That was an important lesson for me to learn. Like, I don’t have to be the messenger as long as we’re working towards accomplishing the goal. Stop Requested. This is Stop Requested.
by ETA. I’m Levi. These are real conversations with the innovators, operators, and advocates driving improvements in public transportation. Today, we’re joined by Aaron
Bigaman, National Transit Practice Leader at Burgess & Niple. Aaron has spent his career helping communities develop transit plans, build regional partnerships, and turn ambitious ideas into meaningful results. We’ talk about the challenges of bringing communities together around a shared vision, why successful planning requires more than a good plan, and how transit agencies can better measure the value they provide beyond traditional ridership numbers. Here’s our conversation with
Aaron Bigaman. Welcome back to Stop Requested. Today, we have another excellent episode for you. We’re joined by
Aaron Bigaman, who is the National Practice Leader for Transit at Burgess & Niple. Aaron, how are you today? I’m fantastic. My life is amazing. How are you guys? Doing very well and really looking forward to this conversation.
We recently, uh, met each other. Uh, th- this introduction was made by our CEO, John, uh, John
Maglio, and we wanted to have you on because of your breadth of experience, and we know that you have a keynote speaker spot that’s coming up at
SWATA in Breckenridge, and, you know, just want to talk through your experience and then also, you know, give some advice for some of our listeners.
But f- you know, for those of us who may not be familiar with your career, uh, and all your accomplishments, can you give us a bit of a bio on yourself and how you got into public transportation?
Yeah. Uh, thanks for having me. It’s, it’s great to be with you guys, uh, see you again here. Um, so, uh, National Practice Leader for Burgess & Niple. today, um, and, uh, that’s been a, a fun culmination of, uh, a lot of experiences throughout my career. I, I started in public service, um, as a more of a community planner, uh, and, and, and worked my way into, uh, community and economic development.
Um, I think my start into the transit space is a lot like, uh, many others. Uh, I don’t know that too many people start at the beginning saying, “I wanna work for a transit agency,” or, “I wanna end up in the, in the, in the transit industry.” It wasn’t anything that had really crossed my mind. Uh, I was running a military base, uh, reuse authority, uh, in, uh, the northeast side of Indianapolis, and I was reading the Business Journal one day, and I saw that, uh, an article that they had created a new regional transportation authority. I read the article, and they were, they were hiring an executive director, and I went, “Oh, that’s nice,” and I turned the page. Um, and then the following week, three different people unaffiliated with each other called me and said, “Did, did you see that article? You, you, you need to, you need to apply for that job.” And, uh, that kinda got, got, got the itch started, uh, for me to even, even enter into it, a-and I went into it out of, you know, pure hubris.
Uh, we were trying to do something really hard in Central Indiana at that time, um, and that was that there wasn’t really a regional transit vision for Central Indiana. Uh, there was no local funding mechanism to, to expand and enhance transit in Central Indiana, much less Indiana as a whole. Uh, and I liked the idea of just, like, could I, could I put myself into a leadership position to collaborate with others to, uh, cause that to be true? And so 2007,
I became the first executive director of Certa, and it was, uh, me, uh, a laptop, and a, a cell phone, um, and started working with the MPO and, and organizations there, and ultimately created what, what we call the, uh, the
Indy Connect vision. But worked through that. Um, we did get the funding. Indigo is building their third BRT line today. I know we’ll talk about that a little bit later.
Um, and then, um, needed a break, and in 2013, uh, had the opportunity to join HNTB and, uh, and lead a trans- transportation planning section there. Uh, ultimately went to Atlanta in 2015, um, and learned a lot about consulting. Uh, part of the adventure for me was, you know, going from public sector to private sector. Is this something I could do? Is this something that would bring me joy? Would I be any good at it? Um, those were all, all things I was exploring, uh, and I really did enjoy it, worked on some great projects, um, and then, uh, in 2019, joined Transpro Consulting.
Uh, and that was more the management side, uh, management consulting side of the house and working directly with leaders and, and started to develop a national portfolio of, of relationships and, and, uh, clients and folks that we worked with, uh, and just did, had the opportunity to do so many cool things. Um, and then the opportunity then to, uh, in December of last year to, to join Burgess
& Niple and help them launch, really launch their national transit practice. Um, it, it’s a great firm. It’s 100-plus years old, great talent, a lot of transit work in the portfolio, but hadn’t been focused. And so, uh, building something new, I think if I look back on my career, what have I, what have I done, the, the common thread, it is, it is about, you know, getting folks moving in the right direction, uh, getting organized and really, really achieving action. And, and I’m a builder by nature, so it was time to go build something new, and, uh, having a great time. Uh, love the people, uh, love the opportunities that we’re exploring with, with clients, and, uh, it really brings me joy to help my friends solve their problems, and that’s kind of fundamentally, fundamentally what, what
I get to do. Uh, uh, I’m paid to do it. I’d probably do it for free. Don’t tell anybody that. Um, and and, and, uh, you know, some of my greatest friendships have come through the transit industry, and I’m really grateful for, for the whole thing. I can certainly understand the, uh, sense that you would do it for free because you really enjoy it. I often say that to
John, uh, but maybe that’s the wrong person to tell it to. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Uh, it’s just because you, you, you thoroughly enjoy it, and it’s, it’s interesting, it’s intellectual, uh, it’s challenging, right? I’m, I’m sure it has all those, uh, sort of characteristics- Yeah … for you.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t… Levi, I don’t think there’s a, a greater compliment than when, um, your friend is stuck, and they, they, they call you to help, right? Like, like, I think that, A, it’s nice to have friends that are smart enough to know they, that, that, um, asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.
Uh, but that, you know, you’re honored to be one of the people that they did call to help them think something through. It could be something small, could be an actual project that we’re getting paid for. I just relish every opportunity to be helpful.
Um, if you guys are familiar with Simon Sinek, he talks about start with why, and my why is to- Yes … is to help people and teams become the best version of themselves. And so when I get to, get to do that by, by helping my friends solve their problems, I, I,
I just love it. That’s a great day for me. Where do you think that comes from? Where, where’s that inclination to- Ooh … to help people get, become organized or to think through challenges?
