Is it? Hello. Hello everyone, and welcome to the State of transit. We will be starting in about five minutes. Please come in and have your take your seats. We do have a whole capacity crowd today, so please make sure we fill every seat. Thank you so much, and we'll Get started in About five Minutes. You
Uh, hello, hello. Welcome everyone to the state of transit. I want to note there are some seats in the front. We knew that we had a full capacity, so we did set up some extra chairs in the front. So please do come on up those who are still mingling, there's still a few seats, but please join us. We've got an amazing event ready to get started in about two minutes. So come grab your seats And then we'll get Rolling.
You Nicole. All right. Good evening, everyone. All right, as a native Detroiter, I would not be proper for me to open this meeting without also saying, what up though? All right, I know I'm in the right place this evening. Well, good evening. My name is Nicole Brown, and I have the privilege and the honor of serving as trus board chair, and tonight, let me welcome you to our annual State of transit annual meeting.
We are so happy to be here this evening, and especially as we kick off 25 years of service. That is 25 years of advocacy, working with our board members, community volunteers like yourselves, decision our top transit decision makers, our advocacy organizations, all in the name of one, creating better transportation options and ensuring quality reliable transit for all riders in the metro Detroit area. So give yourselves a hand. Forgive for helping us reach 25 years. So for those of you all who may be new to Tru, who came as a part of our bring a bring a friend campaign this evening, let me tell you a little bit about what we do. We are the region's foremost advocacy organization around transit. We are dedicated to ensuring that we have high quality transit options for all Michiganders and our visitors alike. We do that through a number of different ways. One, we believe in the power of research, both in a qualitative and quantitative way. A lot of the work that we do is based in data, is rooted in data, but it's also, oops, sorry, what it's also, I am not touching the laptop. It is moving on its own. But also, a big part of what we do is really engaging with the public. We are representative of southeast Michigan's ridership, and so for us, all the work that we do, including our brand new state of transit report, which, if you have not downloaded it, please make sure you do so we engage with riders, because they know exactly what they need. That's right, isn't that right? So we want to hear from them, to be able to help inform all the work that we do. The other work that we do is partnership. We cannot do this work alone. So we are excited to be in privileged to be able to partner with our friends and allies in the disability community, in our transit community and our environmental community, and working together, we're able to all create an agenda and a set of recommendations for our policy leaders and for our transit, for our transit operators, of things that we know that will move Michigan and our region into being a first class state and a first class region, and a place that is able to help keep and attract talent, which we all know is a big thing for the state of Michigan at the moment, right? And then the last thing that we do is we are fierce advocates. Many of you all know that the Tru cut its teeth fighting the good fight and really asking for like, can we get bare minimum good services here in the city of Detroit, we are so excited that over the 25 years of operating, we've been able to move away from just being solely a watchdog organization and really working in partnership with our transit providers to be able to expand service. Excited about the wins we've had of helping smart be able to get service expanded throughout all of Oakland County, and connecting our residents to quality of life, necessities and to jobs and to really expanding the world of opportunities to residents. And so we are excited to launch into to go into our 25th year and do even more critical, important work. So now that you know a little bit about Tru, let's get into the bones of this evening. So we have a packed agenda this evening, and so you'll hear from Megan in just a little bit, who will go over some of the high level outcomes and findings from our state of transit report. We're also going to bring up what two of the favorite panels that I have of any session of any conference I go to all year or meeting, is that we are going to get to hear from our transit operators and understand like, what's on the horizon for them in the coming year. And we also are going to hear from our policy makers. We've had a big shift at the state level, and so we're really excited to see, in a bipartisan manner, how our how transit is coming to the forefront, and how they are going to be moving that forward. We are also here for to handle a little bit of true business this evening, and so we'll be honoring some of our board members who whose terms have are up, and they will be going on to bigger and better things, but always true advocates in their heart. But we are so excited to welcome the voices of four new board members representing a wide variety of populations and areas in our region. So we're excited to welcome them here this evening.
Last but not least, I have to give a huge thanks on behalf of Tru for our sponsors this evening, this event would not be made possible without the generous support of smart of tech town and Wayne State University's Office of Economic Development, can we give them all a hand? All right, so without further ado, I would like to bring Ned Stabler to the stage. For those of you all who don't know Ned and who doesn't know the incredible Ned Stabler. He serves as the vice president of economic development for Wayne State, and he is also, excuse me, and he's excuse me, and he's also the CEO of tech town. So please welcome to Sage, our friend, Ned Stabler. You
cool picture like that for us. Can someone do that? Mark you guys, that is awesome. I really only have one job tonight, and that's to welcome you here. You're here on Wayne State's campus at the industry innovation center, and we're proud to sponsor Tru. We're proud to sponsor Tru because you know, Tru is a tenant over across the street at Tech town. I'm just gonna I speak On this video.
You Well,
my I should have mentioned the mic is adjustable.
Although can it adjust between me and Ned? We'll have to see. So Hello everyone. In case there are folks here, I You don't know me. I am Megan Owens. I'm the Director of Transportation riders united. I was getting a little warm, so excuse me for the quick change there. But for years, Tru has hosted this event, this state of transit, this opportunity to bring transit agencies, transit officials, decision makers, riders all together to talk about the improvements we can make. This year, we also created a state of transit report to really try to document, put some stats and some quotes and some details behind that, Petra, we're echoing a little bit, I don't know if we can turn that down. Thank you. So yeah, if you haven't seen the report, go to our website, Detroit transit.org, and you can get a copy of it.
Hey, or you're trying
to get little tech there so you can get a copy of the report. And it's our first year. So let us know what you think. Let us know what you think the state of transit is. You can do a hashtag, state of transit on socials if you're still bothering with any of those, and or you can reach out to us, help us make it even better for next year. So certainly not going to go through all 24 pages or something, but I wanted to run through five quick takeaways that I recognized in really digging into how transit is doing, and I think it's always important for us to start any one of these conversations. I don't need to tell you guys, but transit is essential our we have hundreds of agency staff who work tirelessly to get 10s of 1000s of riders all across the region where they need to go to school, to work to recreation to appointments to everywhere, and those are often life saving changes or life saving trips. So we always need an underlying of just how important transit is and just how many people really do depend on this. We also need an underlying notice of transit is underfunded and has been underfunded for decades. It's always a little unfair to compare our region with others, because our agencies are doing so much with so little. There are still gaps in our region where there are no meaningful transit connections, and if you don't drive, you can't go. That is part of the state of transit today, and as we spotlighted in last year's State of Service Report, riders are still having to wait too often for too long on busses that aren't showing now that said service is improving, we are very pleased. We really applaud the transit agencies for boosting making more competitive wages for their drivers, boosting their workforce and really making sure that we're starting to see slow but steady improvement in in bus reliability, which is, which is critical.
