TRU - The State of Transit 2024, first hour (in-person recording)

12:50AM Jan 31, 2024

Speakers:

Keywords:

transit

state

region

work

michigan

bus

support

corridors

year

advocates

making

part

transit agencies

detroit

people

rail

build

mobilize

funding

legislators

Let's continue to do this important work. So first, we would love to be able to decide in the hands foundation for the generalist, our generalist chin, going 20 plus years support a church. Thank you so very much. We also like to thank the fourth and Greenlining Foundation, the jam foundation as we are subgrantees through the reach to the ramp network, and also the Energy Foundation. We also like the site, the site was the Office of Economic Development at Tech town, it goes through the Wednesday Office of Economic Development here at Ted Turner, thank you all so much, you all know this beautiful when you

come in and you see this, I want to tell them thank you for continuing support through through in kind donations like this. And then also, last but not least, we want to thank you. This much we have this work is funded through generous donations on the philanthropic sector, institutions, lifeline state and tech town, it is not for it would not be this work would not be possible without the generous donation of our members of our supporters. So if you donated $5, to 1000s of dollars, each one of those dollars made a difference in allowing for us to be able to find civic engagement work that allowed us to be able to do the incredible work that Joelle and the team does. And on our transit Tuesday Talks, the last recipe has to do all the things in terms of just getting the newsletter out and making sure that you are aware, of course, critical trends and critical legislative changes and updates that are happening. And it also helps to be able to fund the advocacy work that we do here. And last but not least, before I get off at this stage, I do want to take a moment to be able to recognize three amazing supporters of true who unfortunately passed away last year. But they're indelible impacts on the work of truth, their passion for transit advocacy, within their within our group region is something that deserves to be paid attention. So I just want to ask for a moment of silence, as we recognize the lives of these three major transit advocates who are onto something rather times MP James Baker is our genius bar. In our cleaners, forgive me, my old eyes here, we'll take just a moment of silence.

Thank you. Now to move us along on the program, I'm going to introduce our incredible powerful, I would I would dare to say one of the most one powerful women in transit in the state making.

All right, let's get rolling with this event. So we have a powerful agenda planned for you tonight. We have two very esteemed panels of both state policymakers, as well as leaders of our transit agencies. We're going to hear some bus rider perspectives. We've got a little bit of true business to get through to get through electing some excellent new board members. And we'll talk about ways to get involved. We, unfortunately are going to have time for audience questions. But I really want to invite everybody. If you're on social media, then share your thoughts. What is your opinion on the state of transit tag at Detroit transit, and hashtag state of transit? And and let us know. So let's see if my clicker is working. I never can tell. I had to take a few minutes to talk through what is the state of transit which really believes that everyone should be able to get where they need to go. And that's why we educate, advocate and mobilize for more and better public transportation throughout the greater Detroit area. What is more in better transit really mean? I'm sure our transit providers here 100 different demands every day for very different things. And we'll all irrelevant not everything's equally essential. Just like true has to prioritize what we hope fight for I started thinking about the hierarchy of needs. You'll I guess Yeah, we all seen this. We all need food, water, shelter, and then we need safety than love and dignity and to truly be fulfilled personal growth and beauty. Well I developed transit hierarchy of needs to communicate that some of that same kind of Set. First, transit must be available in a community to be physically and financially accessible to everyone, then it needs to be reliable, safe and time. Once those are achieved, it needs to be compressed, it should really be convenient, something that works in your life that's frequent that's available where and when you need it. Good transit, very good transit is also attractive, something that's got fast service and dedicated lanes and comfortable shelters. The very best transit is preferable to driving in many cases with premium high speed service, integrated payments. Interesting part. Other features ideally, every transit system would have all of these features. But we know that the base pieces are the most essential and our region has been making some important progress in these areas. Transit is finally available in communities like Novi Wixom, and elsewhere in Oakland. So a huge bravo to the elected officials, the campaign volunteers and the voters who made that treatment.

Next up, as services can be expanding into Rochester and beyond smarts also working to pave the stops around pave around those steps to make trains make sure transit is truly accessible for everyone. And then maybe it's time to take on the gaps in Wayne County. Reliability has been the biggest struggle in terms of reliability both here and nationwide transit agencies have struggled to, to since the pandemic and even more recently to really hit all of their scheduled service largely due to a driver shortage. That's been our region's biggest barrier for more than a year and it's one that true has worked really hard to to to counter with our state of save our service report. A couple of rallies hundreds of riders mobilized and we're starting to see some real progress sorry, trying to get these mics loud enough but not blow your way. Do you not because made some substantial progress in their paratransit making it more reliable for the most vulnerable in our community. The q1 has improved its reliability with a dedicated transit lane and enhanced signal timing. We also applaud Mayor Duggan and council for raising driver wages for DDOT.