Yeah. I, I, I, I think I would have to talk about my parents first. Um, just saw them, uh, and my mom is still with us, my dad passed some years ago, but, um, y- they are, were both people that, um, that loved to serve. Uh, my mom a- always at the church. Uh, my dad, uh, I think he really had a passion for people and, and leadership, and he was an educator. Um, and so I had great role models, I think that, that showed me, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s cool to care. Um,
I think, um, uh, I don’t know, I’m a Pisces, uh, like to bring the calm, uh, in the organization.
Um, and I, I, I, I, I think there’s a thrill when we start at some place, and we, we think we wanna go, go in a direction, and we might not know exactly what it’s gonna look like at the end, but it’s thrilling to say, “Well, I know we wanna get to that destination.
How are we gonna get there?” And, and very fortunate, you know, whatever, it’s, maybe it’s my urban planning background, maybe it’s just some kind of natural, uh, ability to bring people along, um, that’s like, “Okay, well, well, gang, what are we, what are we gonna do? How do we think about that? What are the opportunities before us? What are the challenges? What’s gonna have to be true for us to be able to get to that destination?” And then keeping everybody focused on, like, that’s the main thing. We keep the main thing the main thing, and, and, and let’s all move together, and there’s gonna be bumps, and there’s gonna be challenges along the way, but working through those is just, is part of the fun of the journey because you’re gonna be learning something along the way. Every time you overcome a new problem set, um, that’s a growth opportunity.
And so, like, you know, it’s the spirit that we get to go through those challenges, like, that it’s not, “Oh, man, now I gotta go do that.” Like, it’s a privilege, it’s an honor. I get to go do that. Um, and I try and bring that mindset to, to everything we’re, we’re working on. And it could be planning a family vacation, it could be, you know, trying to figure out how you’ll reach transit system. It’s, um, it’s many of those same, uh, attributes that you gotta bring to it. But, uh, I, I would say I’m definitely inspired by my folks to, to wanna help. Uh, were you… Did you have the same way of thinking about the journey early in your career, or has that changed over time?
Um, I think, uh, ear- early in my career, yeah, I went to Ball State University and was in the College of Architecture and Planning.
And, um, within that, that, uh, degree program, um, it’s very collaborative. The, the environment in the classroom is a lot of group projects and collaboration. Uh, it created so many opportunities for me to actually, you know, do what are called community planning charettes. So, like, we would go to a small town or a county and, and facilitate an intensive two-day planning thing, and, and seeing folks come together, um, from, from different perspectives. I think one of the things about transit that, um, has got my attention early on is that it’s the big tent. We don’t get to decide who our customers are gonna be, right? We don’t, we don’t get to decide what the needs of our community are. We have to just try and meet them and create the best possible mobility outcomes that we can for people to live.
And, and, and so I think, um, recognizing that within this space, we, we have to be collaborative, and naturally, I’m, I’m a collaborative person. I like when we’re all winning together. Um, that, that classroom experience combined with what I’ve learned about transit, you know, I think it has kind of always been my let’s all go there together.
Um, what has changed over time is my confidence in myself to facilitate really any, any room. I’m very comfortable in any space, and that sounds, uh, like pretty full of myself, but, but I’m, I’ve kinda worked my way into, in facilitator emeritus for several organizations. Like, they need to get through a challenging conversation, they give me a call. Uh, we need to get through a, a board, board retreat, or we need to, need to get through a challenging executive team meeting.
Uh, you know, my, my, like, I don’t wanna say their names, but there are several CEOs that, like, call me and say, “I need you to come here. This is what we’re trying to do.” And, um, just that confidence and ability to get through it, to know that, you know, we don’t have to know every question to be able to get through it well. It doesn’t have to be overly prescribed. Let’s let the room come to us. Um, that’s, that’s probably what’s changed over time. It’s just my comfort and confidence, and to, and to be … comfortable to say, “This is the main thing. We’re trying to get this thing done, and, and I’m gonna do what I can to pull the levers to identify all the strengths that we have within that room to be able to get us there.” You know, Aaron, it is, is, uh, just hearing what you’re saying is, is so, um, you know, like, the passion comes through, uh, your passion for, uh, leadership.
And, you know, what you’re describing has changed. The thing is, I, I mean, you’ve grown your leadership skills, and, and it’s something that we all have to work on as professionals, right? Absolutely. Nobody day one is a great, uh, professional, you know, leader, right? Like, it’s, it’s diff- different skills that you h- have to work through, you know, public speaking, you know, a h- being charismatic, being a good communicator, uh, being able to inspire people. Like, those things take time to, to build and develop and, you know, a, uh, you d- display those qualities as a leader. Thank you. So, you know, b- feel, uh, don’t, don’t feel bad about, uh, you know, being confident about having those skills because, you know… A- and I’m not surprised that CEOs and leaders call you because even the CEO is a human, right? We have ups and downs. Yeah. Sometimes we also admire some, uh, leadership traits of, uh, colleagues in the industry, right? Like, we all have our mentors or people that we look out, uh, look out, uh, look up to, because none of us are perfect, right?
Like, we’re all a work in progress. Yeah. And, you know, it’s by leaning on each other that, that we get better. So, um, I, I wanna talk to you about your time as the first executive director, uh, at Certa. Yeah. And, you know, a- and I love, uh, how, you know, you display and you talk about, uh, you know, leadership and the importance of leadership because leading a transit agency, and, and to your point, you just said, you know, a transit agency is in the community. Like, so many factors that we cannot control. We c- don’t control who’s our customer. Like, we don’t control all these environmental things that are happening. We just have to make the most out of that environment and, you know, provide our service, right? Yeah. A- and, and then leading one community is very challenging altogether, but leading a regional operation is even more challenging because the leadership has to be shown in how you’re able to get people to work together, which I think is one of the hardest things.
So I, I wanna know how you helped shape Indy Connect, uh, in your time during executive director. One of the things, um, when it comes to anything regional, when you’re getting beyond one jurisdiction, regionalism is hard. And if, if you don’t, if you don’t believe me, I would say call our friends in Chicago, right? They’re working through a whole new regional organization. Call our friends in Charlotte. They’re working through a whole new regional organization.
