Senior Advisor, GO Project Planning - Metrolinx

About This Opportunity

Metrolinx is dedicated to connecting communities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe, operating essential transit services like GO Transit and UP Express, alongside the PRESTO fare payment system. As a leading agency of the Government of Ontario, Metrolinx is actively building new and improved rapid transit infrastructure, including the extensive GO Expansion, Light Rail Transit routes, and major expansions to Toronto’s subway system, all designed to enhance how people travel, making it better, faster, and easier.

The Planning team at Metrolinx is seeking a Senior Advisor, GO Project Planning to provide critical subject matter expertise. This role is central to the development, refinement, and scoping of plans and options within the GO portfolio, encompassing vital rail, stations, and bus projects. If you're looking for Metrolinx jobs that make a real impact on public transit, this opportunity allows you to contribute to a dynamic and expanding network.

Your Day-to-Day Responsibilities

As a Senior Advisor, GO Project Planning, you will apply your advanced skills and experience across the entire project lifecycle, from initial planning and design to scoping, delivery, and operations. Your contributions will be vital in shaping the future of transit service across the Metrolinx network.

• Provide Planning subject matter expertise during all stages of the project lifecycle, including during planning, design, scoping, delivery, and operations.
• Deploy advanced skills and experience to plan across one or more of the following scales of infrastructure and service development: market, network, project/corridor/route, station/stop, or station area.
• Lead technical quantitative and qualitative analysis to inform problem/opportunity statements, options analysis, and business cases.
• Provide ongoing insight on performance and emerging trends to inform current issues, future project development, and investment decisions.
• Analyse how scope and design choices impact project performance, including horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, termini, and number of stations/stops.
• Lead complex planning studies, including option development, trade-off assessment, and recommendations related to stations, corridors, services, and network investments.
• Build and maintain relationships with key internal partners across the organisation to assess and integrate other project considerations into planning, evaluation, and business case analysis.
• Assess the benefits, costs, risks, opportunities, and operational implications of service and infrastructure investments across the GO Transit network.
• Develop, manage, and execute workplans delegated by People Leaders, Senior Managers, and Directors.
• Evaluate how service, infrastructure, station access, land use, and operational assumptions influence project and network performance outcomes.
• Monitor project and network performance trends and translate technical findings into actionable insights that inform future project development and investment decisions.
• Apply standard operating procedures, templates, and reporting frameworks to ensure consistency and quality of outputs.

Qualifications for Success

To excel in this Senior Advisor role, you will bring a combination of education, experience, and a deep understanding of transportation planning and transit operations. Your expertise will be crucial in guiding complex project initiatives within the Metrolinx network.

• Demonstrated experience in transportation planning and/or engineering, or demonstrated ability to contribute to large, complex projects within a multi-stakeholder environment.
• Experience planning, evaluating, or developing commuter rail, passenger rail, rapid transit, or Class 1 freight railway infrastructure and service projects.
• Completion of a degree in Engineering, Urban and Regional Transportation Planning, or a related discipline – or a combination of education, training and experience deemed equivalent.
• Understanding of rail operations, service planning, corridor constraints, station operations, and the interaction between infrastructure and service outcomes.
• Experience delivering transit planning analyses across market assessment, network and corridor planning, service planning, station access, multimodal integration, and transit-oriented land use planning.
• Experience using travel demand forecasts provided by colleagues to advance project design or planning.
• Ability to independently lead planning analyses and studies, balancing multiple assignments while ensuring accuracy, technical rigour, and timely delivery of work products.
• Understanding of contemporary transportation issues affecting provincial, municipal, and community stakeholders.
• Experience with project evaluation methodologies, transit project business case processes, and policy development processes.
• Planning, research, analysis, and problem-solving skills to advise senior leaders on potentially sensitive or contentious issues.

Even if your past experience doesn’t align with every qualification, Metrolinx encourages you to apply. We are always seeking great talent to join our team and you might be the right candidate for this or other Metrolinx careers.

Why You'll Love It Here

At Metrolinx, equity, diversity, and inclusion are fundamental to our values of serving with passion, thinking forward, and playing as a team. We believe a diverse workforce strengthens our ability to connect communities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

We actively invite all interested individuals to apply and strongly encourage applications from members of equity-deserving communities. This includes those who identify as Indigenous, Black, racialized, women, people with disabilities, and people with diverse gender identities, expressions, and sexual orientations.

Metrolinx is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce. We are also dedicated to offering reasonable accommodation to job applicants in accordance with applicable legislation throughout the hiring process.