You wonder what it's like if you were to run a transit system in the hot,

hot desert like someplace like Phoenix.

Run it for a while and then go to another place where it's freezing

cold like Buffalo, New York.

What would that be like?

Well, I'm Paul Comfort, and on today's episode of Transit Unplugged, we'll

find out because we're gonna talk to somebody who just made that transition.

My good friend Michael Pal.

Michael is Director of Transit at NFTA Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority,

and just prior to this, he was Chief Transportation Officer at Valley Metro in

Phoenix, Arizona with my friend Jessica Mefford Miller, who's the CEO there.

Michael just made the transition this last year and tells us all about it.

He also talks about this amazing public transportation system that

serves the Buffalo, New York area.

Uh, over a million people in the region, including Niagara, uh, that area there.

And we find out, we dig into his background.

Like me, he spent his whole career in public transportation spending 28 years

working at the, uh, New York City Metro starting out um in, uh, in one of the

boroughs of New York where my dad grew up.

And, uh, we'll talk all about that, about his background, what he learned there

growing up, and public transportation, and how he's applied those lessons in each of

his successive jobs across the industry.

It's a great story and we'll dig into the current transit system and some of

the big projects they have coming up, including the Amherst Rail Extension,

uh, a brand new station that opened up and a new BRT coming in the near

future, all that as we talk to Michael Pal in upstate New York and Buffalo.

He's the director of Public Transit at Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

Enjoy.

Great.

With my buddy Michael Pal, who is the Director of Public Transit at NFTA Niagara

Frontier Transportation Authority, up near Buffalo and near Niagara Falls.

Michael, thanks for being with us.

Great to be here, Paul.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Absolutely.

I enjoyed our, visit with some of your operators a few months ago.

We stopped by during, uh, football season and you took me out

where, where did you take me?

Where that's where all the buses park right to take people for game day service.

We have about six, or so different locations where we pick up

passengers for game day service.

And that's a central hub that's closest to the stadium.

And what will happen is people who, uh, park there, the buses that are not as full

or at capacity will pick up there as well.

We have some scheduled and some unscheduled that have capacity

to help bring everyone along.

That was the McKinley Mall.

Uh, yeah.

Which is very close to, uh, the Bill's home stadium.

That's great.

Yeah.

Buffalo Bills, everybody loves them.

Great team.

too bad this last year maybe, maybe this coming year your

and my teams will do better.

I'm the Commanders.

We had, we had a rough season as well.

Yeah.

you guys did much better.

well let's talk about, uh, your transit system some.

Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

You're right near Niagara Falls, right?

That's correct,

yeah.

Tell us about the area it serves and the agency itself.

Sure.

So the NFTA metro, and this is the metro division, is part of

the bigger NFTA as a whole, and it also serves the airport as well.

So we have airports and we have public transportation.

we have two different airports, which is, uh, Buffalo Niagara, which is the

main one that you, I think, flew into.

Yeah, I flew into there.

Yeah.

Uh, up by the Falls is another airport, which is a much smaller operation, but

we wanna talk transit, not planes today.

Right.

So

That's all right.

But,

uh, but

that's all part of your group.

Tell me about the overall group.

So the Niagara Frontier.

Transportation Authority, what does it do?

Sure.

Well, it, it again, um, has the airports and all public transportation

including rail, uh, bus and paratransit.

It's about 1500 people altogether.

Uh, two thirds of that would be the metro division, for public transportation.

And that's what you had up the Metro Division?

Yes.

Yes.

And what's your boss's name?

Kimberly Minkel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I, I think I emailed her a little bit too.

Yeah.

Thank you Kimberly, for doing, letting us do this.

so, uh, tell us about your service then.

What do you all do in Metro?

Sure.

So we provide bus, rail and paratransit service to the Erie

County as well as Niagara County.

it's a large area that we serve.

pretty much the Buffalo, city of Buffalo is about 300,000 people, but

the greater buffalo Niagra region serves, uh, well over a million people.

And, uh, we do that with 53 bus routes, uh, one rail line, and,

uh, a lot of paratransit service, uh, which is growing every year.

almost as much as 10%.

Wow.

It's, it's a lot to keep up with

that is And what kind of rail do you run there?

We run a light rail system.

Actually, it's the only other city in New York state that has a subway.

even though granted we're not at the scale of MTA.

We have 13 stations, five above ground and eight below ground at this point.

And then we'll get to talk about the extension.

That'll mostly be a above ground, so, um, it's, it's a small but mighty operation.

It sports, huge riders per passenger mile and also efficiencies.

So we definitely get our money's worth out of it.

That's great.

That kinda reminds me of the one that I used to run in Baltimore.

