How Do We Recruit And Train A New Generation Of Frontline Managers For Transit Maintenance?
That's a challenge being addressed in a series of week-long workshops sponsored by the National Transit Institute and conducted by Barbara Gannon, a recognized leader on transit workforce issues.
On September 29, Center Executive Director Jack Clark and Deputy Director Xinge Wang spoke to participants in a workshop held in Louisville, Kentucky. Their presentation reviewed some of the major themes on the challenges facing transit, such as the need to hire, train and retain 125 percent of the current workforce over the next ten years.
Approximately 45 participants took in the information and engaged in a lively discussion looking at the data and at situations in their own transit properties. The mid-level managers attending were a generally diverse group in terms of agency size and racial composition, but all were male. When Xinge Wang presented data on the very low representation of women in higher-paid technical transit careers, each of the three working groups reported back on the specific need to reach out to women for non-traditional careers. They also engaged in lively and wide-ranging discussions on apprenticeship, career ladders and reaching out to young people about the possibility of transit careers.
This group of leaders came together to address the specific challenge of finding their own successors as frontline managers of maintenance. They came away from this presentation with a very clear sense that their immediate challenge is related to a larger skills and succession challenge for the entire transit workforce.
Labeling the Center an "industry champion" in developing ETA's Transportation, Distribution and Logistics Competency Model to help meet the transportation industry's frontline employment needs" challenge, the case study features three key aspects of the Center's work. The Center's work creates bridges between the competencies developed in high schools, community and vocational colleges and workforce development programs with the competencies needed as incoming and apprentice workers in frontline transit positions. The Center's education and training program, the Transit Core Competencies Curriculum (TC3) is currently being developed and piloted in selected locations.
ETA also highlights the Center's work with industry subject matter experts across the country to put together a multiple-module training curriculum with instructor-ready courseware for incumbent frontline workers.
Finally, the case study notes the Center's work with a range of national industry, education and workforce development organizations, as well as with ETA's Office of Apprenticeship and the Urban Institute, to establish Registered Apprenticeships in five frontline transit occupations - Elevator-Escalator Technician, Signals Technician, Rail Car Technician, Bus Maintenance Technician and Transit Coach Operator.
Transport is a key factor in whether someone rises out of poverty or stays there. When a person's commute time is longer, they don't have a car, and there's no decent transit, they're more likely to stay poor than move up the income scale, recent research shows. In releasing its new National Transit Map, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) hopes to draw attention to those places with plentiful transit and those that are lacking. The goal is "promote the use of existing transportation networks to connect residents to jobs, education, health, government, and other essential services," a press release says.
Sunday marked 30 days since Cincinnati's streetcar launched for passenger service. In the nearly impossible case that you haven't already heard, the Cincinnati Bell Connector -- as it was dubbed through a sponsorship deal with the region's telecommunications giant -- opened its doors to the public on Sept. 9, and already it has delivered on some supporters' promises, but also has raised new questions as the city acquaints itself with street rail transit after a nearly 60-year estrangement.
In London a monthly travel card for the whole city costs almost £200. In Copenhagen, a city a fraction of the size, you'll pay £160. A pass lasting only five days in Paris will cost you over £60. So when you ask the residents of Tallinn about the benefits of free travel across the city, it's a surprise to be met with a roll of the eyes or a sarcastic smile. The capital of Estonia introduced free public transport at the beginning of 2013 after their populist mayor Edgar Savisaar called a referendum on the decision, dismissed at the time as a political stunt that the city couldn't afford.
When SEPTA lost a third of its Regional Rail fleet this summer, the service headaches that followed pushed Brittany Redfern off the train. "It was really unreliable," she said. "They would skip some of the small stations." Redfern is among thousands who gave up on Regional Rail because of summer's scheduling debacle and SEPTA wants them back. SEPTA's plan to bring people back to Regional Rail is to focus on fundamentals, said Rich Burnfield, treasurer and deputy general manager. "Schedules, reliability, I think those are two critical steps in terms of regaining ridership," Burnfield said.
Plans to privatize parts of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority are in danger of bogging down like a subway car at rush hour, with the state's largest transit union vowing to fight the move. Last month, Gov. Charlie Baker's hand-picked board that oversees the MBTA suggested looking for a third-party to hire drivers and handle maintenance, reducing operating costs. The board singled out bus operations, warehousing and maintenance, the privatization of which could affect hundreds of jobs. The MBTA's bus system has 1,700 drivers and more than 450 maintenance workers.
At the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the safety of those who ride and work on our nation's transit systems is our highest priority. That's why we recently announced a Notice of Funding Opportunity for a new Safety Research & Demonstration (SRD) program, which puts $7 million of competitive grant funding toward innovative public transportation safety projects nationwide.
This isn't your father's labor movement. Back when my dad was a Cleveland bus driver and member of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Americans had a more common lived experience. Everyone in your hometown read the same newspaper and watched the same television shows. The people on your block belonged to the same civic associations and bowling leagues. The chatter around the water cooler, the local diner, or the school lockers covered more or less the same, reliable topics. Often, our mothers and fathers worked for one of just a handful of major local employers (though if you were African American, your career options were limited and upward mobility was quite rare). Religious faith bonded people to one another; your church or other house of worship provided a unifying community space. Your neighbors knew you and your family (and, if you were a kid, you could be sure they'd tell your parents if they saw you making trouble). There was one local movie theater, and it had one screen-no multiplexes to cater to individual tastes.
Brighton transportation company The Big Lemon has announced plans to make their green buses even greener. Although their bright yellow biodiesel buses are already fairly low impact given that they are powered by recycled cooking oil, the company is teaming up with renewable energy enterprise Brighton Energy Cooperative to develop new zero-emissions vehicles powered by the sun.
Pittsburgh didn't win the federal Department of Transportation's $50 million Smart City grant earlier this year, but on Friday it received nearly $11 million to help implement some of the traffic proposals in the grant application.
The $10.9 million Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act grant from DOT, announced by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, will pay for "smart spines" that use information gathered from a network of sensors to balance traffic and move it through areas more quickly. Another aspect of the improvements will allow buses, public safety or freight vehicles to communicate with traffic signals so they can move through intersections more efficiently.