Uh, Dallas, uh, had a, had a challenging year where they almost had, you know, three communities leave. Like, regionalism is hard, and it’s hard because communities are always changing. The politics are always changing.
Uh, the pace at which we, we make investments in, in the transit space takes time, and because of that time, the dynamics of who’s at the table, what they expect, what they want, what the needs of the community are, um, what the technologies available to us are, they’re all evolving. It’s constantly moving and changing. And so
I think that’s one of the things I learned at Certa was that, you know, to, to recognize that, that don’t, let’s not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Um, you know, you, you, you talked about progress. I think one of the, one of my mantras is, you know, we have to measure our progress, not our perfection. Um, that the goal with, with Indy Connect was really to… The first step was could we get a 10-county region to agree to one long-range plan, to one long-range range vision? And, and, and when you think about, you’re talking about the core city of Indianapolis, which had a, has a, a legacy bus system in Indigo. Uh, you’re talking about fast-growing, um, uh, suburban communities. Like Hamilton County is one of the fastest growing counties in Indiana, or, and much less the country for two straight decades.
Um, th- then there’s also, like, those exurban areas that are still really quite rural, I mean, once you get out that initial, initial band. And so you have these, y- you know, representations from these counties that are b- both growing and, and still kind of struggling with the, the rural tension there, in addition to what does Indianapolis need and, and, and how do those suburban communities feel like they’re responsible for what… You know, are we gonna be paying for, for stuff in Indianapolis that we’re never gonna get? Like, working through those challenges, um, does require some compromise.
And, and I, um, because we’re that big tent, um, there are a, a lot more people that can, can and should care about, about mobility and its impacts.
You, you know, a single, a single special interest, uh, an area agency on aging or something like that, right? They’re focused on senior communities. They can really target who they build their coalition from and how they tell that story.
Well, transit’s serving hospitals and schools and people with disabilities and aging and economic development and growth and on and on and on and on, right? There’s like 10 different venues to build that support, and it’s a little more diluted, so the strength of a coalition that you gotta find all those folks and, and invite them to share their, uh, share their stories, their commitment, their interest in this issue, helped us, uh, move the needle.
It takes time. Yeah. Um, you know, history didn’t begin when I started paying attention to it. I mean, people had been working on this issue before 2007.
I joined in 2007. The law in Indiana didn’t pass till 2014, and it took- Some, some real strength in our business communities and leaders. It took one mayor, Greg Ballard, who was, who was really committed to wanting to make this investment to help, help push us over the top. And I re- I recall being, talking to the chair of the Senate Finance Committee in, like, 2012, and, uh, I’m giving him all the reasons why we need to do this and how it’s gonna work, and he was like, “Okay, yeah, whatever. You’re the transit guy telling me we need transit money.”
And the following year, you know, we, we had, uh, the, the three heads of our, uh, economic- Oh, no … development agencies say the same thing I said the year before, but because they said it, he was on board. And you have to not care who gets the credit if you’re really trying to get a big thing done, and so
I, didn’t bother me that, I mean, obviously, maybe it bothered me a little bit, and I was like, “I just said the same thing,” but- Yeah. Um, and, um, I thought that was a, that was an important lesson for me to learn. Like, I don’t have to be the messenger as long as we’re working towards accomplishing the goal. Today’s episode is brought to you by ETA.
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That’s a great takeaway for a lot of, um, you know, transit professionals, the same situation, right? Because you have to have this exciting plan that the organization wants to get behind.
You as the transit guy, like this guy I refer to you as, uh, you understand your community, and, and honestly, most transit agencies, they know how the, the, the transit system should grow to better serve the community, but if you don’t have the political support, it’s gonna be very difficult. And something that you mentioned that I’ve been hearing at different conferences and, and different professionals, uh, alluding or sharing as well, for to be able to have a ballot measure, to be able to have some support with, with some plan, you have to have some sort of advocacy group or coalition that is- Mm-hmm … made up of different key players in the community that are telling how that is fulfilling their mission also. Like, how it’s, like, that regional plan is connecting to their purpose. So call it, you know, a house, um, um, lighthouse for the blind, right? Mm-hmm. Like, you know, maybe you have an organization for, you know, visually impaired folks, and then they are coming to tell the story how visually impaired people are gonna be able to access more jobs and do these sort of things, and why they’re behind it, and it’s gonna benefit the community. So now you’re talking about access to jobs. Now you’re talking about these sort of things that are not just like, “Oh, you just need money to run a few more buses.” It, it becomes much more because, you know, public transportation impacts so many different levels in the community, right? And, and it has a lot of impact in the economy, how, uh, the, the economy, uh, activity i- is moving. So you have to have that ability to match, uh, those two, and that’s always the hardest task, to be able to get all- Yeah … everybody to play together. But, but to your point, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who gets the credit, right?
Like, for the rider, it’s not, you know, like they’re no- they don’t care about the credit. They care that now they can go and get that job that, you know, before was not accessible.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, exactly, exactly right. I, I couldn’t agree more. So I, I, I wanna a-ask about your transit planning efforts in, uh, Detroit and, and Atlanta. Mm-hmm. Um, those are the different regions. Um, you know, w-what separates plans, is they continue moving forward from plans that stall once the process ends. So, you know, great plan, but- Yeah … you know, it just doesn’t go to execution.
Oh, you had to bring up Detroit. Uh, no, uh, Detroit was a, a, a, that was around 2014 to ’16 when I started my consulting career. I had the opportunity to lead, uh, the development of a regional master plan, uh, for Southeast Michigan.
Um, I think what was interesting about that was the inspiration for that really came as a result of, of Secretary LaHood at the time.
Um, Detroit was building the, uh, M1 rail, now the QLine Streetcar, and as a kind of a carrot and a stick, uh, um, incentive to that region to create an RTA in order to get federal funding for the streetcar project.
And so I think, I think a lesson there was, like, did, did the Southeast Michigan region want an RTA? Did they really want a regional plan, was kind of a, a question to, to, to leave open.