People didn't even know Baltimore had a subway system, you know, if I went

somewhere else, but we had commuter rail, light rail, and a small subway station.

But like you said, small but mighty, right?

Yes.

That's cool.

Alright, so, um, break it down a little bit more about your services

and what you've got going on.

Sure.

So on the bus side, again, like I mentioned, we have 53 routes.

12 of those are express, the rest being local.

daily ridership of our bus and rail combined, there's probably about 50 to

60,000 riders on an average weekday.

we have also a paratransit service, which we do in-house.

We have 85 vans and we do about a thousand to 1100 weekday trips on average.

And, weekends obviously, uh, much less than that.

But, we are, again, expanding at a rapid pace in paratransit.

we're bringing on, um, some new software.

we just, got approved by the board.

We're excited about that.

hoping to get some efficiencies and make our services, uh, much more

customer friendly and give them some rider tools that I've seen other

cities share the, uh, success in.

By adapting these latest and greatest technologies.

But, uh, it's a busy operation, you know, uh, a lot of ridership

to deal with every day.

We have the elements here, the cold, the snow, but our

transit riders are dedicated and they're loyal and they support us.

It's a, it's a, a great time to be here in Buffalo.

We have, uh, strong political support and, we're doing some great things, coming in

the future, which we'll get to, I'm sure.

Yeah, that's great.

So Michael, tell me about your staff levels.

Sure.

So the NFTA Metro has about a thousand of the 1500 greater NFTA employees of that,

about 563 bus operators, 181 mechanics, 27 rail cars, 85 paratransit vehicles.

289 big buses, not including contingency 3,852 bus stops, 53 bus routes.

And, yeah, 325 bus shelters, which we're expanding those more and more.

Uh, it's definitely needed out here with the cold and the wind.

Yeah.

Now, how did you end up, you mentioned being in the cold.

Now you and I first met, I think back when you were in Phoenix, where you were

the, what were you the COO there for?

Um.

In Phoenix.

I was the Chief Transportation Officer at Valley Metro.

Yes.

Yeah.

Valley Metro.

Yeah.

With Jessica.

Yeah.

And we did a show Transit Unplugged TV show out there a year or two

ago where I got to meet you in your operations control center.

That was pretty cool.

Your whole place.

You had some solar powered stuff, I think, for your shops there and all.

Yes.

so what were you doing there?

And or give us your background a little bit.

How, how did you end up in, from the heat of Phoenix to the, to the

winters in, in Buffalo, New York, man?

I'm a native New Yorker originally.

I, I grew up in, uh,

I couldn't tell by your accent.

Yeah.

I tell people it's Australian.

They're like, wait, what?

Yeah.

But, uh, so, uh, growing up in, uh, Brooklyn actually, uh, and I'll

really back up to the beginning.

I was a avid transit user from childhood from eight years old.

I lived down the street from, three or four different bus

lines and the, uh, elevated rail system, which was the B Line.

Now it's the B Line in Brooklyn.

And, uh, I learned at a very young age that transit is the key to

independence and freedom, and those lessons and values stuck with me

throughout my life and my career.

Didn't know, you know, after college that I will up wind up working

for the, uh, uh MTA and I had a great 28 year career with them.

Uh, met some amazing people and mentors there.

some of the like of Craig Cipriano, Darryl Arick.

But, started out as a driver for, and I really understood the system and

learned about it from the ground up.

Learned about the challenges.

I, I really keep that close and, uh, near to my heart because I'm very

empathetic with the driver needs and the, uh, demands that they go through,

the stresses, the need for good deescalation training, and the realities

of what they experience every day.

And, again, with those lessons.

Delivering service when I was at MTA and, and subsequent career moves.

understanding that transportation is freedom and independence, and

social mobility in a lot of ways.

So, I was involved with the union early in my career, so I learned

the other side of the fence and, uh, had great relationships with all

the union presidents that I've dealt with throughout my different careers.

Uh, after

were you the president of the union or, or steward?

Were you a shop steward?

I was a division chair at MTA.

I had 4,000 operators in the Brooklyn, MTA surface division.

did grievances and arbitrations from both sides of the table.

Wow.

It was a little awkward when I went to the other side, you know?

Yeah.

Uh, as a supervisor.

And then, uh, you know, worked out in the road, worked the depots, and then, uh,

moved up, uh, as a general superintendent, worked in first administration and

safety, and then transportation.

And then I was promoted to assistant general manager.

Of course, they put me in their largest of their 28 garages, which was one of

the, uh, MTA bus garages, which was one of the eight companies that were taken

over by MTA early in the two thousands.

So there was a lot of culture resistance and a lot of culture

change that had to happen.

But I, led there for three years and I was very successful.

