’re considering the TMM 2 Interest List, treat it like an early commitment device. You’re telling yourself (and your organization) that you want to grow into the kind of leader who can deliver modernization.

Here’s what works in practice:

• Ask your supervisor to sponsor the time. Tie it directly to your capital program and housing-growth priorities.
• Bring a real problem to the program. The fastest skill growth happens when you’re applying tools to live projects.
• Share learnings outward. Offer a short internal lunch-and-learn on delivery lessons, construction staging, or stakeholder playbooks.

And if you’re a director or executive reading this, here’s the blunt takeaway: sending one person to professional development isn’t the goal. Building a delivery culture is. Start with a cohort mindset.

Where this fits in the Housing & Infrastructure Development series

This series is about expanding affordable housing, modernising transport networks, and investing in national infrastructure. The connecting tissue across all of it is delivery capacity—people who can coordinate design, construction, community needs, and long-term operations.

The TMM 2 Interest List is a small step with a big implication: infrastructure modernization is a leadership discipline, not just an engineering challenge. If your community wants more housing and better mobility, someone has to be able to run the messy middle.

If you’re working on transportation infrastructure modernization and you’re tired of watching good plans die in delivery, joining an interest list is a practical move. It’s also a quiet vote for competence.

What would change in your city if every major corridor project had a mid-manager empowered to protect reliability, safety, and community access—at the same time?