We did build a, a solid coalition. There are f- four or five different transit agencies in Detroit, and so getting them, getting the agencies to be in alignment with a regional plan and, and an understanding of who’s g- gonna run what and who’s gonna build what was definitely half the battle. And then there were a lot of geographic political issues as well. Again, very similar. Does, was Oakland County and Macomb County, you know, were those leaders, elected leaders feeling like they were subsidizing Detroit’s transit system? Like, that was one of the challenges we had to work through, and, uh, came up with, uh, an equity measure to make sure, you know, not, not equity in the sense of, you know, um, race and diversity, but equity in terms of how much revenue comes from my community and where is that dollar gonna be spent in the service. So we- Through a lot of nuanced things.
And y-you know, you just, you can’t control elections. Um, that plan in 2016, guys, lost by less than 1%. And one thing I’ll never understand is rather than we were close, right? We had a pretty good plan.
You lose by, by like 1,600 votes, um, in one county and, and the solution was to scrap the whole plan, and I never quite understood that. Uh, I still don’t understand it today, and that, and that, that community continues to try and figure out. Now they’ve made some, some moves. I’m very excited for Tiffany Gunter and the
SMART team. Um, they just, they just passed a, a measure that got all of Wayne County into, into that, into the SMART system. So, uh, there’s movement, but it’s, it’s a decade later and, and they’re s- they’re still not quite at that stage where there’s a total unified regional vision, for what mobility looks like, but they’re working on it, and great people like Ben Stupka and Robert Kramer and
Tiffany, they just, they never stop, and it, it does take champions, perpetual champions to be able to embrace that. Um, Atlanta was a little bit interesting, uh, differently in that, that, again, multiple counties, the, the thing that I think Atlanta was experiencing at the time when I was there and doing work there was, um, that the northern suburbs, southern suburbs had, had figured it out, but it was 40 years of the city of Atlanta and MARTA kind of really being the primary show, and so you had a tension of, um, pardon the phrase, like new money, old money, right?
There, there, there was a system in place, and it needed state of good repair work and enhancement, and these new communities wanting new stuff too. And so that’s an interesting tension, again, going back to regionalism being hard, um, I think that, that, uh, uh, Atlanta, Metro Atlanta continues to work through. There’s so much opportunity there for investment, but it’s also really expensive, and I, and, and that’s an example where a plan, uh, costs one thing in, in, in 2016, but by 2018,
2020, the cost indicators, it really outpaced the ability of the program to be able to deliver everything. So they, they, they’ve started to move the needle on, on many, many projects and really excited for everything that’s happening in Atlanta.
But it, it, it is an interesting model of a tension where you’ve got, uh, new communities wanting to have that type of infrastructure and an existing system that requires infrastructure upgrades, and it’s a, it’s a unique tension to manage, and they, they manage it pretty well. So w-when, uh, communities are, uh, you know, thinking about expanding, uh, their services or, uh, perhaps, you know, adding new services, but a lot of what comes up is what is the ridership like? Mm-hmm.
Uh, you know, how, how do you project what ridership could be? What is current ridership, and is it good or bad? How do you think about ridership?
Yeah. I think ridership’s overrated, uh, as, as a metric of performance, and, and I’ll ex- I’ll expound on that. But
I, I stood in front of a room in Austin at a, at, at an APTA mobility conference, and it was a full room, a lot of, lot of different presenters on this, on the panel, but I asked the rhetorical question, like why does your transit system exist?
What is its, what is its purpose? Certainly you want people to use it, but like I’ve never seen a politician at a ribbon cutting or a groundbreaking talk about how many p-people are gonna ride it. They talk about the economic impact.
They talk about the access to healthcare. They talk about, uh, the mobility for workforce. But they don’t say, “And now sixteen thousand people a day are gonna be able to ride this.” I think the other thing is that a, a trip is not a customer. A trip is not a rider. So l-let me expound on that. You live in a community, uh, that has rail and bus, and you take a bus to a rail station, you, you, you ride, uh, that, that rail, uh, trip, y-you get to another stop, and maybe you transfer to another bus. Let’s, this happens, right? We, we know systems. This is kinda how mobility is configured and transit planning designed. That counts as three trips the way we count them, and that’s not three trips.
That’s one trip. And I think that, like the, the myth in, in trips being the, the, the performance measure, performance indicator of success, like I think we’ve done it to ourselves as an industry, uh, and I’ve been saying this for years, and, and I wanna give attribution to Mark Ash, uh, at TransPro. Um, you know, he, he really helped kinda clarify this for me that, that the experience, the value indicators there that, that relate to success for organizations are far more important, I believe, than how many people rode the system, uh, in any given day.
And that, you know, when you’re talking about a mode split on average of three to five percent nationally, the, the, the growth in trips, uh, and rides is, is infinitesimal, but the impact of each of the trip, right? Does our community see value? That community value indicator, that’s far more important.
This is fundamental infrastructure for, for our community. The experience that a customer has, uh, is, is really important. Are we putting a high value service on the street that, that people wanna use and tell others about is a, I think a, a far more important and valuable metric.
I think, uh, finding a way to quantify the economic impact and then consistently using that model, and I’m not talking about the four for one or the five for one, whatever the number is,
I mean, what is your microeconomic impact? Uh, can you align with some sort of, you know, university or something to consistently study that every couple years and report those types of results
Um, the environmental impact. And, and, and so I, like, I think that, that sure, ridership is an indicator of something, and I’m not saying we shouldn’t count trips as some sort of, some sort of indicator. I mean, I’m happy for the folks in San Antonio, two million more trips this past year.
Um, but I think that, that it doesn’t quite tell the story of what we’re trying to do here, and I don’t think it necessarily represents the value that transit is delivering to communities, um, when you just simply count, count heads. And, and
I’ve said, you know, and, uh, this isn’t real advice, it’s probably a little bit sarcastic, but if you just wanna increase your trips, force more transfers in your system. Right. You’ll get more trips.
I mean, I mean, if, if that’s what it’s really about, just make the trip more complicated for your for your customer by forcing transfers, and you will increase your trips. I mean, you guys know your planners. What do you think?
Right. Your PTs go up. Yep. Yep. If, if you’re cutting a route in half and then forcing the transfer, you’re, you’re going to look a lot better on paper and, and the user experience might suffer. Yeah.