And it's also worth noting that
when we asked riders, we did a survey of 1100 riders, and asked what they think, what how is transit doing? What would they rate it? We were really pleased to see the average rating was a 6.8 so sometimes transit in this area gets gets a bad rap, but there it is really critical for a lot of people, and many people are quite satisfied. It's also worth noting that when we expand transit funding and expand transit service, it makes a huge impact. Expanding transit works, d2, A, two, the Detroit to Ann Arbor express bus every year has seen growing and growing ridership, and those dips are winter, but Ann Arbor, oops. Let's go back one, not there yet. Ann Arbor. When they had they had passed several millage expansions or increases, and have had exceeded their pre pandemic ridership. And the North Oakland and West Oakland transit authorities, thanks to the Oakland County vote in 2022 they've expanded the number of places they can go. They've added evening and weekend service they never offered before, and their ridership has doubled. They are double serving double the number of seniors in these rural communities who are so thrilled to finally have the flexibility to get where they need to go. So when, when we provide more transit, people are excited to use it. And the other key takeaway is that we really need to boost transit funding. I imagine none of these are complete shockers for anyone but riders. If we really want to have a transit system that it's not only reliable and affordable, but is truly convenient and effective, we need to really, we need to double the investment in transit at the city level and at the state level. So we do lay out a few recommendations in the report. First, smart DDOT, they're moving in the right direction with reliability. Still have a ways to go, but we are really strongly urging them to stay focused on reliability as the most important measure, and then look at ways to to improve frequency as well the Yeah, with the progress that's made, maintain that that the driver hiring, hold them to higher standard, high standards. Next up, they get to work on vehicle maintenance, making sure there's enough vehicles too. And both agencies have done some really good planning over the last few years to figure out how to make the most out of the resources they have. We're really encouraging them to budget out what would it take to provide the service the region really needs? Let's look at what the region needs and then figure out how we're going to get the funding to make it happen. We, of course, are really excited to work with Wayne County in developing a clear plan for how every community across all of Wayne County will be able to benefit from better service. And we're certainly urging elected officials at the city and at the state level. We need double it's going to be hard to get there, but let's work together as a transit community to figure out a plan to double transit investment in the city and at the state level. And yes, that's going to be a challenge, but it's also very possible. The fact that this room is packed, there are so many people who care about transit, who want to be a part of it, and Tru is really proud of some of the work that we've been able to do. To do Tru works in a variety of ways. Tru researches. Just over the past year, we've been studying best practices. We surveyed 1100 bus riders in face to face conversations. We conducted three different community walk audits on the ground in neighborhoods in Detroit. We analyzed MDOT decision making. Those are a couple of the examples of the type of research work. We also do a lot to educate we educate the public and as well as decision makers and community leaders, we hosted our first transportation civic Academy this past year, which was a great opportunity for an in depth learning for for about 20 community leaders, and we're going to be doing that again. And we took over a dozen elected officials and candidates on personalized bus ride alongs to make sure they have the real, in person experience and understand what that's all about, true advocates. A lot of what we do is talking directly to elected officials and decision makers. We took eight different trips up to the Capitol. Had over 95 discussions with legislators and their staff that I could track probably more. And we partner. We're so thrilled to we've worked with over 50 different organizations this year, including growing our friends at transit network. And we mobilize again. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of who's taken action on our on our behalf, but we know of at least 5000 different messages where we engaged people who care about transit, enabled them to talk to their decision makers about what they want to see. So we're proud of all of that work, and I do want to make sure a lot of you guys know me, maybe you guys have seen me up here for a number of years. I've been at this, what, 15 years now. But what I'm probably most excited about this year is how the way the true team has grown. Many you guys may know Joel Batterman. He's our full time campaigns manager. Joel's in the back there. Lucas lesecki upgraded from an intern to mobility specialists. You may not know zenayaa Kelly, but you should get to know her. Our engagement manager, zanaya
Most of these guys are still busy working.
You may not know Petra, but you will know her designs. She does all of our she's not only managing the AV, but designs all of our reports and a lot of our communications. So bravo Petra. And then Aaron, who know, joining us part time while also working, also at U of M, working with research and policy and writing. We're thrilled to have Aaron involved with us, and most our most recent addition is Teresa, a communications intern, helping us really up our game on short form videos. So if you have ideas for up in the video game. And last, but certainly not least is Deb freer, who I will invite up to the stage next.
I just want to note Deb not only manages our strategic partnerships and our fundraising, but she's also been my right hand, putting together amazing events like this and connecting with folks all throughout the region. So thank you join me in thanking the whole team for all of TRU's work this year, and we'll move along.
Thank you all so much for coming tonight, and thank you, Megan for being such an awesome boss, I am very privileged to work with such intelligent, passionate and people that have a great deal of integrity and really care about what we're doing and helping people get where they need to go so they can live their lives. We all have our reasons for being passionate about transit. My mom was hit by a drunk driver in 1999 and she's needed help ever since. I sure wish that guy had a different way to get home that night. Public transit is not in the forethought of our minds, it's an afterthought, and we do need to change that. I also have two college age kids that need to get around, and with the recent economy, we certainly don't have the resources to make sure that everybody's got a car. So nor should we really, but so I am very passionate about transit, and I love helping people, and I am so glad that you guys are all here tonight. We have, Tru has had a lot of local and county wide victories that we are very grateful for over the past 25 years working for transportation alternatives, there is still so much work to be done to make sure that everybody can get where They need to go, regardless of whether they drive as we kick off our 25th anniversary serving the Detroit area, there's a recognition that Tru needs to grow in order to work at the state level in a consistent fashion, as well as doing the local work here that we that we have done, we need to do that to solve the root causes of the poor transportation options that we do have, chiefly among those is the fact that state funding for local bus operating has declined by 50% over the past Two decades. I don't know anybody that can operate very well with 50% less money.
We're all trying these days,
so that that's one of the things that we're really looking to change. Our transit agencies need our help in serving the community. Tru can help with that, just like Megan was talking about, where we've been doing original research, we've been educating the public, and we're bringing people together to talk about what we can do for transit The staff here is great, but we can't do it by ourselves. We need the help of everybody here, your friends, your family, just talking about transit and letting people know that it's important to you. I'm asking you tonight to financially support TRU's work with the donation. Whether you give a one time donation or you become a monthly Sustainer that really helps us plan our work and our budget, we really appreciate that. And tonight, if you become a new monthly Sustainer, we do have a free gift for you out at the action table. We've got copies of the state of transit report. We've got the TRU's year in review, and you have the opportunity to take some action and help Tru out financially, whether you are or a one time donor or a monthly Sustainer, it all adds up. It all adds up. So don't feel like, like your five bucks a month doesn't matter, because it does if, if there are folks in the audience that would like to talk about structuring of major gifts and things like that, such as a donation of mature stock or other means, you can always contact me, Deb at Detroit transit.org or see me after the program. One of the critical parts of our advocacy is elevating the voices of bus riders and their perspective here at the State of transit. So first up tonight is a long time Detroiter bus rider activist and community leader Patty Fido,
good evening.
I just want to tell you, yeah, I know many of you. I've ridden the bus as a main part of transportation for years and years. As I said, I got started being an activist when Mayor Kilpatrick was raising bus fares when he first took office. But one thing, it just seems like we're not growing enough. I can tell you, I have a lot to be grateful for, particularly this year, DDOT running the Jefferson a lot. I live in West Village. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That makes a huge difference in my day, my ability to get around town during the week as well as the weekends. Thanks for not just doing a rush hour up tilt in service, but really making a difference there. The problem is, as much as I like that, and by the way, the app too, is really useful. I find that the DDOT app is very accurate, and it's a little cumbersome, but really accurate. It really does reduce my time stuck, waiting and but something seems to happen on the weekends when I, you know, get downtown. Let's say I was visiting a friend in Ferndale. I was going to a class in news center. I've either missed, been late or had to use an Uber as of late, just because we don't have enough service on Woodward, you know, the Woodward corridor during the weekends. It and the way I like, to sum it all up is I like to ride transit. I don't want to schedule it. I want there to be a bus for me, and I want it to be there, and the Jefferson is coming pretty close to making that happen. So I just, I'm hoping for all of us, we can start to make the whole system run that way. Thank you. Applause.