Whether that will be enough remains to be seen, but it's a critical step in the right direction. And smart is also in in active negotiations for a major wage increase potentially the highest in the stage. But we're still no word on when $30.

And that wasn't just one of the activists that this was someone from smart. That wasn't just the national ration. These wage increases really should be enough to attract more drivers make it a more competitive job enabling truly reliable bus service so riders don't have to wait around in the cold anymore, not knowing if their bus is going to show up. We're also seeing some improvement. We're also seeing some improvements in convenience, the Detroit Ann Arbor Express versus Rite Aid. With more than a dozen trips a day it's a really convenient way to connect these two cornerstones of our region heck get some larger staffing every week. Dean adds also enhancing the Jefferson route to provide frequencies that will really work around people's lives as opposed to working. And people having to work their lives around the bus schedule. And we want you to have a chance to see some really attractive transit, RTA club pilot and a long sought after AirPort Express. Oh, come on now looks like there's gonna go. The Airport Express could truly be a truly high quality high serve with a high demand service connecting between downtown and the airport. And that's just a sampling of some of the progress that has been made. We certainly still have more work to do in this region. But I deeply believe the transit agencies are doing everything within their budgets to make to do the best they can't lead your barriers still remain. I know this is this chart is not new or shocking to anyone who's been around true for a while our region continues to spend just 1/3 of what most major metropolitan areas spend on transit. And you're never going to have a truly world class transit system. If your funding is declining, both local and state dollars have been declining. And we've really got to turn that around. per state for decades, the state has either not been funding transportation, or has been putting it almost exclusively into roads, and neglecting transit that can and that must change. Yes.

That is why true has been fighting for for more than 20 years for more and better transit. In addition to bringing riders and leaders and activists together like this true works in three primary ways. We educate the public and decision makers, stakeholders in the media, about the need for and solutions to transit. We really use our network of writers and allies, and do research into the best practices in transit, to develop concrete policy solutions, and then the advocate for those solutions to the policymakers that can make them happen. And we mobilize is we can't do this alone. We've got a lot of amazing partners in this room are most effective when we bring support our voices together around meaningful solutions. So over the past year, yes, there we go. True. True educated. Not only our transit Tuesday Talks, I know a lot of folks were out too. But our research reports or policy, white papers news coverage, we've advocated for especially a boost in state transit funding. We helped legislative breakfast we brought groups up to the Capitol, we mobilized 1000s of people to speak out to their legislators. And with help with from some of the legislative champions we have here. We won the biggest transit investment in our state's history last year. So that was really exciting. Thank you.

Eric, and we mobilized bus riders, drivers and others, just other supporters to really push smart and data and the decision makers to resolve this notion of us crisis, and boost driver rages through rallies, media stories, constantly speaking out at sea and smart meetings, transit leaders have now all acknowledge that driver pay must be increased to be truly competitive. And we've got even more planned for this coming here. We are absolutely going to be educating, we're going to focus on the key role the transit plays as a climate solution as what the region and the state develop climate action plans in the next two months, and decide how to spend 10s, or maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars. While also educate about the role of transit in tourism in making Michigan a more attractive place and a more affordable place. For people to live and work, transit has got to be a part of that solution. We will absolutely continue to advocate and working with our legislative champions here and across the state to make sure the state continues to provide for those transit investments and develops a long term funding solution to ensure the state is investing in the transit, we know is so important and will continue to mobilize. We started arranging and mobilizing our members to arrange meetings with their legislators to talk transit. We're working with a great network of organizations to develop policy solutions to get MDOT and state transportation that is part of the solution, as opposed to part of a climate crisis. And we're launching a friend's a transit network. We know there's a ton of organizations, institutions and businesses who all agree that transit is very important. Well, we want to be here your transit advisor. We won't we'll keep you updated. We'll give you meaningful opportunities to get involved. Metro Detroit didn't get to this point in transportation where we are now overnight, and we won't solve it overnight either. But with dedicated legislative champions, hard working transit advocates, agency leaders and all the riders advocates and activists working together collaboratively. This could be an incredible year and the start of a transportation system that truly does work for everyone to get where they need to go. So that's my perspective on the state of transit. Over the next 90 minutes you'll hear from another 12 plus people bus for fighters, agency leaders, state policymakers. And again, we'd love your your input on social media, hashtag safe transit. Now, before I wrap up and move on to the next pieces of our night, I want to make sure to take a brief moment to introduce some truly amazing staff. Unfortunately, Joe Batterman, and clear null and void that many of you know, we're both out on medical leave. But if you haven't, Petra is our awesome new design specialists working hard tonight to make sure to manage all of our AV and make sure everyone tuning in from home, can can follow along. So thank you. Thank you, Petra, for all that baby.

We've got a powerhouse team of outreach and engagement, folks, Thomas and Aaron Lucas. We're all out on the least part time connecting through the community and mobilizing more and more people to be involved in transit, and couldn't do it without Dan freer, choose Assistant Director of Partnerships manager and in my right hand in an awful lot of things. So I'd like to invite Deb up for a few minutes before we move on. Thank you.