I, I- More rid- more ins than our lightings. Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, I… And I think there’s a real opportunity, and, and clearly USDOT is starting to look at this to, to do something different with the NTD.
Um, you know, I, I think there’s value in some of the, the National Transit Database data, um, but hours and miles and trips, you know, that’s the baseline. Let’s, let’s… I would love to see USDOT move into more value-based indicators of success. Uh, and they had an RFI recently, um, for, for public comment about, you know, they’re talking safe and secure.
That’s a start, um, that is more qualitative. Yeah, completely agree with that. Uh, so with, you know, your, your experience over the years, and I’m sure you’ve interacted with a lot of elected officials and, you know, even, even residents who might not use the service, and, a- and, you know, at least in, um, in our experience, mine and Christian’s, you know, elected officials don’t often ride the service unless it’s, you know, some sort of special service, a special bus just for elected officials.
You know, if you don’t use the service, how, as transit professionals, are we supposed to communicate the value? Um-
Yeah. Um- You know, we, we need to make up that story somehow. And I don’t mean, like, make it up, like fabricate it, it’s just there, there needs to be some narrative out there, um, that we’re seeking.
Yeah. I think we need to ask the question, like statistically valid polling that asks the question, uh, “Do you find value in your transit system? Do you receive personal benefit?” You know, I’ll give you a story from, from Denver. Uh, just a couple years ago, they did this, and, uh, they found that 80 some percent of the community found value, uh, in RTD. Now, only 6% of the sample actually used it.
So, you know, there’s, there’s already, I think, a recognition among, among communities. We need to be better at consistently asking the question in a statistically valid way, and then, and then saying that, right? 87% of the community finds value in the infrastructure we provide, but only 6% are using it. That’s a story right there, in and of itself, the success that folks see that value. If it goes away, I think there’s a, there’s a lot of natural tendency, you know, I’ve been, been involved in a lot of these community surveys around the country, and even in pre-polling for, like, a ballot measure, that the reasons why somebody, you know, sees value in it is, you know, I might not use it, but, but somebody I know depends on it. Um, you know, there’s a self-interest that may, it be, it makes my commute better. Uh, depending on the community, that there’s a natural recognition, um, for, uh, the environmental impacts.
Um, and, and I think it’s okay. You know, we take away, as an industry, away from the social service aspect of what we do, that, that we’re, that, that transit is for the least of these.
But if transit in your community is, is, is for folks that, that can’t afford to, to drive themselves, or, or, or maybe are incapable, like let’s celebrate that.
That is, that is, then that is the service that we are providing to our community, and there is value in creating that independence and mobility for all, and that’s the role we play.
But lean into that, uh, would be my, my advice, and I would love to see more, more of our transit agency partners do that, and not, not, not like shy away from that, that aspect of what we do. So Aaron, uh, when you become w- you begin working with a transit organization, how do you determine whether its strategic goals, performance measures, uh, and day-to-day decisions are actually aligned? Yeah.
Um, I, I love to start with the pr- professionals, uh, and the staff, um, before, before we start talking to board and stakeholders, like what does the organization think success looks like? Uh, and really pushing and challenging them. You know, when, when I’ve facilitated these conversations, it’s really trying to push them to those value indicators. Like, I’ve got the bully pulpit as a, as a facilitator, so, you know, you wanna increase ridership, that’s great, we can put a goal on, on that. Are you actually gonna have the resources to be able to make the investments in your service to do that? Has always gotta be the follow-up question when, when someone says, “Hey, let’s, let’s grow ridership.”
But, um, but what w- what I have had success with, um, is getting folks to think a little bit about what’s unique to their community and what’s unique to their organization, and making sure that we define success outcomes that are important to them. What do you wanna be great at? It’s the same question for leadership, like what kind of leader do you wanna be? That requires intentionality.
And so when we’re facilitating these conversations, it’s, it’s a, it is a push. You know, I’m not trying to tell them like, make customer experience number one, but if they talk about the customer when we’re doing some of the round robin and, and initial, you know, debriefing, well, that’s gonna be an indicator to me like, okay, we need to talk about customers, or we’re talking about community impact, and we need to make sure community becomes one of those value indicators that, that gets highlighted.
Um, and so, so really just, just I like to challenge a room, uh, to, to get beyond that, and then have the professionals Use their experience and compel that with their boards, with, uh, their community and stakeholders. Like, that we don’t, we don’t offer it as a, “Is there anything else we should measure?” It’s a, “Here’s what we think is important. Help us rank and prioritize those,” rather than creating a space for outside actors to tell us something else that th- that, that they might be important. And that, and that’s not that they’re, that they’re separated, right? We’ve, we’ve done that experience and somebody’s asked the, “Well, what about economic impact? I’m just firing for effect.” I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s, that’s a really good one.
Let’s add that. Now, of these five, help us rank and, rank and prioritize.” And then the other thing to build alignment is to, to not let it, not let those, those outcomes become too many. It’s y- there’s gotta be a few vital objectives that we are trying to accomplish because that’s gonna help keep people focused, that’s gonna help your organization understand what the most important things are.
Uh, if you comm- communicate it well, you will help your people understand that this is like, like, this is what we’re trying to accomplish and this is what success looks like, and these are the three to five most important things.
That brings clarity and simplicity. Um- Yeah … and when an organization’s trying to do too much, you can tell. Um, and- Yeah, it- Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
I, I was just gonna say, to, to your point, right? Like a, a transit executive has to be proficient both at, uh, leadership and execution. Yeah. Not just the execution, you know? Because i- in, in terms of the leadership piece in, as it relates to what you’re saying, is a strategic planning process, right? Like, you know- Mm-hmm … you cannot just have measurements to have them, or because they’re kind of like the standard measurements of operations everybody has, and like, okay, so everybody measures ridership, then we just have to grow the ridership.
And it’s like, no. The strategic, uh, process doesn’t start like that. The strategic process, it, it should be aligning with the vision and mission of the organization, and the value that it provides to that community.
And then to your point, it’s like, where are we good at? What is our value? How can we grow that value? And that’s how you call, uh, come up with the strategic goals and SMART objectives to achieve that vision. And then now you’re measuring those things. You’re measuring the things that are actually are adding value and taking the organization from, you know, great to excellent. But, uh, if you’re just measuring ridership and not connecting your strategic planning process on, on, like, the right measurements, you’re, it’s just, you’re gonna be failing. You’re gonna be spinning your wheels. And, and a lot of the times, those metrics are pretty, uh, steady.