Right enough from us. I We are going to dive into our panels. First. We're going to invite our transit agency leaders up, and I'll invite them to come on up and grab a seat while we while I do some introductions. These are the people who are managing our biggest transit agencies, day in and day out. So Tiffany Gunter, who is the Deputy General Manager and COO of smart
over 20 years of experience in transit and public administration leadership. So yeah, I guess I don't need to get into the whole bio, but we are thrilled to have Tiffany. She's also helped in the past lead RTA and semcog and city of Birmingham, so lots of great experience there. Ben suka, the executive director of the RTA, you uh. Now he's officially been in that role for a year, unofficially, for about eight years, coordinating all of what's happening on the regional transit scale and launching some exciting new services that I'm sure we'll talk about. And what we don't one last person we need to have on the stage, because q line is now part of the RTA. So Ben can give us some updates on that too. And next up, but certainly not least, is Robert Kramer, Executive Director for the transit for the city of Detroit. So yes, in some ways, he's the newest in this role, in that he's only been there a few weeks as executive director of transit for for the city, but he has is not only leading DDOT, he's also overseen the people mover for the last two and a half years, and helped lead smart for a decade. Ton of experience from this incredibly knowledgeable team. So let us, let me see.
All right, so I wanted to get started. Obviously, a lot of us know your agencies and your services very well. A lot of us do ride them, but just in case there are newer folks, can you give a quick snapshot of like, what specifically does your agency do or provide, and what sort of ridership Do you Do you have just to give a grounding, I
uh, joining you from the the rail couch. This is the rail couch here. So DDOT, so right now I'm kind of pulling double duty with DDOT and the people mover. People Mover is elevated three mile one way loop in the downtown Central Business District and as free fares last year and into 2025 which is this year now, and really been focusing on improving the rider experience and helping to connect and support and boost all the great things happening in around the downtown area, and to improve our connectivity with Q line as well, to support you know their their alignment as well. DDOT is, you know, city wide fixed route bus service, also with our para transit complementary services as well, which is kind of a new model for us over the last couple of years. And previous director, Staley, obviously that was his specialty, brought in and really turned that function around dramatically. I was giving the team a hard time, because in our weekly updates, they quantify the on time performance with two decimal places of accuracy, they have like 99.56%
on time. It's like, why don't we just make this 100% right? They said
they had too many hundreds. That's what they said anyway. So really, I think that trying to stay in the in the DDOT lane, but looking for ways to improve the safe, reliable service, right? That's kind of the bedrock of of our system. That's what I'm going to be really pushing all 1000 budgeted employees, is to really focus on the decisions you make every day to make the service safe and reliable. And obviously that's agnostic, as far as it could be a little bit of service or a medium, a lot of service, but just really focusing on that rider experience, because we know that for people who have to use transit, people who want to use transit, the experience is really what makes a difference, and so that's our focus.
All right. Good evening, everybody. What does the RTA do? What do we do now? We're probably one of the more unique public agencies, probably in the United States, to be honest. So I'd like to say we plan, we fund, we coordinate. So we do an annual update of our master plan, which we just released a couple of weeks ago. That's kind of the blueprint, blueprint for what we want to see in the region. We coordinate with our transit providers, both formally and informally, on everything from services to fairs to grant applications to talking to people at the federal government when certain things happen that we don't totally understand the impacts of that. We don't really want to bring up, bring up right now. So yeah, all day. And then the federal and state funding that comes through as formulas. We distribute that out to all the transit providers. I used to say we also were an agency charged with accelerating so we were really charged with putting pilots out there, doing new services, making new connections, and we're still continuing to do that. So we launched the DAC service this year, which is the first express connection between downtown Detroit and the airport that was March. Thank you. Thank you. And I'd like to say again for people watching, watching at home and in the room, funded by a carbon reduction grant. So just those are the types of funds that we get to be able to do those services. We've had the d2 a two, Ann Arbor to Detroit express bus, yay, running for about three years now. And I know he's not up here with us, but I want to thank Matt Carpenter, CEO of the ride in the back. It was really through a direct partnership with him that we were able to get that service launched. So just want to thank him, and it's been a very successful service. And then, most recently, we took over ownership and operation of the fair street car, our key line here in Detroit spent about four months doing that that operates as a free service. I think everybody knows goes from New Center to downtown. Should be operating every 15 minutes. Doesn't that do that great in the cold? We're learning so just something for everybody to know, but that's been a great new experience for us. We really want to see what we can do to make that the catalyst for more regional transit investment that we really wanted when it was invested in in 2017 Thank you.
I think my mic is on Good evening, everyone. So I am Tiffany Gunter. I'm with the suburban mobility authority for regional transportation, affectionately known as smart. So what do we do at smart? We cover the counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb, parts of Wayne, I should say specifically, at least as of today, and parts of Monroe as well. So what do we do? We provide fixed route services to those areas. Our long line, line hop busses. We have para transit services within three quarter of a mile of each of those fixed route services. We have connector services that connect up those that you that don't, essentially, pretty much those that don't qualify for para transit services, to try to create as much connectivity as possible. And we also offer, thanks very much to the start of I guess you started the work. Robert at Smart providing micro transit services we refer to as flex. Happy to report on the flex services, December of last year, December 2024 we hit our 1,000,000th rider mark on Flex. That was exciting. We are right now, when we compare 2023 to 2024 for fixed route, we saw a 17.6 I only got one decimal point Robert, 17.6% increase in ridership from 6.4 million to 7.6 million. So we were excited to see that, not yet pre pandemic, but definitely seeing a lot more confidence in our users coming back to smart as we increase our service reliability, which is also top of mind for us and safety as well. So thank you so much for having us excellent.
Bless
so I would love to ask each of you to share a little bit about what is one of your biggest challenges. We know that you have very, very complex jobs and a lot of internal and external challenges and hurdles, but what is one of the biggest challenges you're facing, and how are you working to address it overcome some of those hurdles?
All right? So I probably should have went first last time, but I'll go first this time, in fairness, right? So I'll start, I guess one. I did a lot of thinking about what to say with this panel, because last year I remember sitting in the seat and my stomach was in knots because we had a lot of problems, and I did not have a lot of answers to share at that point in time. Happy to say so I'll tell you about for those who aren't here, last year, we had 107 Well, we had Overall, about 180 people missing from our workforce, just for smart alone, 30 mechanics, over 30 para transit drivers, and 117 fixed fraud operators just not there. We were not making the promise of our schedule. We were missing runs. We were abandoning people just about every day, there was tension absolutely between us and Tru, because Tru was doing the job that it's supposed to do. Again, want to thank you for keeping us on task. We
We had
every one of our collecting collective bargaining agreements open and not proceeding as expected, despite us believing we were offering an historic package, we had some other things. We had to deal with culturally and rebuild trust with our labor unions. We had a lot going on. This month, last year was the start of the smarter mobility program I remember signing off on that the board took action to get started on that work. And today, while I may have some knots remaining, I don't have as many knots. We are definitely seeing just from quarter three to 2024. To quarter four, we are seeing a lot of improvement with respect to our AM, midday and PM, pool. I know I drive lawn Burt our head of maintenance nuts, because four times a day, starting at 3am and ending at 10pm he's giving me bus counts. Are we going to make it out the barn and be on time today? But that's the type of energy and kind of pressure you have to keep on us so that we make sure that we meet the promise of the schedule. I will sit here and tell you it is not perfect yet. We have closed our operator shortage. We are down 13 fixed route drivers, I believe. And was it 13 and eight for para transit, with people you can do so much more. Gosh, we're still down 20 mechanics. So as much as we have more reliability on the operator side, we are still having difficulty on the vehicle reliability side, and I will we have a lot more challenges than that, but that's what I'm going to focus on for now, and what I'm excited about is what I can share with you is, I don't just have a problem, I have a solution. We started a maintenance assessment just a few months ago. We are evaluating our preventive maintenance program, overhauling it completely so that we can basically reset our system and have all of our vehicles available for service. Right now, we're about 44% up to last year, but we're trying to be 100% up to last year.
