Long Beach’s top traffic engineer — in charge of making the city’s roads safer for drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians — has left the job after more than three years. He says he was forced out.
“This wasn’t my decision to leave,” former City Traffic Engineer Paul Van Dyk said in an interview.
He declined to elaborate on the circumstances of his exit. In a follow-up statement, Van Dyk said he believes he “can more meaningfully advance shared goals of community empowerment, roadway safety, and sustainable cities” in the private sector.
In an email, a city spokesperson, Jocelin Padilla, declined to provide a reason for Van Dyk’s departure, writing that the city “does not comment on individual personnel matters or employment status.”
Until last month, Van Dyk held a crucial position at the city’s Public Works Department, responsible for overseeing the traffic engineering team, approving redesigns along major roadways like Studebaker and Anaheim, and using data to pinpoint problem areas that would benefit from safety measures like new crosswalks or lower speed limits. He also worked on a new pilot program that will soon install 18 speed cameras across the city.
Long Beach has struggled to staff its traffic engineering positions in recent years. In a memo late last year, City Manager Tom Modica wrote that the department had experienced “an unprecedented level of turnover,” noting that at one point all four of its senior traffic engineer positions were vacant. They’ve since hired three of the four.
Van Dyk, by contrast, was a long-standing employee. He worked in the city’s Traffic Engineering department since 2012, when he joined as an intern. He rose up the ranks every few years, eventually landing the top job of city traffic engineer in 2022.
His role took on increased prominence recently as the city tried to respond to a rash of fatal traffic collisions. Last year, there were 53, its highest annual toll in more than a decade.
Van Dyk said he would “rather not speculate” why city management allegedly didn’t want to retain him, but noted that a recent budget proposal to the City Council “diminished [the] internal standing” of his job.
If approved, the budget for next fiscal year would essentially split his role in two. Right now, the city is looking to hire for both of those jobs.
The new city traffic engineer’s job duties will include designing new roadway projects, adjusting speed limits and monitoring the timing of traffic signals.
A new role, traffic safety officer, would oversee the speed camera program, which the city says it expects to raise $2.5 million each year for traffic safety improvements.
The cameras have yet to be installed, but a 60-day warning period is expected to begin no later than Oct. 4, with tickets starting in early December.
Van Dyk said he’s taken a new job as director of engineering, transportation with Toole Design Group, a Maryland-based company with hundreds of employees spread throughout the United States. They specialize in any project involving “active, multimodal transportation.”
In 2025, Long Beach paid Van Dyk a salary of $178,167, according to Transparent California. His total pay and benefits were $265,695.