Well, we did a lot of work last year. Where do you got your nose to the grindstone, you don't look up and you see all the work that you've done. But spending all that time getting people together. And trying to get people to see eye to eye and to agree on things. Anybody that's worked in public policy knows that that's not an easy thing to do. bringing everybody together to make something happen. And I am very fortunate to be able to work with Megan, she just pushes on through and she makes things happen. And I'm very, very honored to be able to work with her to make public transit. Better in our community. And in our state. Ultimately, we do work in the Detroit areas. But of course, our work state takes us to the state legislatures, and it affects a lot of the seven h ones at agencies here in Michigan. And all that work takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort and putting events on like this does cost a little bit of money these days. So we are so grateful to all of you for being here, and supporting troops work. And to all of our virtual attendees who have supported us as well. Megan talked about the great volunteers, we got a great, a great number of board members that really care about the work that we're doing, as well as the elected officials that we work with, and the writers who are amazing. I'll tell you what they turn out for Earth Day like nobody's business. And we're just so blessed to have them. We've got a lot of a lot more work to do. And I think everybody in the room knows that. So I would just ask you to please keep us in mind when you're doing your personal giving, and maybe set like a calendar reminder once a month to call your legislator and say, Hey, what's going on with public transit? I know that I started doing that. And boy do I know my legislators and they know me.

So thank you all again very much for coming tonight. And please, if you find our work valuable, if you see the progress that we're making, please continue to support our work. We are working very hard to grow true over the next three years. That is the stated goal by our board and we need more phenomenal people. And we need to attract the best talent by also offering a for good living wages. So anything that you can do to help us out would be greatly appreciated. And thank you so much for all the things that you already do. Thank you so much.

Okay

Good evening everyone. So great to see some familiar and new faces to me here tonight. So welcome. My name is Greg Jacobs. I am a board member at true. And my day job is the Manager of Community Relations at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital out Macomb County. at Henry Ford, our vision of the future includes a robust public transit system as a component of our Healthy Communities, a system that is accessible, reliable, and equitable. And that is part of our vision. That vision is also a part is shared by our panelists today. And I have the honor of introducing them. So they are at their places. Right. Thank you. So, first, we have that first, but we have Senator Valerie Powell, who represents much of Southeast Oakland County and northeast Detroit and serves as the Senate Majority Whip. She's the Chair of the Senate economic and community development committee, and also serves on the oversight elections and appropriations committees. Regardless of having worked in either design and marketing. She strongly values transit, as vital to great communities. So please welcome Senator Mark.

A state senator Jeff Irwin represents Ann Arbor and southern Washington County. He chairs the housing and Human Services Committee, and the Great Lakes and the environment Budget Committee, while also serving on seven other committees up here please. For decades, he's been a fearless fighter for public education, environmental, environmental protection and public transit. Thank you for joining us senator.

We are also joined by Representative Jason Morgan, who represents an hour Northeast Washington County and parts of Oakland and Wayne downers. Vice Chair of the transportation budget committee. This up native has become a tireless champion of public transportation, leading the charge to get record state funding for transit and last year's budget. And he's just getting rolling.

Here we also have representative Donovan McKinney.

extra special thanks for being here tonight. He is about to become a new father not yet but he's on the clock right now in

our photo residency.

He represents northeast Detroit mile neighborhood where I grew up standing in a mile road and parts of Warren. He's been long committed to mentoring youth fighting for good jobs and climate solutions that benefit everyone so welcome.

We call that legislative power. We're also pleased to be joined by Sam collodion, Director of the Michigan infrastructure office, Governor Whitmer. Whitmer appointed him with the enormous task of maximizing federal investment and Michigan's infrastructure, and making sure it is wisely spent. So we're so pleased to have him tonight to

easily fill the rest of the night with these experts in their wisdom, but we only have 25 minutes to hear from them. So we will be moderated by Truus fearless leader Meghan Owens. So I will turn it over to Megan in our panel. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I know each and every one of you is a transit champion in in various ways. So any dollar been listened to me plenty. I know folks want to hear from you. Why don't you could you get share with us for a moment? Why is transit important to you personally? I was told make sure to keep them like close to home.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So for me personally, you know, I lived in New York City for 10 years, and I understand how incredible it is to be able to walk out of your house and affordably access your job or a doctor's appointment or whatever the case may be. And ultimately, I think every person in Michigan at least deserves that chance, right? Like not everyone is going to decide, hey, I want to live in Ann Arbor. I want to live in the city of Detroit, but you want to be able to afford a life like that if you want one. So that's why I think it's important

Weiss transit important to me, like Zach, I have lived all over the country, I lived in five states. And it is really hard to explain to people who've never experienced personally, how freeing it is to live in a place that has a robust public transit system where you can get around at all hours of the day, you don't have to own a car if you don't want to, and pay for insurance and take it to the shop when it gets dented. It is imperative that we provide that opportunity here in Michigan when I ran for office for the first time back in 2018. You can imagine I look like this now. When is the middle of the summer and I have a baseball cap on and a backpack. People think I'm 12. And I would knock on people's doors. And they would say you remind me a lot of my daughter left. Why did you come back? And how can we keep my kids here and a lot of it is making sure that we create a connected Metro Detroit region from the city to the suburbs so people can get around, enjoy the city get to their jobs and build careers here.