Like, if you’re, if you’re not changing any service or doing anything new, then for the most part, during the same months, you see about the same trends. Um, but yeah, that, that, the right measurements is, is key and, and definitely connected to the strategic process.
Um- And u- us- and using those measurements then to make good decisions, right? Like, uh, the, the dashboards are, are popular and, and, and, you know, you can go to a million transit websites and see KPIs.
You know, I think that if you are just putting your data out there and not using it to make things better or to learn from it, it’s just a watch. It’s just telling you what time it is. Like, if you think about the dashboard in your car, when you’re, um, uh, uh, speeding and you realize you’re speeding, you change your behavior. You slow down, right? You see the fuel gauge, you’re running out of fuel, you pull over, you get gas. You change your behavior. You don’t just keep driving till you run out of gas.
And I think that, like, dashboards are a, a, a good start, but we need to start using the information in a dashboard to make informed operational decisions. I think that that is an opportunity for growth as a whole, uh, in the industry. Customer satisfaction is lagging. Well, let’s ask some questions about why it’s lagging, and then let’s do some things differently to influence, uh, that customer satisfaction. You know, I, I love you said that because I think, to your point, some agencies have some dashboards and, like, some graphics that, that just have there, but they’re not extracting, like, the inference. You know, and then using it to make decisions. Like, what is that telling us? Oh, you know, like, the, this is the type of accidents we’re having.
Okay. So let’s, you know, do the root cause analysis, and then let’s come up with strategies that we’re gonna measure and implement to turn that around.
So it’s, it’s really actively, you know, doing something about it, like, to, to your point, and not just, like, you know, waiting until the end of the performance period and said, like, “Yeah, every month we fail.”
And it’s like, well, when you start failing, why didn’t you started, like, taking action? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Like, like, I, I think that’s a fundamental, fundamental expectation for leadership.
It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, asking ourselves, what can we do to achieve the results we desire? And I think a lot of times we just get comfortable reporting data, uh, without really thinking about what are we gonna do differently to achieve a better result. So e- let me ask you this question. No agency’s dashboard is all green. A- and if it is all green, I think that we have to revisit either the way we calculate some of these metrics- Yeah … uh, the targets we’re setting or, you know- Yeah … just, just altogether if we’re measuring the right thing. But my, my question is, uh, about innovation. Uh-huh. So if you are a transit leader in a transit agency, you still have, you know, challenges with, you know, aging infrastructure, um, you know, you have to make these service changes and, and these other projects, and some of the metrics are not in the right place.
How do you balance improving, you know, your operations w- with, uh, innovating and maybe, you know, bringing the, the new solution to the transit agency? I think we have to ask the question, what… The first question is, what’s best for the customer?
And then I think we need to follow that up with what’s good for the employee, and allow those two questions to help guide how we prioritize the investments that we’re gonna make. And, and recognize we cannot do all the things we think we wanna do right now. And so what’s gonna be a reasonable dep- Employment to do what’s best for the customer and what’s in the best interest of our employees to be able to move the needle in a, in, in, in significant ways. And I know that this seems like an oversimplification, but in, in, in many respects, like stopping and giving yourself permission to be strategic, to think about what your priorities are, is a skill, and it’s an underutilized skill. I think we think about strategic planning as something we have to do, uh, every three to five years, and, um, it sits on shelves and, and maybe we, we use the, the indicators, but, but to give yourself permission to say, “What are the most important things? What’s most important to our customer? What’s most important to our people?”
And then to be intentional about what we’re going to do and stay committed to the cadence of implementing, uh, the things that we think are gonna move the needle, and also, if something’s not working, stop doing that. Like some- a, a simple exercise is like start, stop, continue. What do we need to start doing?
What should we stop doing? What do we continue to do that’s gonna allow us to achieve the results we’re, we’re seeking? Um, and that is, that is something, uh, any leader can do on a regular basis, and you can do that in middle management with your team. You can do that as the CEO for the entire organization on a regular, consistent basis.
So Aaron, y- your, your background i- is extensive. You’ve covered a lot of projects, and all those projects and new services, reducing services, uh, that all ties back to money, and the, the financial outlook for transit right now is, uh, you know, I would say a, a little bleak, uh, to put it mildly, at least for some, uh, agencies out there.
You know, we, we get some folks who say like, “Oh, well, government, d- and in this case, public transit, should operate like a, a business.”
Um, w- what’s been your experience in, uh, trying to apply a more m- may- or maybe apply a more business-oriented approach? Yeah. It, you know, is that, is that all in on ridership, and then they, we kind of back away- Yeah …
from the, the social service aspect of things, or, uh, can you dig into that? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Levi. Uh, in your introduction to that question, is that your way of telling me I sounded, I’m old?
No, I’m kidding. No. No, absolutely not. No. I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Um, y- this is a, this is, this is gonna be an interesting, interesting time, uh, for transit. I mean, I think we’ve, you know, with the, with the federal funding, um, you know, post-COVID, like
I think folks got, got, got a refresh and a, and a bit of a, bit of a respite there to, to stem the tide. Um, and then, you know, who knows what the next continuing resolution and the next transportation bill’s gonna have for transit.