So I'll play Captain Obvious, and just say it's funding, right? I mean, that's the biggest challenge we have in this region. You saw the charge. So the same charts we've always been sharing, you know, we've, we've done a good job to work together to advocate for more state funding. We have great opportunities with the, you know, potential wayne county plan and millage coming up closing those transit gaps. We had Oakland County close transit gaps just a few years ago. So we're making our way through it. One piece at a time. Is only Southeast Michigan can right one chunk at a time. So I will say that, you know, we are entering a period where some of the more positive results we're seeing from the state may be a little bit harder to come by in terms of local bus operating funding. We are in a period of complete chaos right now with our federal, you know, kind of federal situations, we're trying to understand what's going to what's going to yield from that. So that comes from a period of relative stability to something that is a little bit more unstable. But that's also an opportunity, I think, for us, because I think, you know, what you'll hear from DDOT and smart, what we're seeing is that services are starting to pick up. We're starting to meet those obligations, and now we're able to start planning for what is the future. How do we get together to figure out, what are those next level investments, and how, as kind of a newly formed region, do we, you know, make, make those changes? Do we get back to asking, you know, for local, local funding, support and those things. So those are all things we're starting to think about. I would say that's the broader picture. The more micro picture is, you know, it's, it's a new day for the RTA. We don't have as big operations is either ones of these two folks here, but it's definitely different for us. So we're working through that change and figuring out how to balance that role with a role as more of kind of a regional visionary, and putting together kind of the funding packages and plans for for the entire region, so trying to balance all that out while making sure the streetcar actually gets out there on time,
like I said, complicated jobs here.
Okay? So I think, yeah, there's, there's a lot of different directions I could go with this. But I think from, to keep it simple, I think from, from DDOT perspective, is to work on the vehicle availability, right? That's, that's the biggest thing, and it's, I can draw a parallel from the people mover. When the people mover was shut down, there was kind of not only you're not keeping up with maintaining a 35 year old rail system, but you're starting to fall behind. And I think that that's a similar story that you'll hear at smart and for DDOT as well, is that the COVID was really difficult and challenging. Of course, it was challenging for society and for the city and for the region and for the riders and for the drivers, but really for all the staff and the organizations as well. And so I think the biggest challenge again, is really to to move the needle measurably while trying to keep up with the daily stuff, so making sure, like Tiffany said, you know, being able to kind of walk and chew gum and and balance and fly and all at the same time is kind of, that's, I mean, that's our charge. That's why we're up on the stage. It's kind we have to be able to balance those things and get the team to rally around us and and support them. But really, it's always going to be a balance from the short term as a balance of of drivers and mechanics versus, you know, equipment. And that's the same, you know, challenge, struggle that we're going through. We've made some great progress, also at DDOT, as far as having more active TEOs right now, I think we're, if you eliminate long term absences, 520 right now for TEOs, and we're averaging 90 or 100 active students at any given time throughout the year, which is part of how we're keeping up with that, right? Yeah, I can't take any credit for that, by the way, but I'm, I'm happy to announce it on the stage, yes, but the team really has been doing great work, like I've mentioned, Director Staley before, was really kind of getting us moving in the right direction, and the city departments have really been supportive. That's been a challenge for me, personally, is learning how to kind of behave in a different environment, as far as not being in control of everything that's going on, but really relying on the city departments, which have all been very supportive of DDOT and our efforts as well. So think I'll end there. Yeah,
absolutely.
Now I should have mentioned we could easily spend like two hours with each one of these guys, and hopefully we'll be setting up times later in the year when we can do that deeper dive with each of these agencies. But because we've got such a packed agenda, I'm going to kind of give you one, one more question before we move on, and that's what's coming up. What are you most excited about? What can riders and other transit supporters look forward to in the coming year or two, what? What's coming up?
Somehow, Ben doesn't have to go first ever, but whatever, it's fine
not to say this. You remember last year Robert came in here. He was like, hey, people mover, I'm good. I remember that it's fun. Yeah. How's it feel? Good? Still good?
Yeah, I think from, from DDOT, well, from, really, from DDOT and people mover. And to me, I think these apply to all transit, but really to kind of rebuild the momentum and trust and belief in in all the services. But I think that's from DDOT a big that's why I stress safe, reliable service is that if you want this, if you want all of the hard work that we're doing, we meaning our teams, the our funding supporters, the advocates, if we want it to be worth something, that we need to actually have steady improvement and sustain a real, reliable service, because otherwise it's you know that, to me, is true progress. And if we want to be able to take advantage of this kind of on and off and on and again, realization that transit really is part of building a better quality of life and attracting and retaining residents and talent, all that stuff that we talk about maybe every other day, it feels like that you're really it's up to us on the stage, I'll say specifically with DDOT, is to really move the needle on making transit a viable option that we want to move away from, whether it's true or a perception, this idea that, you know, it's people are counting their pennies or their minutes until they can afford To find some other way to get around that should not be where we're at, and so that's kind of where I think all of our action and activity is. Let's make sure that we can have a schedule we can meet. Let's make sure that it's safe. Let's make sure we're there when we when we say we're going to be and that we're constantly mindful of making better and more efficient ways to connect people. So I think that's that'll be our goal for the year to come. Pretty sure you don't want to hear about, you know, new fare boxes or replacing cameras, so I'll say that. That's where I'll stop. Yeah,
that was really well said. So I'll just a couple of RTA things they'll be looking out for this year. So this is the year where we do our funding for services for seniors and people with disabilities. So these are part of our mobility for all programs. So these are investments mainly in community level services on demand services. So we're going to be doing our call for projects. We're doing our call for projects on that so be releasing some funding recommendations probably the next couple of months. We are hopefully going to be launching our access to transit program. So this is a program that we were able to get some funding support for, to make investments at bus stops, to make them safer, more well appointed, better bike and pedestrian connections, all those things I will fully admit to this room, in any room, I completely stole this idea from the Chicago RTA, who's doing it for 10 years. So and I will thank semcog, a partner who may or may not be in the room today, but has helped, has helped, helped us all tremendously and as part of our kind of regional family, thank them for the funding support and potentially ongoing support to make that an ongoing program. We're going to be hopefully launching our mobility wallet pilot, which is a very small, just a 50 person pilot, but it's a kind of first proof of concept of being able to have one single way to pay for not only the transit services we have, but other mobility options as well. We'll be looking to update our master plan every year and do all the other fun things that we're doing on the q line side. It's really just making sure we are looking at what investments we can make in the existing system to make it more reliable, and really reconnecting, particularly with our community daily riders. I think we do a lot of work around events, which is a huge piece of business for not only the q line, but d2 82 and DAX, but I think we need to start looking at those daily riders which make up far over 50% of our ridership, most of them actually Detroiters. So we really want to be doing some focusing on that on the q line side.
So I guess if I could sum it up for smart, which is hard to do, I would say three words. We were looking at transformation, deeper partnership and technology. I was sitting here, and it just struck me that we looked a lot younger when we started doing this. And it's wild to me. So 20 years almost in this, and what I am most hopeful about is that I think we all have a certain level of trust factor amongst us that allows for greater partnership and greater progress that will be seen and felt by our customers, which is the main thing on the transformation side. I think the conversation about funding goes without saying. We need a sustainable source of funding, really working with our partners to identify what that looks like, how it gets done is absolutely paramount to our ability to attract business development and sustain this region and grow our domestic product. I do believe technology is going to be the linchpin that kind of ties that all together. The better we communicate, the better folks trust. I think Patty you said it perfect. You do not want to have to schedule. You want to just ride. And the fastest way to allow us to get there is to create the technological platform that makes it easy for you to see it. So I have so many more things I could say, but I'm done. I'm done. All right, thank you all well,
we will absolutely arrange times to have in depth conversations with each of these guys, so we can hear some of us are really interested in that deep dive. So we will do that. But let's give these guys a big thank you, a big round of applause.