Senator Rick Murad, I think both are often mistaken for high schoolers. Everyone says we'll enjoy that one day 34, we'll see. But for me, when I think about transit, I think most folks think of buses, trains, those types of things. But for me, when I think about transit, I think about people, I think what the people who need public transit to go about their daily lives, and to get to the places they need to get, I think about folks taking a bus to their job, so that they can earn a modest paycheck to take care of their kids. And they both elderly folks who might take a bus to the doctor, or to get health care that they need. I think of young people who might take the bus to school or to vote on a night for an ID trade, or to see family or loved ones. I think about the people who are utilizing those buses and trains and any other form of transit. And I think about how important it is that we are connecting people to the outside world and to their communities. That is what transit is about. Transit is about the people of our state, and connecting them to every other thing in the world that they want to access, and that they need access. And so that's what I think about when I think about transit. And so the idea that we still have to make the argument for why transit is important, is still frustrating to me, because I tell people all the time, young people want transit, young people want transit. And frankly, all people want to transit. It seems like everyone tends to agree on this concept. But to actually prioritize it is a different question. So I'll stop there. But I am just so incredibly passionate about transit, because it's about the people who we're working to get to where they need to go. Thanks.

Reps point and the senators point. When I'm thinking about transit, I think about freedom. But more importantly, reliability and predictability and making sure you're able to plan out your life. And so I share this story with you guys real quick. Well, one quick point, the fast growing population in the state of Michigan right now is 85. Or, and so you know, we're losing population when it comes to pretty much 25 on down, and a lot of us things from our transit issues and inefficiencies. And for me growing up in the northeast side of Detroit, near Santa Monica and I, you know, going to high school was a challenge because I didn't go to my neighborhood High School, because schools at the time, you know, had this issues. They're developing new plans for it now. And hopefully schools are becoming better in the neighborhoods, but I went to attend a renaissance High School, which is on the opposite side of the city in northwest Detroit. And the buses never ran literally on seven months. So we will have to walk me and my cousin who will walk from Selma VanDyke to the state fair transit center on Woodward. Just Just think about this morning, Clifford, right, between seven and eight mile run off the state fair. And I would take the eight mile bus to Northland WA, which is you know, near a monolith Greenfield and lockdown Greenfield so Renaissance which is on how to drive and reason. And so it would take me two and a half hours to get to school every single day. Up to about two and a half hours to get home. And so I knew growing up, you know, I always loved the bus. But most of that time spent was just waiting, waiting. And so you know, I'm all in support. And that's why I joined the transit cause caucus with the co chairs, Brett Morgan and Right Livelihood falls in the audience. Basically, as

a district a polite, we need to do better. And I haven't really heard, I mean, a person thinks his investments have been buses. I mean, we're trying to do everything we can, but we have to do more. This is how we're going to keep our younger generation from moving out. So I'll pass it on to our friend, Senator,

thank you representative, I'm not gonna be able to beat that represent the end of the story is strapped on us. But I'll get my answer. And I just very simply, when I was a local official, and now as a state official, my job is trying to make the community I represent the state that I live in the best possible place for people now and people in the future. And that's literally what we should be doing. And so when I was first elected back in local government, one of the first things I did is to start to look around, I travel around the world, like many of my colleagues and travel around the country, and we look around we say, the Detroit Metro Area has all these things going for, you know, you can make the long list excluding weather, and but you know, the one of the big gaping holes, has been transit, for my entire life, the most important thing that we could do to bring this region together and to grow this region economically has been transit, and we have failed time and time again, to get it done. And it's not because of a lack of good ideas. It's because of a lack of political will. So I decided that I was gonna apply my political will to trying to try to change that. And, you know, I think it's as simple as this. When you connect people, good things happen. Good things happen socially. Places good things happen. Good things happen socially. Good things happen culturally, good things happen economically. And here we are in Southeast Michigan, which is still Unfortunately, one of the most segregated regions in the entire country. Transit could help with that. And our lack of training, that's a big reason why people are stuck in cycles of poverty right now. So trends is important social, it's also important culturally, and we talk a lot about economics. And sometimes we forget about the jobs and the joy that comes from cultural development that comes from Arts and Sciences, nightclub, nightclubs, you know, people going out and enjoying music or painting or ice skating, and recreation, all these kinds of things that people enjoy to make their lives better. Transit connects them to that. And it's also incredibly important economically, we've been talking about our own development lanes and a lot of the course of last year, it's been a huge focus of this administration. And my goal is that we continue the progress we've been making, by taking transit and making that a key component of our economic development strategy in Michigan, because it is the key missing component right now.