You know, we’re, right now, I think there’s reason to be pessimistic, and oh, by the way, right, state legislatures aren’t necessarily excited about giving more tools for more investment. You’re looking at states like Florida in November that are gonna have referendums to eliminate property tax. Ohio almost had one on the ballot. Texas is talking about it, right? They’re– So there are gonna be some, some continuing challenges, right? Transit was already hard to fund, right? It’s not like it w- not like it was easy, easy to, to take care of it. And so I think we’ve gotta, you know, I’ve,
I’ve been facilitating conversations with, uh, another firm, uh, Point Strategy Group Management Consultants, um, and taking this to state associations and thinking about, you know, the question I asked was, “How would private equity approach our business? What kinds of questions would they be asking?” And, and they would be asking, I mean, I, tho- those two questions I just asked, like what’s best for the customer and what’s best for the employee, I think are two things to be mindful of as you’re thinking about your limited fiscal resources, and that, you know,
I would hate to see this at the expense of service be- because I think the, the, the, the automatic, the reflex, uh, to a, a tough financial situation typically is, well, let’s, let’s, let’s scrub every pot, let’s freeze raises, let’s stop traveling for professional development, and then, um, we’re, we’re gonna have to cannibalize service. We’re gonna have to cut service. So
I think number one, and, and, you know, we all have planning backgrounds here’ r- on this, on this discussion, is to make sure, like really look hard at your service. I think we’re, we, we, we run some service as an. agency, uh, because we didn’t wanna tell somebody no. Uh, maybe our boards didn’t wanna tell somebody no, and, and we have to accept that there’s gonna be some political dissatisfaction sometimes when we go, “Look, that’s just not efficient,” um, or, “That’s not in alignment with what we’re trying to do with respect to our goals.” And that’s where clarity of goals, Levi, I think are really, really important.
Like we can create an amazing customer experience and still run less service as long as the service that we’re running is, is really high quality, right? The bus is clean and the o- operator is friendly, and it was on time.
Like we can still do that. We can maintain our ridership. I think that, um, the pot scrubbing has to look for redundancies, and I think it also has to strategically invite education to the entire workforce to understand how what they do has an impact on the bottom line. If you’re a maintenance tech and you.
use 10 shop towels a day, and you work 250 days a year, you use 2,500 shop towels. Can you, can you use five a day? Like every, y- you know, helping folks see that they’ve got a, a, a, a contribution to bottom line, um, through, you know, employee education. Uh, Utah has done a really nice job. They’ve got a financial university for all their employees to learn about the business of transit.
Um, and I don’t know that there’s a silver bullet. Um, I think that, that I would love to say, “Here’s how we’re gonna solve it.” Uh, but
I think not being, uh, afraid of advice from, from folks that might work in mergers and acquisitions or, uh, in private equity, and letting some, some different thinking into the room to help us look at cash and cash flow.
Um, if you can maintain cash flow in a reasonable way, you, you can sustain service. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve gotta go cut this or that. It just means we’ need to be really good at knowing when our revenues are coming and when we’re gonna be spending our money.
So, um, there are a few tools in the toolbox, but if all the revenue sources are gone, as I set up my answer to this question, we’re all gonna be hurting. And, um, I, I don’t think I know what the answer is other than continuing to promote good financial stewardship and financial education for your enterprise, um, and doing your best to not do it at the expense of your customers and employees, and that’s, that’s the challenge, I think, of the day? for the industry.
Right. It’s quite the tightrope walk for sure. I, it- where do you think agencies are, are going to be needing the most help in the next 5 to 10 years? Is it on the financial side, or is there something else that, you know, maybe it, it’s just not glaringly obvious?
Um, I’ think that probably there’s, there’s two. I mean, yes, yes, finance.
Um, I think, well, maybe three. Uh, so I think, I think definitely financial. These are in no particular order. I think figuring out the role you wanna play in mobility, like the conversation. Jamison Autan is leading in Eugene, Oregon for Lane
Transit District about thinking about LTD not as a transit provider, but as a mobility provider. Um, I think Nat Ford in his time in Jacksonville did a really good job, like, thinking about the role of the transit agency and how do you collaborate with other. leaders in the community about what, what mobility needs are, right? So if we’re having a financial problem, but we can get alignment in our community about who we just wanna m- make sure we do the least harm to with financial decisions, that’s gonna be a way to sustain that, and that means the mobility portfolio might look different, right? And I’m not saying… I- i- it could be autonomous, it could be micro, it could be, um, finding a more cost-effective way to do, to do paratransit demand response.
Um, it could be fewer routes, but really, really, really great service on those fewer routes that enhance mobility and connections to those. And then the third one is gonna be, gonna be people.
And, you know, we’ve talked a lot about in the industry the challenges on the frontline staff. I see on the next 5 to 10 years, we’re gonna lose a lot of talent through retirement, um, and, uh, potentially some attrition, depending on what happens with financial situations around the country. But, but
I think, you know, we’ve had some great leaders in our industry that are starting to push up against retirement age and, you know, I hope, and I do believe, like, there’s just great young leaders like you guys in our industry that, that can step in to fill that void, and I would like to see more of those emerging leaders get more opportunities, uh, to lead agencies today. Um, and, and I think, like, that’s, that’s a potential risk for us, uh, in terms of, in terms of that. Yeah, that- that- that was very well said. It- it’s the beginning of new era in- in its, you know, through time and, and history. It, we had a, a professor from NYU that pretty much on the pod gave us a whole history lesson of how transit agencies got to where they are today, uh, even, you know, the, the funding and structure and all that, and, and it seems that we’re walking into a new era, right? And, and new leaders will have to emerge to continue all the work that, you know, transit leaders have done thus far and continue, you know, fighting the fight, providing that, you know, great public transportation for the communities.
Um, Aaron, this has been a phenomenal conversation. Uh, I really love all the different, uh, you know, aspects that we discussed today during this conversation, you know, from leadership, from measuring performance, and just looking ahead.
Um, now I wanna go into one of our closing rapid fire, uh, segments, uh, of our, um, podcast. And during this segment, we pretty much, we ask, uh, short questions, and we wanna hear, you know, short, you know, quick answers, first thing that comes to mind.
Gotcha. Are you ready for it? I’m ready. Let’s do it. Awesome. So bus or rail? Bus. I like seeing my, my driver. Excellent. Uh, most underrated skill for a transit leader?
Delegation. Just not, not- Oh, wow … too, too many people negotiate with themselves over other people’s time, uh, and the quality of what they think they’re gonna get. Learn to delegate.
Learn to delegate. One transit metric that gets too much attention? Ridership. Oh, yeah. Just listen to the podcast. Yes.
One that does not get enough? I’m gonna say economic impact, uh, but because there seems, we, we still struggle to define kind of one commonly practiced measure.
Hmm. Planning or implementation? Implementation. I like to let’s make it real. Let’s get things done. Advice for someone who wants to lead a transit agency someday?