And yeah, and actually we will, Petra, hold off on the rider video. We're going to jump right into the next panel, but yes, for I will introduce our next panel. You.
You. Okay, all right, good evening. My name is farai gundan, and this year, last year, actually, I was voted as board member of this great organization. So it is a privilege to be here to introduce the next panel. I'm also founder and CEO of badala, Detroit based startup, innovating at the intersection of mobility and fintech, worn out of tech town so Ned, thank you so much. We are incubated at Michigan Central and we're very intentional about serving Metro Detroit, Southeast Michigan, with our solutions for transit. We do not work in a vacuum. It is a delicate balance between public private and our elected leadership, in addition to the great agency leaders that we've just heard from who work together in improving reliability and service, a great public transit system depends on regulatory state champions, policy makers who lead the fight to boost investment in public transit, we are so honored to be joined by three of Michigan's top transit champions for tonight's policy panel, I will ask them to join me on stage as I introduce them. First State Senator Mallory McMorrow,
she represents much of
Southeast Oakland County and part of Northern Detroit in Michigan State, serving in the leadership as Majority Whip, she chairs the economic and community development committee through which she's worked to broaden Michigan's definition of economic development to really Embrace community investments like public transit. Next up? Is Yes, please.
Next is State Representative Jason Morgan. Please come up. State Rep Morgan, who serves in the Michigan House of Representatives representing central and eastern Ann Arbor, Northeast Washington County, and parts of South Lyon and Plymouth Township. He has dedicated his career in public service to creating opportunities for everyone to get ahead, including public transportation. We are so proud that he founded and co chaired the bipartisan public transit caucus,
and our third policy maker barely needs no introduction from me. If you fly in and out of D, t, w, then you really know him not not to the other station, but Evans county executive, Mr. Wright, Evans, please join me on stage.
He is a lifelong public servant who has served as chief executive for Wayne County, going on for 10 years. He has been a champion for public transit, campaigning for the RTA ballot measure in 2016 then seeking other ways to get transit on the regional from the region wide ballot over the past years. Over the past year in particular, he has committed to getting transit expanded throughout all of Wayne County. Thank you, sir and your team behind you, County Deputy Assad Hassan Sheik and the rest of the team who are here for pushing for both the House and State approval of PA 196 of 1986 so thank you to our policy makers who are joining us tonight, and I'll invite Meg Megan to for the panel. Thank you.
So yes, quite and that those were the really abbreviated by us. We could have gone on way longer, because these guys are excellent champions, but we're going to try to keep this as tight as we can. And I would love to ask each of you to talk a little bit about, you know what? I'm going to jump straight into our second question of, what transit related progress are you most proud of? What do you see as going well, and what are you proud to have happened in the in the recent years. I'll in the last year or two,
I'll start because I'm closest to you, Megan. I'm proudest of our staff's work on getting the statute passed to get us out of the opt out communities. And
if you saw, as you all probably did, how the legislature operated near the end of the year, it was a miracle, really, that we were able to get it there, to get it through, and I had some staff folks here who literally spent the night up there to make sure nobody got amnesia at an inappropriate time. So I think that was the biggest thing this year, and hopefully the momentum going forward. I
I think for me, the last couple years, we have really elevated the dialog around transit. Thanks to all of you here in this room, I see so many familiar faces who we've seen in Lansing, many, many days and we've seen a coffee hours throughout the state. We have really made it clear that there is support for public transit here in our state. So thank you for all the work that you have done this last couple of years. This work of Thank you. Yeah, this work is is enduring work. We've made some progress in the legislature despite rather challenging circumstances, at least for the state house here, and I hope to continue trying to make more progress as we as we look ahead. But I also just want to say, I mean, the work that Wayne County, under Executive Evans of his last few years around transit has been tireless and persistent and strategic, and it has really moved the needle when it comes to advancing transit. We've advanced transit in Oakland County as well, and we've increased the millage in Washington County. We've been doing the work at the local level, and I'm so proud to see that work happening, and we've done some good work in Lansing, but we'll talk here today, but we've got a lot more work to do.
Hey everybody, it's so good to be back with a group of friends. Hopefully we all consider each other friends, because this is hard work. I'm State Senator Mallory McMorrow, proud to be the Senate Majority Whip. And you know, Brett Morgan and I and so many others worked tirelessly over the last year to really change the conversation in Lansing, where transit is no longer optional, we put a stake in the ground to say that transit is economic development in a big way, and just because we didn't get our efforts across the finish line doesn't mean that's not progress. You know, I think when I came into Lansing back in 2018 talking about public transit was like a cute afterthought. So to get from that place where now the governor is talking about transit as an integral part of infrastructure and economic development, where we put together, you know, legislation that I started in the Senate to reform soar, which is our state's largest economic development tool that then went over to the house, and our House colleagues built on that to put forward a proposal that would have guaranteed $200 million A year for transit, $2 billion over 10 years, and that that plan was so well received again, didn't get across the finish line, but in a hearing, there were 90 cards of support. And just for people to know what that means, stakeholder groups can come to Lansing, to hearings and put in cards during testimony in support or opposition of legislation. On a good day in my committee as the chair of economic development, we may get three groups in support of a piece of legislation, so to have this legislation put forward where transit was at the front and center, and to get 90 groups from GM, from automakers, from transit agencies, from economic development associations, sent a very loud message throughout Lansing that this is a conversation that is worth having. It is not one and done, and that is work that we're going to continue forward. And it was because we sat here last year at this panel and said in no uncertain terms that if your legislator doesn't prioritize transit, then they should be voted out of office. And we made a challenge. We put a challenge to all of you to say that is the work of everybody who cares about this issue, to contact your legislators to let them know that it's important. And that message was heard loud and clear. So I want everybody to here know that that progress is huge progress, and it just means that we have momentum to keep building on as we move forward. And that
list was actually well over 100 by the end of the process. So that was huge. Yes,
absolutely. That's really, that's an excellent point, just how much support there was and continues to be. And that's a great segue into what's next. What transit challenges do you plan to dive into? What are you going to be working on over the next year or so, to move train, to continue moving the needle on transit?
Well, with our success with the vote, this year will be a year where we've got 40 there are 43 communities in Wayne County, 17 of them have been opt out communities. So the focus will be, obviously on the 17, but to sit with all of them and get them, get their input, and let them know we want to develop a plan that works for them, not just one that works for us mentally. And I think the position, the negative position, relative to transportation, is really dying. It's not transportation so much now. It's other people telling us things that we should already know. Why are we, you know, what's, what's, you know, it, it's not core anti transportation as much as I think it was 10 years ago when we first tried to do this. But I think that working with these communities, and, you know, my deputy county executive, Asad turfy, has spent much of the last year sitting with those communities, maybe not on a transit issue, but on other issues. It's difficult when you got 43 communities to make everyone comfortable that you're interested in their needs and their concerns, and I think they've done a fabulous job. Assad has meeting with those folks, developing a relationship, and I think that will go a long way to sitting with the folks, plus, I think they know we're sincere. I mean, the county was in terrible shape when we got there. Everyone knows it's not anymore. It's, you know, it's not our job to make dumb decisions. We don't do that. And while people like to have their independent we talk about 43 unique communities in Wayne County, we also understand it's a part of a region, and folks have got to get through their mind, past the territorial. Well, this doesn't really help my little township so much, yeah, but it helps the county so much. And in helping the county so much, it creates opportunities for everybody and everything. And I think people are starting to see it more. But you know, you we've got to do more. It's, you know, I, I hate to lose number one, and I hate to waste time. Number two, and so, you know, I think I've got 10 years invested in this thing. It's about time to make to make something happen and work better. And one of the things I keep telling the communities that need to understand is some of our poorer communities are aging out in terms of the folks that live there, the older folks, it's getting older, and the only thing that will bring young folks there, or keep young folks there, is their ability to get downtown and to Ann Arbor and stuff without driving. I mean, you know, you could have all, you know, I was still a grease monkey when it comes to working on cars and stuff. But I mean, it's not about me, it's about the opportunities for people to do what it is that they want to do. And unless transit comes into some of these communities, I don't think they're ever going to be able to get the young people in to help sustain those townships and cities. So I think it's really in their best interest, if they look at it more globally, that this is the time to do it and the right thing to do.