Excellent. And that was actually a great segue, talking about political will. Well, transit is obviously a very vocal issue, in many ways. And state plays a really vital role in both funding and guiding transportation throughout the state was hoping each of you could share one or maybe two things that you're working on that might help improve or expand transit throughout the state.

I'll give two really quick ones, one, just in my local area, because I think a lot of this gets very, very tactical, I'm trying to work with the State Department of Transportation and the local officials to make sure that when we rebuild Washington Avenue, we do it in a way where we don't end up with a stroke, with a road that doesn't contribute to our community and then stand up with a Thruway that grows the economics and allows more people to interact with it. At the state level. I'm working on legislation to try to fix our Regional Transit Authority legislation. Now I was

so has ideas about how we should do that to communicate with me, but right now, I'm really focused on fixing one of the one of the problems with that legislation. So I was there in Lansing as a state representative when that bill was passed, I believe was fall of 2012. And when it was passed, there was a provision put in there that basically makes it impossible for us to have rail here in southeast Michigan. Now, you know, I think that if we're going to have a transit system, it should be a balanced system and we shouldn't that's in the types of modes that make sense. And that might be extendable and might make sense in different areas. But because we have that prohibition or basic prohibition, a supermajority required for investing in anything rail that just takes that off the table completely, it takes an option off the table for our region. And I just think that's a mistake.

My district covers the VanDyke corridor, mainly going through northeast Detroit, Warren centerline touches Sterling Heights. And so I have this idea that I've been pitching to the county commissioners, county execs, the mayors of the cities, to connect that VanDyke corridor because it connects three of the top four most populous cities across Michigan, one of you know, Sterling Heights, and the fourth largest more to be the third largest Victoria, being largest. And one of the things that we're working on too, was this big iron Bill trail, right, this state trail that goes across all the north side of Michigan, all the way to the west side into our area, and it's coming down VanDyke. And so there's always going to be work on, you know, making sure that we create those bike lanes and create those walkways and pathways. But why not make sure that people can easily walk down and path and also build maybe some bus rapid transit, maybe some rail, I'm not sure. But we're trying to figure out the cause of all of them. And know, the biggest focus is, you know, fixing the damn roads. But in reality, roles aren't just what we need to be fixing and prioritizing. We need to do a lot more than just fixing the roads, we need to make sure that people are connected, and they are able to get down these corridors, especially in cross county. Because you know, that I believe that a pilot was no longer a border. And I'm gonna be honest, you know, there, we have this redistricting process and all that I can't speak too much on that part. But one of the good things about redistricting that has happened, it created an environment where we're all in rooms together, that has probably never had not been in the history of these districts. They're crossing, you know, commercial corridors and bringing people together and having these conversations talking about, hey, you know what, you were in Macomb County, you know what, as you went, we all went to Detroit lands. We all went, it's not Detroit vs. Everybody suburbs versus Detroit. This is one reason we need to figure out ways to come together. And so you know, I'm Oh. This is this is one of my passions. And, you know, I'm supporting us in our own way in a lot of initiatives, but then I pour it or it hopefully comes to fruition that comes to light, because there's going to be a lot of good things that come from it. So I'll pass on a red word.

I think red McKinney makes some really excellent point about these new districts bringing folks together, the district that they want, and in Arbor, downtown Ann Arbor, previously was only in the city of Ann Arbor. I now have downtown Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan and parts of Wayne and Oakland counties. So it's surprising and the process to see that district change so much. But it's been amazing, because I get to be part of the Wayne County delegation, the Oakland County delegation work with folks in this region. And think about things in a much broader policy and budget focused way that isn't just siloed into our own individual districts. This is about helping our entire region of their entire state. Frankly, that's how we should all operate in the first place where we're not just thinking about ourselves or our individual city that we live in, but all of our communities in the state. So there are two big things that I've been working on. And this has been the thing that I've been most passionate about, as a legislator, Representative equality are organizing a transit caucus. We're very excited about that. We have 36 Members of the Legislature including all three folks up here, along with me that have signed on to join us in that endeavor, including some bipartisan support, we have at least one Republican who's joined us was interested in transit. My hope is that we can actually get some more into because I think if we really look at transit in a much broader way, I think we really can appeal to a lot of folks who may not otherwise think of themselves as transit advocates. But our hope is to bring together everyone who cares about transit. Right now we're at 36. That's like a third of the legislature. I'm not that great at math, I guess, but it's somewhere around there. And so that's huge. And we have a lot of folks who are passionate about this who are interested and figure out how they can work together to support the second thing that I'm working on, again with bourbon fall and other college tears, coming up with some strategies to invest long term in public transit. One of the kind of bills that we've been looking a lot at right now is developing a bill to significantly boost local bus operating funds.