Do it because, do it for the right reasons. Uh, I think there are some folks that want the title.
Uh, they, they want the role. It’s like something they have to accomplish as a checklist. And I would say, like, if you are se- are, are authentic, uh, about your reasons behind why you wanna do it, uh, do it for the right reasons.
I really love the advice. Um, it felt like you were speaking to me there, I’m not going to lie. Um, uh, because I’ve, I’ve had, you know, those thoughts of like, I wa- I wanna be a, a CEO, of a transit agency, and-
You know, am I, am I thinking about it from an ego standpoint where it’s just about the title and the pats on the back and- Yeah … you know, attaboys, or is it because I genuinely want that job and want that responsibility?
And, um, it, it’s a, uh, you know, I think that’s a, a tough place to be. It’s not an easy, you know, position to fill, and you can be let go at any time.
There is no, uh, “Hey, you know, you’re, you’re doing a great job.” It’s usually people, you know, pounding on your doors and saying, “You’re doing something wrong. You need to fix it. Uh, and if you don’t fix it, you’re out.” I, I do a lot of therapy sessions for a lot of transit agency CEOs and, and occasionally
I get the itch, like maybe I wanna go back to public service and lead an agency. And when I get that itch, Levi, here’s my advice. Go to a board meeting. Yeah.
Uh. Right. Get as close to the action as possible. Once I, once I sit through a three-hour board, sit through a three-hour board meeting, I’m like, “I’m good. I’m happy. I’ll, I will stay advisor.”
Right. Right. Yeah, no, I, I can, uh, I, I feel for you there and, and get that. That, that little bit of a taste is enough to be like, “Mm, no, not, not right now, no.” Maybe it’ll come back, but not right now.
Uh, Aaron, this has been a really wonderful conversation. I had a lot of fun with this one. Uh, we have some key takeaways I’ve written down while you were speaking. Uh, you, you gave us so many.
Um, I’m going to try to boil this down to just a few here. Uh, so one, uh, the, the thing that I, I think you kept coming back to was, uh, you know, removing the ego and, you know, not trying to get credit where credit is due, and, uh, you know, that, that sort of thinking will, it, it will give you a, a lot of heartburn and it’s kind of a trap, right? Where you’re, you’re trying to just get the pats on the backs and the, the- Yeah … the attaboys.
Um, you know, even if you’re a, a CEO, or this could be an entry-level transit planner, it doesn’t matter whose idea it was, it’s just let’s push the ball forward, let’s make sure that we’re improving service, and in the end, this is about the impact to the community.
Um, uh, as we talked about extensively now, ridership’s only part of the story, and one that can be pretty easily manipulated, uh, if you’re a transit planner, that is. Value-based indicators are pretty informative or can be more informative than just, you know, ridership or some of these other metrics that, that get thrown around a lot or get reported to NTD. Um, so we need to focus some of our attention there, you know, find out what is important for the community, and that starts by asking them questions, uh, doing those statistically significant surveys, uh, and using the data that you gather, uh, to change behavior. You mentioned the stop, start, continue. Really love that way of thinking about, you know, what you, what you need to stop doing right now because it’s bad, what you should be doing, and what you can continue doing because you’re doing it well. Uh, and, you know, finally, you said learn to delegate. A- and
I think that’s a useful lesson if you’re in transit or, you know, maybe more generally in public sector or really in, in any profession. It’s, if you’re in that position of leadership, you’re not going to be able to take all the weight and burden yourself. You can’t do it all. You need a team around you. You have to be able to not just pass things off to somebody else and say, “Here, you do it.” It’s, it’s work with them, coach them, mentor them, you know, give them all the tools to be able to do the work, uh, so that way they’re successful. Yeah. Levi, can
I add- Did I miss anything? Can I add something to that, that delegation that, that, uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned, I think, that there are, there are three, um, mistakes or three, three things we do with ourselves when we negotiate with ourselves regarding delegation. Uh, we will decide that the person, maybe we do wanna delegate something, we’ll decide that somebody’s too busy, and when you decide without asking if somebody is too busy, you’ve, you’ve already, right, you’ve negotiated with yourself over somebody else’s time.
So let them tell you whether or not they can actually, actually do it. Uh, I think number two, um, you know, we think that, well, if I do it, I know it’ll get done right and, or get done my way, and I think there’s, there’s power in surrendering to the idea that it might actually get done better, right? It might not get done your way, but you might actually get a better result or desire. And then that third one is, well, if I do it, I can do it in half the time, and I think we’re missing the opportunity to help grow and develop others when we do that because the first time, you know, you did it, it took twice as long. And so I think, like, looking for those things that, that might be important, uh, but not necessarily urgent, those are great things to delegate.
Um, and it creates a, a development opportunity for your people. It creates more time and capacity for you as a leader to focus on the most important things, and, um, and, and I really, I really coach and counsel people on that a lot. Like, and use those three questions to, uh, to, to drive your delegation decisions. I love the framework for thinking about it, uh, that it, it makes all the sense, and
I- I’m so glad that you articulated that at the end. Now, we’ll have to have you back on, uh, another episode to talk about the people like Christian and me who don’t know how to say no. We say yes to everything. Oh, I’d love to do that. Yeah, that, that, uh, we, we could kill an hour on that for sure. I’d love to do it. We could. We could, absolutely. Well, again, Aaron, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. How can people follow your work and learn more about Burgess &
Iple? Yeah. Thanks. Um, appreciate it, and thank you guys for having me, and please, please thank Jan, uh, on my behalf. Um, it’s been, been a great conversation.
Uh, would invite folks to cer- certainly learn more about Burgess & Iple at, at bur- burgessiple.com. No and in there, just burgessiple.com. Um, if somebody wants to get in touch with me, they should feel free to email me or, or follow me on
LinkedIn. Uh, I’ve kind of got a pretty open accept all policy when it comes to somebody reaching out to me on, on LinkedIn. I think that’s a great platform.
Um, but, uh, you can email me at aaron.bingaman, uh, E-H-R-E-N dot B-I-N-G-A-M-A-N @burgessiple.com. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, and thanks for sharing that for our audience. And to our audience, thank you so much for joining in to another episode of Stop Requested. We’ll be back next Monday.
