Episode 50: Transit Board Members: Leading the Charge for Policy Change
A conversation with Monica Tibbits-Nutt, former Vice-Chair of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Fiscal and Management Control Board, Christof Spieler, former board member of Houston METRO, and Grace Crunican, former General Manager of San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART).
How do transit board members lead change and bring community voice? Find out in this conversation with Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Christof Spieler and Grace Crunican. This podcast comes from session at the 2021 Rail~Volution virtual conference.
Transit agency board members have a core role in approving finances and overseeing policy decisions. As we hear on the podcast, a lot depends on how board members approach these core board roles. By asking questions, influencing board agendas and interfacing with both the community and agency staff, board members can reframe the discussion about the role of transit and linkages between transit and housing, homelessness and equity.
Both Tibbits-Nutt and Spieler are regular daily transit riders with a professional background in transportation and planning and a deep commitment to listening to the community. Tibbits-Nutt made a point of visiting every garage and every break room, seeing her role as representing agency workers as well as the public. Spieler frequently joined community meetings. talking to with residents about how to make transit better. Often, both Spieler and Tibbits-Nutt say, concerns from the community were already on the radar of staff. The role of a board member, then, could be to bring issues forward, to push the board to discuss policy changes and, once enacted, to back them up.
Too often, both say, transit boards have not grappled openly with the way transit intersects with housing, homelessness and other social issues. Budget discussions are too often about line items and not the community outcome involved. Discussions of fare policy or safety too often are focused more on white comfort than the data and facts involved. A courageous transit board member has power to shift the discussion, push for collaboration with other agencies or municipalities, and help to pass policies that specifically define the agency role in housing and other social issues that intersect with transit.
“Agencies know how to pour concrete. agencies know how to schedule bus service. Agencies don’t know how to do affordable housing policy, but we’ve got no choice. We have to think about those issues. We have to think about issues that go beyond sort of the organizational footprint of the agency, which means we got to work with other agencies.” — Christof Spieler
“I think that [the] transit housing link is not discussed enough and it is not planned for, because if you’re not thinking about these things, you can’t talk about transit-oriented development. You can’t take on the zoning issues that keep a lot of these transit-oriented developments from happening. It avoids all of the really hard stuff while saying the equity matters.” — Monica Tibbits-Nutt
Podcast released December 9, 2021
Featured Guests
Monica G. Tibbits-Nutt, AICP, LEED AP BD+C, works in transportation planning, urban design, and transit equity. She served as Vice-Chair of the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board and has served on the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Board of Directors. Monica’s recent publications include ‘Technology for All: How Equity, Access, and Affordability Must Feature in Next-Generation Vehicle Policy’ (2019), ‘A Road To Somewhere’ (2017), and ‘What Intersectional Equality Really Looks Like’ (2017).
Christof Spieler, PE, AICP, LEED AP is Vice President and Director of Planning at Huitt-Zollars. He served on the board of Houston METRO from 2010 to 2018, where he spearheaded the redesign of the local bus network. His book “Trains, Buses, People: An Opinionated Atlas of US Transit” was published in 2018 by Island Press; a second edition that includes Canada was published in September 2021.
Grace Crunican, Principal of Crunican, LLC, has held key leadership positions in the transportation industry over 40 years. These include General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District for eight years, Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation for eight years, Director of the Oregon Department of Transportation for five years, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, Director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, and Deputy Director of the City of Portland’s Department of Transportation. She also was a Presidential Intern and served as professional staff to the US Senate Transportation Appropriations Committee. She is the coauthor of the book, Boots on the Ground, Flats in the Boardroom.