Never last year tried to make sure we had support for the local bus operating funds. But one of the things that we found in talking with transit agencies and talking with advocates like Megan and her team, and others is that we have funds available in the state budget already that shouldn't be going to transit from the auto related sales tax. We have funds that are in the budget intended for transit, we're using them for the general fund. We want to capture and reclaim those funds for transit, that's making the total $50 million a year that should be going to transit, buses, rail and everything else, we should be able to pull those funds and keep them protected for transit, boosts the state state investment and local bus operating match at least 50%, not up to 50% of local bus operating funds, massively increase that funding by $150 million a year. And really invest in transit using the dollars that are already there and available for transit funding in the state budget. This isn't a tax increase. It's not take money from some other specific program is pulling from the general fund. These are dollars that are already there. This is just one of the ideas that we're looking at, as we hear a lot of great ideas and input from folks. So that's what we're exploring, that I've been working hard to develop a build for. But we have to invest majorly in this long term, if we're going to make something big happen.

You've heard a lot of great ideas up here. And I just want to share a little bit of what I learned last year. So last year, if you watched any of the news, Democrats took control of the legislature for the first time in 40 years in the Senate especially. And so this was my first time serving in majority position in control of the budget and control of a committee chairing the economic and community development committee. And as we talked about transit, something that was a real eye opening moment for me was all of the municipalities that I represent, talked about transit as really important. But then when they submitted their budget request to me, not a single one of my municipalities asked for money to fund it. And I don't blame the municipal leadership, because there's, you know, parks and community centers and all kinds of things that are again to remortgage money within your local community that you need if you need funding. But it points to this challenge of we've been so decentralized, and the RTA hasn't been given the funding and the authority and the support that it needs to serve it the role that it was intended to serve, which is to be that unifying body, that if you don't ask for it in the budget, it's like it doesn't exist. We can pass policy all day long, but unless you fund it, it's not a real thing. So we fought really hard. I asked for significantly more than $20 million in last year's budget, but we got $20 million dollars, and that is significantly more than nothing. And it is a step in the right direction. And then as the chair of the Economic Development Committee, something that I have been really passionate about, is trying to push us to understand that we cannot incentivize our way out of our shortcomings. We know that when companies are looking at places where they're going to expand or invest or move to talent is far and away, the number one thing they look for, and there's no dollar amount that we throw at any company that's going to make up for that. When Amazon was looking at cities around the country for Amazon HQ to the state of Michigan, put up $4 billion in incentives to lower Amazon's and locate their second headquarters here. And we lost not only do we lose money when attached to money, and they said it's because you don't have talent, and you don't have transit. The places that one we're in New York City, because it's New York City and Northern Virginia. But what Virginia did that was so fascinating was they offered $500 million in incentives, which is still a lot of money. But they invested more than a billion dollars directly in education from K 12 up through new campus of Virginia Tech. And they expand a transit in Northern Virginia. And that was the selling point that the incentive was kind of a last push, but it was the investment in the people and the talent and the place. That was the selling point for this company. So we are getting lapped right now by states around the country. We're adopting this new approach. So I throw up my committee of trying to show transit investment is economic development and we have to get this mindset that it is just giving money to companies and hoping for the best

investment in transit, because I think it's gonna be really transformative going forward. You know, as the chief infrastructure officer for the governor, I think it's not obvious why I care so deeply about transit, you know, you can kind of imagine a world where that's different. But fundamentally, our infrastructure is about creating space for people to live the way that they want to live. And I think what we've heard all over the state is that people want to feel safe, they want to feel connected, they want to be able to use to use the roads in a way that, you know, that sort of facilitates a high quality of life, they don't necessarily have to dodge vehicles as they cross the street, right. And we're in Detroit, so we understand what that feels like. And fundamentally, transit is about using that infrastructure as shared space. There's nothing more shared than a bus, you know, hearing a group of people down the street and all disembarking or, or getting on the bus in the same place. And to make that work, you have to build infrastructure that facilitate safe connections to those places. It's actually really, I mean, it's wonderful that you're here, record record, Kenny, but it's a very sad story that, that you had to endure that just to get to Renaissance. So, you know, that's what I'm really passionate about in this space. And I think that what we're doing to make that a reality, most immediately is the work that we've done around advancing corridors for transit. With with the RTA with the match money that Senator McMorrow made available, we are making our corridors. Ready for transit, right? We're building the infrastructure that is needed to make people feel safe and comfortable in those spaces, and also creating a plan for building out Bus Rapid Transit on the most significant corridors, you know, in in the state of Michigan. So I think that that's, that's what I'm most excited about. And it really is just a first step to what I hope is ultimately a corridor plan that can build they can build full BRT or BRT light on all of our major corridors. Excellent.

