Transportation Learning Center is Awarded $5 Million to Launch New National Transit Workforce Center
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The Transportation Learning Center is excited to announce that it has been awarded $5 million by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to serve as the first ever Transit Workforce Center (TWC) to help transit agencies recruit, hire, train, and retain the diverse workforce needed now and in the future.
"This first Transit Workforce Center will invest in our transit employees, connect our people to good-paying jobs, and help our country tackle the climate crisis," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in FTA’s official announcement.
The Transportation Learning Center has demonstrated success with building strong apprenticeship and training programs for frontline transit occupations such as bus operators and technicians, rail vehicle technicians, signals and traction power maintainers, and elevator-escalator maintainers. It has also worked with high school and Career and Technical Education programs on career pathways initiatives, introducing youth to transit careers and providing foundation skills training to facilitate their entry into the transit industry.
The Transportation Learning Center has a long history of working with transit unions and advocating for labor involvement in training. It will build on its experience with training programs for bus electrification operations and maintenance to help transit agencies programs as they transition to new, climate-friendly technologies, such as low and no emission vehicles and electrification of fleets.
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FTA - July 30, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm ET
This session will focus on best practices to increase ridership across the industry and encourage transit systems to explore ways to incorporate strategies to encourage people to ride.
Eno Center for Transportation – August 11, 2:00 pm ET
New transportation technologies are coming online faster than ever. While many of these emerging technologies are helping to expand our world, they need to be evaluated critically. Todd Litman, author of the new book New Mobilities: Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies will discuss 12 emerging transportation modes and services that will likely significantly affect our lives as they become more commonplace. Litman will explain how these modes and services, including bike and car sharing, micro-transit and electric vehicles, may affect travel activity, costs and affordability, infrastructure design and cost, and other elements.
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Mass Transit – August 2, 2021
The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) set out to examine the ability of persons and communities to reliably access transit in its research, “No Ticket to Ride: A Systematic Definition of Transit Insecurity.”
The report presents a research-based definition of transit insecurity as the inability to consistently access or afford reliable transportation, leading to demonstrable negative impacts on a person or community. This work unifies existing research under a consistent conceptual heading and provides a framework that will foster future research in this area.
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COVID's Impact on Transit |
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AASHTO Journal – July 30, 2021
Those recommendations are to make “public health” a new “focus area” for the transit sector, make fare payment “fairer and more equitable,” focus federal and state government funding on supporting frequent and reliable transit service, strengthen hiring and career development, redesign routes and provide more frequent all-day service, and expand transit’s “demand-response” capabilities.
Reuters - July 30, 2021
The fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus is worrying some U.S. commuters who are already back on crowded buses and subway cars as corporate America attempts a greater return to the workplace after more than a year of pandemic disruption.
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The Atlanta-Journal Constitution – July 29, 2021
A new southwest Atlanta rail line would be faster and more reliable than enhanced bus service on the same route, but it would be more expensive and take longer to build, a MARTA analysis has found. Rapid bus service would be less expensive than a rail line and could begin operating sooner. But it would be less, well, rapid. Those are just some of the trade-offs MARTA faces as it determines what kind of transit makes sense along a 6-mile stretch of Campbellton Road. The decision — expected this fall — will affect thousands of southwest Atlanta residents.
SILive – August 2, 2021
Workers at the MTA and Port Authority will be required to be vaccinated or submit to weekly coronavirus (COVID-19) testing starting Labor Day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. “I don’t believe a mask policy is going to be enough. I believe we are going to have to talk about a vaccination policy,” the governor said. “Today, the MTA and Port Authority are adopting that policy starting Labor Day.”
Metro Magazine - July 30, 2021
“As the first woman CEO of Metro I am committing to addressing gender disparity issues on our system,” said Wiggins. “LADOT’s Changing Lanes report is going to change everything for the better. It will inspire Metro to advance our own Gender Action Plan so that we can be transformative for the entire county as well as help LADOT optimize their findings and recommendations from this report.”
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The American Prospect - July 29, 2021
On one hand, AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka has said he favors the mask mandates, responding to a questioner on C-SPAN by saying, “If you come back and you’re not vaccinated, everybody in that workplace is jeopardized.” And while a number of unions have lodged objections to the mandates unless they emerge from a union-management negotiation, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents 25,000 workers at the Defense Department and NASA, has embraced them.