So the I don't have a short answer to that question, so I'll give you a short answer. What's next in terms of my radar is I'm going into my second term in the State House. We have term limits that allow us to serve up to 12 years. So I'm not in this for the short run. I'm in this for the long haul. I'm working on transit for many years, back to when I was chair of the Washington County Commission, working with executive Evans and other folks in Southeast Michigan to try and work on transit. So there are a whole lot of things that we need to keep focused on. One being in protection mode for a little bit here we are going into very different times this next couple of years in terms of leadership in Michigan and in Washington, DC and so we need to protect the funding that we have currently, particularly for a local bus operator. Operating, for capital, for the matches from the state and the federal government where funds come in. We've got to make sure protecting that, and we've got to build out longer term planning. I want to see a plan from every gubernatorial candidate as to what they're going to do around like a transformational plan around public transit. I think, I think we need to demand every candidate that wants our vote for governor, for us, Senate, for Mayor of Detroit, whatever the heck they're running for, needs to have a plan for transit, and particularly governor. I think as we looked at things over the last couple years, it's been very clear to me that it's not just a ann arbor or Detroit or Southeast Michigan issue around transit. It is a statewide challenge that we have to improve options for folks to be able to get to where they need to go, and it has to come from the governor's office right all the way down to us at the State House and State Senate, to our county executives and our county officials, our city folks, we need a statewide plan for public transit, and it needs to be real and robust and transformational, and the political power needs to be put behind it to get that passed and Make it actually happen. So that's where I'm at. And I would say the same for US Senate candidates. People need to ask all these folks who, as they look at running, what is your plan to invest in in transit here in Michigan, do you have a plan? What is your record? What have you done previously? And how are you going to bring resources into our state from the federal government to support transit throughout our state, within our state, and connecting us to the region and to the rest of the country? That has to be on everyone's radar as they look to us. So I'll stop there, but I will just say, the last piece I'll say is funding. Funding. Funding is critical, as well as policy. We have some ideas we've been working on the last couple years that I've certainly been working on, and Morrow has been a great partner in that to try and invest in transit. Here in Michigan, we put together that plan that was a $2 billion investment public transit over the next 10 years that was paired with economic development, housing, some other things. I thought that was a phenomenal plan, and it was a good deal for everybody interested in those topics, but we're going to keep working. Whenever I get frustrated, something hasn't moved, I just go back and work harder the next time. So that's what I'm going to do, is just keep working harder on this and seeing what else we can get done. But we've got to put forward some real funding proposals and put people on the spot and see if they're willing to put their name behind a meaningful investment in transit throughout our state.
So rep Morgan pointed out something that is just reality for all of us, we are in Lansing, in divided government, so now Democrats and Republicans have to work together to get anything done. In an ideal world, we would have worked together already, but that is not the political era that we live in. And then on the federal level, I mean, we saw today just how fragile funding streams can be when I know our office and many others were being lit up with phone calls and emails and messages about funding freezes, and some will try to paint that as you know the federal government is holding back because they want to be smarter fiscally we have to remember, those are our tax dollars. So when they decide to freeze federal dollars coming back into our state, that is our money that we have given to the federal government in our tax dollars that they are refusing to bring back into our state for the things that we need. So I think, you know, I'm very candid on this stage. I'm a Democrat. I think Democrats have to get much more aggressive about making that plane to residents that this isn't some handout. This is not money that the federal government is just giving us from nowhere. It's our money, and we deserve to get it back to fund the things that we need. Now, in my role in sharing the Economic Development Committee, I think we went a long way last term to making the case that transit is economic development. And I know many of you either tweeted at me or sent me notes or asked, Why aren't you just running this on its own? Why is this tied to billions of dollars in, let's be honest, corporate tax dollars that's negotiating some people wanted that we wanted transit, and that was kind of the bargain that we made to move that forward. But what we saw through that process was that there is interest and passion around transit. So I'm in conversation with Senator Erica Geist, who chairs the Transportation Committee, about what if we have a joint committee between transportation and economic development. What if we bring in transit operators from other states who have leveraged transit as economic development to tell their success story about how they have recruited more young people to move to and stay in their cities and states. Because at the end of the day, you know, we are getting questions all the time about, why is car insurance so expensive? And there's a lot of reasons why car insurance is so expensive, but part of the reason is that in our region and in our state, there's no competition. You must have a car, you must have insurance to be able to fully participate in our economy, and until we have a robust public transit system, there is nothing to force insurance companies to bring those rates down because they know you need it. So there's a lot of work to head but in my mind, it's how do we use the positions that we still hold, especially in the Senate, to continue to move that conversation forward and put the pressure on those who would oppose transit funding to have to make the case to their residents why their tax dollars don't matter.
Wonderful. I it
was really wonderfully said a lot of exciting things to look forward to and to fight for. One of the other things that I wanted to make sure we touch base on, that we hear from you lemon tonight is we have a whole community of people who care about this. There are businesses, there are bus riders, there are institutions, organizations, civic leaders, faith leaders, there's a huge community of folks who care about transit. And how can we help you? How can we all work together as a community to make some of this progress happen, and it's none of us can handle it alone. So let give us any sort of ideas or suggestions as to how we can work together to help you fight for more transit funding and make meaningful change
immediately, the help will be critical for us in Wayne County as we go to the 41 communities. 41 communities have businesses, they have riders, they have people. And to the extent that those folks come out and give input in what those communities do, will be very, very helpful for us. It really does need to happen. And and, you know, just after the too political with the presidential election, but, you know, I can just sit there and drying my teeth every day now, you know, remembering the, you know, the apathy that people had, the failure to vote. Well, it's already, you know, whatever, and we're getting pounded. I mean, it's been all day today with new executive orders, looking, trying to figure out what's going to break the county first. So, you know, people need to take a stand. And this organization, I mean, historically, takes a stand. I mean, you're activist. I mean, I get it, but, you know, you reach out and grab two or three other people who maybe aren't but you need to drag them with you, is also something that's that's significant and helpful, because it, you know, the even, even the issues of people getting to The doctor, people getting to, you know? I mean, we tend to always hear the story about, well, you know, people don't need the transportation, or not. All of these kids don't want to drive, or whatever. I mean, it's such a bigger thing than and I live in North Canton Township, so if I Oh another Canton person, if I needed to take public transportation from my home, I would have to walk six miles to Westland to find the first public transportation. Yeah, I got a car. But how many people don't? How many people are trying to get to workforce development projects? How many seniors are trying to get to doctor's offices, other sorts of things. So, I mean, you know, the the idea of whether you personally want it or need it doesn't have near as much to do with it as thinking about the overall good and thinking about what makes for a healthy region. And so what I need is folks to to be advocates as we go through and our part of that will be to stay in touch with you as we're meeting with these communities and what kind of feedback we're getting, so that we can we can move off the dime and get something done.