I knew this was gonna go by way too fast. I have three more questions that we're not going to get to, but because I know several of our panelists have other events they need to jump to. But we know there's enormous support for transit, but a lot of transit projects. Improvements have gotten close. But if I haven't quite gotten over the finish line. I wanted to see if I could share some issues, some closing remarks that you might have, or if you can, how can transmit supporters here in the room and with us virtually? And through the region? How can we best come together to really make that change? How do we make sure we're moving beyond the talk and into the action. So if you can share that or any other closing remarks, I'd love to hear from each of you one more time.

I'll let the politicians speak to the politics. It's a joke, but the politics is important. You know, the fact that and huge credit to the representatives for pulling a caucus together for the first time because I feel like you know, this is my fifth year in Lansing. I feel like sometimes it's just like me and Jeff yelling at each other about a transit quietly a caucus and like, it's not organized in any way. But there is power in numbers. So we saw how close the RTA initiative came in 2018. It was so close. And I felt like they took the wind out of the sails and people didn't believe that it was possible. Now, there's also the challenges of how the RTE legislation was set up and the fact that you need, you know, votes from the Tri County area need to get done that we can work through. But the fact that we're all here, the fact that we are building this transit caucus, making calls, keep posting about it, because political will, is what pushes things in the right direction. The fact that we are creating a caucus, you guys are creating a Congress that we have 36 members of there's going to be one louder voice in Lansing, finally, hopefully saying mostly the same things to the rest of our colleagues. And that can't be understated. But we're going to need all of your support to stand behind us when we're going to bat for budget asks and policy moves. Because people in these jobs. We're accountable to you at the end of the day, and it needs to be very clear that this is a issue that voters care about and if you do not take action on it, you'll be voted out of office

I think that's that's about it. We've got to make transit a priority. I am actually accused of being an optimist all the time. Oh, Um, but I am really more optimistic than ever about the potential for major investments in transit. And I believe it's because of the folks up here, I believe it's because of the folks who are leading the legislature and the governor's office today. I feel like everything is possible. And it all rests on whether we make it happen or not. And I think all of you, along with folks all over the state, who are advocates for transit, from here to the up to Grand Rapids, Lansing, every part of the state, making your voices heard to your legislators, to all of our legislators, to all of us, to tell everyone that transit is a top priority, that we have to invest in transit, and asking them but we our goal is to work together put forward some things that you can get behind and support. And then to do that, in partnership with all of you, all the ideas that we've come up with so far, at least that that I've been a part of, have come from a lot of the advocates in this room, and Megan has been an incredible voice for that. So we're gonna need to work together, we're gonna need to go into need to advocate very strongly make that case to all of our legislators to prioritize transit. And that's all we can do. I mean, we've got to just push as hard as we can, collectively together, and we're gonna work our hardest to get some really good things together for you to hone in on

some closing remarks, think about this, just about 50 years ago, so five decades ago, our region had the opportunity to do comprehensive mass transit across the tracks on the year, the federal government at the time, gave our region millions multimillion dollars to deal transit. What happened as you guys may be some novel, maybe some of them that are region could come together. So also counties, Macomb County, they sent their money back to the federal government and tre kept his share, and build what is now known as the people mover, because it was cheaper to build above ground at the time and underground. And so when the money got sent back to DC, the federal government reappropriated, those dollars, said the city of Washington DC, and they built their metro system off of that, which they have now the DMV area to now enjoy. And so that was supposed to be us 50 years ago. I don't know if you guys knew that, the history behind it. But when I learned that history, when I figure it out, it's because of regional. You know, we get in our own way, a lot of times, and so this is an opportunity to clear opportunity to make sure that this transit talk is 36 members will expand on it. But more importantly, we get our our federal government and support, we get our counties aligned, we get the locals behind it. And we get you guys behind more people just talking about making sure that we can come together as one reason, instead of the infighting that you know has happened in the past, the easier will be the easier we can overcome. Because I believe transit is literally the single most thing that is hurting Michigan is our biggest Achilles heel. And if we can overcome that, I think this region will start to grow. And you'll see a lot of our young people and our talent coming here and staying here. And I'll say this to them, and I'll pass it off to the Senator, is that the largest thing I heard on the doors campaigning in the summer of 2022 was that I want my kids and grandkids to move back to Michigan. And literally there was it was more and you guys were never a choice. You know, it was it was abortion was talking about gun safe all of this, right. But the hardest thing I've heard, of course, was that I want my family to move back. And sad to say how to tell folks, they're not moving back until we give them something to move back to. And that's going to be transit. And so we have to work with villages around this. And you guys got my support wholeheartedly. Uh, we need to come together and get this done