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Greater Greater Washington - July 28, 2021
“As ridership increases we hope this crime will decrease on its own, but we believe [the rule change] is a step in the right direction,” Pavlik told the board. That tracks with what Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a researcher at UCLA who studies harassment on transit, has found: sexual harassment rates change based on environmental conditions. Crimes like groping tend to happen in overcrowded buses or rail cars, she said, while those committing indecent exposure tend to be emboldened when few people are around.
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Building Transit Infrastructure |
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The American Prospect – July 30, 2021
The Republicans’ plotline about the uselessness of transit may energize their base, but it ignores that what usually stands between riders and a ride are the sums of money that only the federal government can generate. Rural transit operators and their riders can look forward to new investments, but the infrastructure deal should not blind anyone to the threats on the horizon.
Streetsblog – July 30, 2021
Many details of the bill remain vague, but many sustainable transportation advocates were troubled by top-line funding ratios that would give transit a smaller percentage share of federal dollars than at any point since the Nixon administration, slash 95 percent of funding for a program that would reconnect BIPOC communities sundered by highways, and threw only crumbs to ending the accelerating roadway safety crisis.
Seattle Times – August 2, 2021
“The United States suffers from a political climate that does not uniformly see investment in transit infrastructure as net positive. Instead, transit project sponsors spend much of their public outreach effort simply justifying their existence and the value of transit, rather than engaging on the details of a project,” Eno says. “The lack of broad public acceptance for transit also results in communities demanding mitigation for negative construction impacts rather than demanding faster timelines.”
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International Transit News |
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Reuters - July 29, 2021
Canada, like other developed nations, is facing a shortage of skilled trade workers just as a pandemic stimulus-backed building boom gets underway. At the same, more women than men remain unemployed because of the pandemic, and about 54,000 women have left the labor force since February 2020. But attracting and retaining women in the skilled trades has long proven difficult, with tradeswomen and advocates citing challenges balancing childcare and on-site work, the stubborn sexism still ingrained in some workplaces, and a lack of opportunities for women to get a foot in the door.
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The American Prospect - August 2, 2021
Rarely do you get an opportunity to see exactly how important a union job would have been to a group of workers. With a contract, they would have been able to negotiate over hazard pay and workplace conditions during the pandemic. They would have been warned 60 days in advance of any shuttering of the facility (small workplaces with under 100 employees, like No Evil Foods, are exempt from this legal requirement). They would have been able to work with the company to try to save their jobs. Instead, taking on faith that the bosses would look out for them and take care of them, the workers ended up with nothing.
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National Skills Coalition – July, 2021
The accelerated adoption of new digital technologies during the pandemic has greatly increased the urgency of investing in digital skills. Across the construction, transportation and storage sectors, many businesses have fast-forwarded through 10 years of planned technological change in less than a year. Companies today need workers at every level to have flexible, adaptable digital skills that equip them to confidently use new tools. And workers need opportunities to demonstrate their existing technological skills and build new ones that can help them flourish on the job.
The Aspen Institute – July 30, 2021
As the US sets off to build back better from the pandemic, this is a unique opportunity to identify and promote pathways toward digital inclusion for Latino workers, contributing to a robust and sustainable recovery of the American economy. As part of these efforts, it will also be crucial to shift the narrative around Latinos and tech, showcasing the many examples of Latino talent behind groundbreaking and impactful innovations, questioning unhelpful misconceptions among decision-makers and gatekeepers, and inspiring younger Latino generations all around the country.
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The Verge – July 30, 2021
If this deal passes, it will likely entrench — not disrupt — the transportation habits of millions of Americans. The bipartisan infrastructure plan “will make it more feasible for Americans to buy EVs and then drive them around with fewer problems,” Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, said in an email. But when it comes to the question of whether the deal will encourage Americans to use modes of transportation that are cleaner than EVs, Freemark was more pessimistic. “The bill does not seem likely to produce the conditions for a movement of Americans away from driving and toward other modes like transit, walking, and biking,” he said.
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Government Technology - August 2, 2021
APTA organized the briefing to underscore transit innovation during the pandemic and to present a new report titled “Mobility Innovation: The Case for Federal Investment and Support.” The case studies in the report explore how various transit systems have structured, launched and pivoted on-demand projects. In most cases, the on-demand projects aim to bring transit opportunities to areas where few options exist. These areas are often suburban locations with low-density housing. But in some instances, bigger cities seek to improve their available transportation, as with a project in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA) partnered with transportation network companies (TNCs) and taxis to provide late-night transportation for service workers.
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Transportation Learning Center
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