I want to say this, the work that you've already been doing has been exactly what we've needed this past two years, the number of times that we've texted Megan or emailed her or called her and said, Hey, we need help on this. What can you do? And she's there, and a whole bunch of you are there. We need a one pager on this. We have this bill idea. Can you help us get data or stories to back it up? And you've been there, you've been doing the work, and it has been incredibly helpful. And I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it, because when we're working in the moment in Lansing and trying to get things moving, it's hit or miss. One day of, hey, this can pass tomorrow or this will never pass. There's, there's often no in between. It's, it's really make or break. And there have been so many make or break moments these past couple of years where we've been this close to getting really big things through. And I will say it's generally very discouraging when something happens doesn't happen that you really want to happen. But that's unfortunately, the legislative process and how it works is you try your best, you fight it out, and you see if you can get it done, and it either does or it doesn't. You see if you can come back tomorrow or next week or next month and make it happen then. But sometimes it doesn't happen, and you gotta recalibrate, come up with something new and try again. And so that has been incredibly helpful, the resources, the data, the storytelling, all of that's been so helpful, I would say reaching out statewide has been incredibly helpful as well. And I know you all are doing that. I've just heard from somebody from Kalamazoo around who said they were involved with Tru today. And I said, Wow, they're really getting out there. This is great. We have folks from Ann Arbor, so my constituents, even you know, involved in true now in Ann Arbor. And that is phenomenal, because it has to be a statewide approach. So it's not just a southeast Michigan or west side of Michigan or anything like that. It has to be all of us across the state working together, and that's what you've been doing and are continuing to doing. So my my encouragement is to keep that up, to keep showing up to coffee hours and being respectfully persistent. I think that is maybe the best way I can put it, to show up and talk about why transit is important to you, and of course, to do it respectfully so that folks aren't turned off by having seeing you all the time, but if they see you all the time, that's great. I love showing up in a room and seeing somebody who cares about transit and having them ask us about transit. It happened so many times over the campaign season in the fall, and it's it was, it would always warm my heart every time. And so I think continuing that persistent, respectful pressure is what's going to be needed, and we're going to be trying to work with some of our colleagues across the aisle. I certainly have you know, with the transit caucus, we've found some folks who are on the other side of the aisle who understand transit, support it, and want to work with us on it. We're from rural parts of Michigan, because they understand that their seniors and their folks in their communities and their children, they also want to be able to get some places without a car. So I guess the big piece I would say is, don't count anyone out. We may find unexpected allies in different parts of the state you would never dream of, and they could be our best champions when we need it most.
So I would build on that. And obviously you're all here because you care deeply about transit, and it can be really frustrating. I've heard from people who say I have emailed my legislator, and I emailed them this one time, and I never heard back, and nothing moved. The squeaky wheel. Gets what they want. It's true, true to hear you. So Tru has done incredible work, and I think lean on them to understand the legislative calendar and the process, because we flux throughout the year. We're going to be heading into the budget process, the governor will present her budget proposal to the legislature. Rep Morgan and I both serve on the appropriations committees in the House and the Senate, then the legislature will start crafting its budget in response. So that is the time to really start to make asks about funding, whereas the fall may be a better time to ask about policy, and you may not have to know all that, but Tru does, so sign up and make sure that you are reaching out to your legislator, as rep Morgan said, consistently get to know them as people. They want to know you. I promise. May not sound like politicians always do, but they do and encourage one or two more people that you know who may not be a part of the group, because Critical Mass is what changes people's minds in the legislature, when I've seen really successful advocacy, it is when every single member of the Senate has heard from people in their districts about an issue at the same time, all of a sudden, there's critical mass, and that's what we're talking about in our caucus rooms, and that is where the conversation happens. That takes coordination on the outside, and when I think of good examples of seeing this in action, I can think of no better group than Moms Demand Action, who advocates on gun violence prevention. They have built up over the last decade into a group that they're all branded. They come to events in matching red shirts that say Moms Demand Action. They usually bring cookies. They come in a large group, but it's kill them with kindness. And they keep showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up to the point where, if you're in elected office, you think whether or not you care about that issue, and gun violence prevention is personally a deep issue of mine, but you realize I can't ignore this anymore, because they're going to keep showing up and they care about this issue. Last thing I'll say is that when you do reach out to your legislators, I know it's easy sometimes to click an Action Network button and send a form. And this is not a knock. Every organization does it right. It's put in your address and send out a form. Here's an email. We tally those in our office, we do and we track them. But nothing is more powerful than your personal story, which takes a little bit longer it means sending a direct email or leaving a voicemail, but hearing the story. You know, if exec Evans were to reach out to me and say it would take me walking six miles to get to my nearest bus stop, that is a story that moves me a lot more than you know, when we go through my meetings, and I got 37 emails that all matched and said, said something, but they all said the exact same thing. So take a little bit of time. Follow Megan. Sign up for the emails. Get one more person in your life. Encourage them to do the same, because we know there are so many people throughout this state who are not served well enough by transit, who just need to have their voice heard so that their legislators care enough to act.
We are certainly extremely lucky to have such great transit champions at the state level, at the county level. Clearly, as they laid out, we've got a lot of work before us, but we've got a great team who can work together to make it happen. I know that these guys already stayed a little later than originally planned, but so I will respect their time, but let's give a big thank you, and we'll continue working with these great guys. You
well, we give them a quick moment. We've got a video. We've got a writer perspective video that we want to share. We want to make sure that you can hear different perspectives from not only agency and policy folks, but from writers too. I
my name is Donna Hammond tree on July, 26 2016 I was driving down 696, on my way to work when I suffered a stroke, I was able to get off the freeway and get somewhere safe, but that was the last time I drove anywhere I have been dependent on transit, public transit sits. If I had didn't have access to transit, my life would be very different. I depend on transit for everything, going to the doctor,
social events,
shopping, everything.
Para transit lets me go to destinations that are inaccessible, whether it's inaccessible stops or just too many transfers, it's not always a priority For the decision makers, but I would really like to see, for example, more accessible stops in the gross points. It's really hard down there. I think education for the the public needs to be addressed. I mean, it's this is the Motor City. I know we love our cars, but a lot of Metro Detroiters don't have cars, either where they're in my situation, where I can't drive physically, or maybe someone is not in a financial place to own a car, even in the Modi city, transit is a critical component of The community education of the public on the benefits of transit is essential.