as my by thanking all of you for being here. I mean, really well, I think a lot of us have been talking about in terms of what needs to happen is to generate the political will to make this a priority for decision makers across the board, local government, state government and beyond. And true is going to be a big part of that. So I want to thank you for supporting true because what we need to do is we need to raise our voices all over the region. And one critical aspect of that is supporting organizations. They can bring that together and it can help bring the region together and bring people together. So don't just keep supporting true but think about whether there are friends or other people in your life who care I want to translate from terrible budget when trying to care about the future of this region, and who might be willing to support you as well, because supporting IT organizations that are pushing this issue is important. And I just want to call him individually. Just to think about this issue in the context of other issues. There are a lot of things out there in the political environment where the public overwhelmingly believes in something, but it never happens. And the reason is, because there's a mismatch of intensity. And one of the reasons why when Governor Whitmer was running for office, that for the first time, she adopted that slogan, today arose, why did she adopt that slip? Because she heard people with great intensity, talking about this issue, wherever she went, we need to make sure that our elected officials at the local and state level hear about this issue wherever they go. We need to make sure that when legislators have town halls, and I've got one to come see in a couple of weeks, that someone shows up and ask the question, what are you doing to advanced public transit in Southeast Michigan? Where does transit break on your list of priorities? What do you what kind of legislation? Are you working on to improve transit in Southeast Michigan, not enough of us get those kinds of pointed questions from people. And it's not just in town halls and coffee hours, it's not just sending them an email, asking them where they stand, and encouraging them to stand in the right place. You also have to chase on social media to write because I'm telling you, that's a really powerful place. It's like a virtual town hall where other people are going to see your question. And they're going to see the answer or the non answer from these elected officials who work for all of us. And so I just want you to raise your voice, I want you to get more intense. I want you to keep asking the world transit more, because right now, we have not overcome the inertia that we have in this region. We our voices are not loud enough. We're not asking enough SP questions. We're not, you know, putting the top officials are in a position where they have to position positions, where they're wondering, how am I gonna deliver for my residents on this issue? That's how we have to make.

Our day remissed if I fail to mention that we do have an unprecedented opportunity to capture federal funding, or any number of infrastructure priorities, including transit, including rail. I guess I would say a couple of things about that, you know, number one, we have the opportunity at any point to apply for Capital Investment grant funding for transit. What we need is as an RTA well knows we need this plan. And we need a fiscally sustainable plan. So ultimately, funding unlocks capital. Right? That's also true in the rail space. The federal government created the restoration and enhancements grant program for rail, which is the capital program follows on the corridor ag program. It's Michigan 123 designated corridors the most recent cycle, what we need to actually build those corridors that is funding for rail. Right. And, you know, I think what a lot of people don't understand about rail specifically in this in this region, is that unlike in New York, Boston, Virginia, places on the XL import or Amtrak doesn't pay for our rail, right? We pay for our rail. So we got to figure out sustainable funding models to, you know, to build our service and improve frequency and make the connections that are missing. So I guess what I would say is, I do hope, and I'm pushing every day for us to capture as much transit and rail capital as we can through the bipartisan infrastructure law and even the inflation Reduction Act. But what we need to actually open new services is the state revenue sources. And that is sort of the key political barrier to moving forward.

We are losing Senate champions here. We will be hearing a lot more from him in the coming weeks and months and years. So thank you so much, everyone for being here.

All right, we're gonna do a we're gonna see if we can get the tech working to show you a quick video from the writer perspective, and then we'll switch gears to our transit agency panel. So let's take a quick moment to hear r&b We'll

start stuck in the second quarter, and our community engagement specialists really stuck in getting jobs that didn't allow me to perfect. I got to a point to say we'll need to have better transit. So if you don't want to have have to win the spear quantum days on happen, I can remember walking bus spotter, half an hour from my house. For those days, I had to breathe a little heavier walking to the bus, in my area, you don't have access to online pharmacy is closed, you now have to find a place to access those things, including prescriptions or any kind of other first aid type of things like that. What friends have done is that it allows a person that he blocked the massive propriate potential abundance of a small late state, because all my first fantasies, and class was over at night, and to be at work. At seven o'clock. I was getting home at 1011 o'clock and a lot of black and brown ones who want an opportunity. You know, they don't want to be dependent on anybody. They want to be able to go put in a hard day's work and be able to get home at a reasonable time was best friends with a matrix

All right. Hi, everybody. I want to move into the next panel. So my name is Corey Roman, the Vice President of industries, more disruptors. And then also on the policy making sure there's one

thing I don't want to do the transit writer is how to keep an eye on the time quickly, so we're going to get right into it. So we've had a panel of the five transit agency leaders that are going to be talking to so if they're here if

they want to come to stage two I'm introducing

Alright, so the five finalists for Red Hat are going to be the interim director of DDOT and Michael Staley, on the director of Regional Transit Authority event stoupa. The general manager of DTC which operates over a prayer the that the general manager of smarts in the gutter and the q1 Lisa restaurant, the cue line, Lisa disaster