Karla Avis-Birch is Metrolinx's Chief Planning Officer
February 26, 2021
In a heavily male-dominated field, Karla Avis-Birch is making waves.
The civil engineer was recently appointed Metrolinx’s Chief Planning officer, replacing Trinidad-born Leslie Woo who, last September, became CivicAction’s Chief Executive Officer.
The daughter of immigrants from Trinidad & Tobago, Avis-Birch is proud to be given the opportunity to build on her executive leadership and award-winning multi-million dollar project delivery experience.
She is responsible for the Planning, Design and Sponsorship departments.
“This group really is about building and planning for robust, practical and long-term planning solutions for our projects and service for communities across the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area (GTHA),” Avis-Birch said.
“The planning team, in particular, is dealing with business case analysis, data analytics and really working with communities around ridership projection and what are the transit needs of those communities and working with the local transit service providers as well. On the design side, we are focusing on architectural design, accessibility, sustainability and making sure that the infrastructure that we design not only supports the community but has a good value proposition and that the functionality and the customer experience is one that matches the service levels and transit options that we are working with communities on.”
The sponsorship team, said Avis-Birch, is using data and analysis to ensure projects are delivered and managed in a way that has ‘end-to-end perspective in mind’.
“At the end of the day, they are the ones that shepherd the overall benefits of the projects to ensure that what we plan to do and what we organize, structure and procure to do actually ends up being what we own and operate and what we translate to good service products over the region,” she pointed out.
Since joining the Crown agency nearly 16 years ago, Avis-Birch has made a significant impact at Metrolinx.
She established the first Project Controls & Standards Design office, collaborated with Infrastructure Ontario on the procurement of public-private partnerships projects and was accountable for the delivery of new stations as part of the transformational GO Expansion and Market Driven Strategy programs.
In her role as Vice President, Go Stations Capital Delivery for 32 months before her most recent elevation, Avis-Birch led an integrated team of business, technical and consulting professionals to deliver a multi-million dollar asset portfolio.
She was actively engaged in the SmartTrack program that leverages the provincial government investment in the GO Expansion Program that provides additional transit choices and supports growth and city building.
“With Metrolinx as the transit agency, I was able to be part of building the transit solutions around those stations and helping them move towards procurement,” said Avis-Birch who received her Professional Engineer designation in 2001. “They are still in the planning stages right now, but we continue to work with the City and other approval agencies to move those programs along. In my capacity as VP, we are in market right now for the Caledonia GO Station which is more of a hub and integrated station with the Eglinton-Crosstown Rapid Transit Station that’s under construction. Another thing I am proud of in that capacity is what we are doing in terms of existing station renovations where we are touching over 24 across our network to really improve our customer experience and bring digital signage to our network which we don’t have right now.”
Construction delays on the Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit construction has created a nightmare for residents and business owners, many of whom have been forced to close their stores.
The 19-kilometre rapid transit line is expected to open sometime next year.
Avis-Birch understands the frustration.
“I don’t have a direct involvement in those projects, but I do know that our planning team before I joined and even our Capital projects team are integral and working directly with the community on understanding those impacts,” she said. “Our community engagement sessions and our communications and other teams are working to understand those impacts. We are listening and where there are adjustments to be made and where they are possible, we have made them and we continue to work and monitor and make sure that the overall benefit of the line which is getting more people to more places, opening up more opportunities to travel across the GTHA maintains the core of why we deliver more options around transit.”
Engineering wasn’t Avis-Birch’s first career choice.
Born in Montreal to parents who now reside in Florida, she wanted to be a lawyer.
“When I dug into it and found that lawyering required a lot of reading, I decided that wasn’t for me as I hated to read,” she said. “I fell back on the fact that I love solving big problems, solutioning and math which I understood well and that led me to understand that sciences is where I wanted to be in. I knew I wanted a career and not a job.”
After a year in the Building Science program at Concordia University, Avis-Birch moved to Toronto and completed a degree in Civil Engineering at Ryerson University in 1998.
She entered Ryerson in 1993, the same year that it was granted university status.
“Having left Montreal starting something that wasn’t a fit for me, I was determined and refused that I wasn’t going to succeed,” Avis-Birch noted. “At Ryerson, I got real practical experience, I met new people and I was invigorated to make an impact.”
She co-launched the National Society of Black Engineers Canada.
“I credit Ryerson for giving me the opportunity to be part of that and really grow into my own a little bit,” she said. “That was my first experience at organizing and trying to understand my place in the industry. I also got to make friends with students who had jobs moving around dirt or driving a backhoe and really understand the business of building, whether it be road, bridges or pavements. That university was the place where I was on my own for the first time and I was able to see different people and get different experiences in the actual field that was of interest to me.”
While women make up more than half of Canada’s population, they are significantly under-represented in engineering education and the profession.
Much needs to be done to change that narrative and Avis-Birch is playing her part.
“When you don’t see yourself in certain spaces, it’s hard to even imagine it’s something you want to pursue or that you will even be accepted in,” the former Women in Transportation Seminars Toronto chapter Past President said. “I am proud to be part of employee resource groups that are championing that particular effort around bringing into the fold more women and young girls interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) overall, but really engineering and construction where those career paths can lead. I also think that we don’t necessarily advertise the benefits or opportunities of working in engineering.
“When I graduated, I was asked a lot times if I was going to build a bridge or road. I didn’t really want to understand what the size of a beam for a bridge was. I knew I wanted to transform communities and I definitely knew I wanted to bring that creative mindset and problem solving to solving what people feel and touch and do every day. That’s really what I think needs to be done to get more women not only aware, but interested and be able to thrive in the business of engineering careers.”
To acquire community experience outside her work space, Avis-Birch was a TAIBU Board member for nearly three years.
TAIBU was established in 2008 to provide quality and culturally appropriate primary health care and related services to the Black communities in the Greater Toronto Area as its priority population and Malvern residents.
“It was the first time I had been on a Board and it was done to give pure service to my community,” she pointed out. “I really wanted to demonstrate that I had something to provide outside my day job. Out of that experience, I got a deeper understanding of some of the needs for community health care. I joined at a time when the building was under construction, so I was able to provide some of my expertise in that area. TAIBU, however, gave me back more than I would ever have given. I didn’t understand the health care industry in that way and how different communities have different needs.”
Since 2017, Avis-Birch has been on the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority Board of Directors overseeing the construction of the six-lane cable-stayed Gordie Howe Bridge across the Detroit River.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2024.
“My role there is to help support the management team in delivering that massive project,” she said. “The project is large and complex, but they are making good strides as evidenced by the updates I get.”
Avis-Birch, who is married, has two sons.
The eldest is 21 and pursuing Biotechnology Studies at McMaster University while the youngest is in high school.
“These are two young men who I am very proud to see grow into people who are kind, generous and want to serve and be productive citizens,” she added.