Really want to thank dawn for sharing her story and sharing that experience and helping us see a little bit of of a day in the life of why this is so essential. So we've talked a lot about what we have done and some of the needs, some of the efforts our agencies are undertaking. Want to talk a little bit about what's next. We've got, we've got got some big plans moving forward, and as I talked about, Tru does Tru works in a variety of ways. We do education, we do research, we do education, we do advocacy, partnerships, mobilizing, and we've got a lot planned on the research front. We are digging into how the Michigan Department of Transportation actually makes decisions they spend $6 billion a year. And who thinks our transportation system in Michigan is great? Yeah, not so much. So we're going to work on ways that we can change how the how they do make decisions. We are absolutely going to be working with our partners at Wayne County to to reach out to communities and help them understand the options that transit can entail throughout throughout their communities, and that it's not only good for the region, but there are transit benefits in each and every community across needs and benefits across Wayne County, and we're excited to do our transportation civic Academy again this year, so stay tuned in the summer for opportunities to apply for that on the advocacy side, we are working hard with some excellent partners across the city to push we know it's not going to happen immediately, but over the next couple of years, we really need to see DDOT double. We need twice as much service. And it's going to take a lot to get there, but we want to. We you need, you need the plan, you need the map to know how to get there. So, and we are pushing initially, for the City Council to boost D dots funding, to invest $150 million out of the city's general funds to to make sure DDOT can continue that great progress, and that, as Patty said, we can the service can be there when we Need we don't have to depend chafe around those specifics. We're going to be doing a bunch of exciting things at the state capitol. We've got some some excellent partners with the Michigan Public Transit Association, the Michigan Environmental Council, Michigan League for public policy, and other wonderful partners that are going to be reaching out to those legislators. If you, if that's something you might be interested in, mark your calendar for March 12, and and, and we'll be reaching out with some more details about ways you can join us in going up to the Capitol. And, of course, our partnerships. If there are organizations, businesses, institutions, elected or faith in, yeah, organizations, businesses, institutions that you know of who believe transit is important, encourage them to join our friends of transit network so we can continue to grow this army of supporters and to talk a little bit about things that we're going to do to Try to mobilize ways that you guys can get involved. I want to invite zenaya to come up and say, if you haven't met zanaya, she's our amazing new Community Engagement Manager. She spent the last year with us with the Michigan Healthy Climate corps, but now she's leading our volunteer work, and you good. Should all be connected, connecting with her. So here's a couple of things that we have coming up.
Everybody. Thank you. Megan,
so with so much happening in the transit sector, we need everyone to get involved, to get things done, to make that difference that we're looking for, that we're championing. And there are a lot of ways to get involved. If you look on the back of your program, you can see some upcoming events that Tru will be throwing, and different ways that you can get involved. We have transit Tuesday Talks. So it's a monthly series that we have going on to get a more in depth conversation with some of our policy makers, some of those, the heads of the organizations that we've had today, smart DDOT and things like that. We have one coming up this February 18, it is a transit Tuesday. Talk about county wide transit and over in the Calhoun County area as well, so in Oakland County. So if that's something you're interested in, that'll be on zoom from six to seven. So stay tuned for that. We have our action teams that you can join. We have things like the Wayne County team we'll be meeting next February. What day is that? February 20, on zoom from six to seven. So if that's something you're interested in expanding Wayne County Transit, or transit wayne county wide, then that's something you can get involved with. And you can talk to Joel in the back to get more information about that, you can join our monthly volunteer update calls to hear about the top transit news and opportunities for about a 45 minute discussion. If you're interested in getting some training on how to do lobbying, how to have one on ones with elected officials and things like that, in an effective in positive manner, then we have some trainings that are available after our volunteer meetings. You can stay out after our volunteer updates, or stay on for our volunteer updates, for monthly trainings and or you can just join us at one of our monthly social events, like the transit game nights coming up very soon. That'll be February 19 at Tech town. So that's right across the street from five to eight. So we have a lot of different ways to get involved. Get involved, whether it's just a chill social event where you can have some fun and do some board games around transit, or if you want to get a lot more in the weeds of things and talk to elected officials directly and get your voice heard. We love to see you. We love to get the work done with you. And with that, I say, thank you, and I'll pass it back to Megan
Brother, Cunningham, selfless. I could go on and on, he's the type of individual that's out there, day in, day out, winter, regardless of the month of the year. He works with the people, and he's an advocate for just transit, DDOT. And so everybody who listens to our city council public hearings or whether it's a mirror town hall meeting, brother Cunningham will call in, you know, his voice, and he's always giving great ideas. We find a lot of his ideas really good, and we actually implement quite a few of them.
I am Brother Cunningham, a transit advocate in the city of Detroit, where I give out hand warmers, hats, gloves and bus tickets at the bus stops, doing so for many, many years. And I like to represent those that are poor. There's a lot of folks that are poor in this region, and they're trying to get to work, they're trying to get to school. They're trying to do better, but without consistent and on time performance like at maybe 90% or or system that you know is going to be on time. That's how you keep your job. That's how you complete school. DDoS transit has been lackluster. It's been in the 60 percentile. It's been in the 70s. Right now it's teetering like at 70% on time. Imagine if your vehicle was only on time, 70% or so, and bus stop to bus stop smart or DDOT, the bus system is not on time. That's what I hear folks trying to get to work, folks trying to get to school. Busses are not on time. Poor folks are trying to climb the ladder, and they can't do it when the system is inadequate. The local busses are not on time. The people that cook for you, clean for you, secure you, they ride public transit. Public Transit affects every area of our life, the folks that are on the byways and highways and around the folks they ride public transit. It affects every area of our life insurance is expensive. Repairs are expensive. Our fees are expensive. To own a vehicle in Detroit or just Michigan is expensive, and transit has to be better here in Michigan. All
right, is everyone still with me. All right, awesome sauce, so we have had a phenomenal night full of great information, understanding where our transit operators are taking our system and the improvements that they're looking to make, hearing from our policy makers. Understand, I feel like I got a message and a word of action for the things that we need to do in the coming years. Did you all All right, awesome sauce, so before we release you to the reception and the good food and the good drinks that we have left for the evening, we have a bit of true business that we must take care of. Each year, we have the privilege of really crafting our board and making sure that we have advocates who can represent your interests as our membership, as we do all the work that Megan and her amazing team outlines here today. And so for that end, tonight is election night, whoo and who so before we get to our slate of nominees, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank all of my fellow board members who helped support Megan and the team and make this work happen. Adam, Farah, Mitch and Donald, please wave a hand
and Corey,
and it is with sadness, but it's also a celebration, because we have been so honored to work with a tremendous amount with a tremendous, tremendously talent board members who will be leaving us for bigger and better things, but will always be advocates for transportation so Emily, Susan, Greg and Charles that thank you. It has been an honor and a privilege to start with you all.
So And while one door closes, another amazing door opens. And so as I am also up for reelection to the board, I will take a moment and bring up Donald circuit, who will lead us through our board elections.
Good evening. How are you all today? I know it's getting a little bit late in the hour, but we're just going to push through this last little bit, and we'll be all set to go. I would first like to take just a minute to honor our former board members. I see a few back here when I got started,
when I got on the board in 2016
it was just Megan and one other person, and now she has a full team. So we've really come a long way. So I see a few people, if you can just wave your hand really quick, if you're a former board member, we appreciate you very much. We are here because of the work that prior board members did. And obviously I would be remiss if I did not say that without Megan Owens, the face of transit in southeastern Michigan would not be the way it is. So I would, if you could all please join me in getting Megan a big hand.
And Megan, I'm sorry I did get away from the script a little bit. So on to our business. We have several board members that we are excited, several candidates that we are excited to bring on the board.
Christopher lafour,
Dene, Austin, you
gallon Gastly and Isaac Douglas, if you could come up
our returning members,
who are we are placing in nomination today Corey row, Kristen, Metcalf and Nicole Brown,
I am very honored to submit this group of candidates to the general membership for election tonight, and I would ask for a motion to approve the slate of four candidates. I hear a motion looking for a second. I hear a second all those in favor, please, by signify by saying, aye, All those opposed and thank you so much, congratulations. Thank you so much. I will go ahead and turn it back. We're gonna, we're gonna do a quick, if I could have, if there are any other board members who are here, if you could come up so we can do a quick group picture, really quick,
and I will just say thank you everyone so much. We heard a lot of great information tonight. We clearly have a lot of work to do. We know the transit system is not where it needs to be, but we have agency leaders who are working hard to make that those improvements, and we have elected leaders, and we have this whole community, so working together, we can absolutely make some major changes in transit. So thank you so much for being here today. I look forward to seeing you guys at a whole bunch of those upcoming events that that that Z had talked to you about so thank you, everyone. We'll see out there in the lobby in a Few Minutes. You