We reduced accidents every year.

Had a great team.

Improve the morale and one the folks over by doing what I do now, getting

out to the different garages, open meetings, town halls, educating the

operators and the maintainers on what's going on, where our pain points are

and how could we help, and really inviting that two-way communication.

But finishing MTA as Staten Island, uh, AGMO of road operations.

It was our first bus redesign there.

And it was met with the public with pitchforks and, uh, torches, basically.

Yes.

yeah, it was a rough go.

but you know, they allowed me to come in and put together a team and, we

joined forces with the advocacy groups.

Uh, Philippa --- has a Facebook group of, I think 4,000, 5,000 people in

Staten Island that used the 33,000 daily trips in the Express over

there, and, uh, became really close.

And, uh, working with the borough president at the time, James Otto,

another great figure that helped lead change and, and help us give,

deliver the improvements we needed and getting the recognition at City Hall

for the attention Staten Island needed.

But we really turned it around.

And, before I left there, we peaked at the highest weight assessment,

which is another form of on time performance that the uh, system ever had.

So a lot of happy customers from a lot of angry customers, but again meeting with

the grassroots folks, going out into the field, uh, going out myself and checking

complaints, just talking with people, you know, and, uh, being there with the team.

But it was a great experience.

And, you know, at some point I did my, uh, 28 years there, it

was time to do something else.

And I landed first with, Minneapolis, uh, Metro Transit as

the Deputy Chief Operating Officer.

I think that's where I met you first when you were there in Minneapolis.

I believe that was where we first met, maybe at the Mobility Conference

or, uh, during my time that it was only, I was only there for about a

year before Valley Metro gobbled me up and, uh, enticed me to go over there.

But I gotta say Metro Transit is one of the best systems I've ever

experienced, uh, the way they run it.

Brian Funk.

Yeah.

The COO is one of the, uh, brightest and best transit minds I've ever met.

Yeah, tough guy.

Uh, to this day, he remains a good friend.

He knows his stuff.

He is dedicated.

He rides the system all the time.

And again, he gets it all also about leadership.

You gotta be out there.

You have to experience the system as a customer, right.

they have one of the best, uh, BRT networks and they're expanding

it, every year after year.

I was there for the D-line launch and, uh, a few other projects, but gotta say

it was a short time there, but a lifetime of experience and friendships I've made.

I tell everybody in transit, transit family, we spend more time here

than we do at home during the week.

And, everyone here is your family.

You know, get to know everybody.

I'm so grateful for the connections I've made throughout the industry, the APTA

conventions and, and conferences as well.

So, getting back to the career, after leaving, uh, Metro Transit, uh, again,

Valley Metro had a great opportunity for the Chief Transportation Officer,

where I, took that job in May of 23.

it was a great experience.

There are some amazing people there at the city of Phoenix and

Valley Metro I got to work with.

For a purple state, they really are pro-transit.

They have the support of a lot of the electeds local, uh,

electives as well as the state, uh, representatives and the public.

The, the, uh, last proposition, 4 79, it was, was a 20 year funding, pretty much

a lockbox of money that comes in, passed by, uh, well into the 60 percentile range.

So, the support was there.

Rail just expanded.

We opened up our, northernmost terminal, which is the old mall from Bill and

Ted's Great Adventure over there.

Metro Center.

That's it.

We open Metro Center.

and then, uh, we just also opened right before I left the South Central

extension, which was a $1.3 billion five mile, rail extension that

split the line there into two lines.

basically we have the A and the B line.

We do a lot of paratransit service there as well.

About a thousand daily paratransit trips.

And we did, uh, probably about 1100, 1200 ride choice trips,

which is a premium service.

Yeah, and also we had the bus service, which we had about, probably

about the same amount of routes as we do here, 47 to 50 routes.

And then the City of Phoenix operates independently three

garages, and they had a, uh, probably about 70 routes or so as well.

But, uh, great times there.

We elevated the OTP from the national average of like 74, 75% to 80.

86 or 87% consistently before I left, we had some great partnerships

with some, uh, software providers, and all the operations there are

contracted out except rail maintenance.

So it was unique and different to me.

Although I had a little experience with that at New York MTA in the paratransit

division for a couple of years, managing contractors was different and new to me.

And it's a very complicated political structure there as well.

But, a very big board.

Uh, a lot of towns and cities have, uh, members,

oh yeah, Tempe and Mesa and all them.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, if you're listening to this and you're interested in seeing some

of the great stuff Michael talked about, we show it to you all on the

Phoenix episode of Transit Unplugged TV.

You can find it on YouTube.

I also wanted to mention Michael, that, uh, I was so impressed

with Jessica Mefford Miller, the CEO of the agency there.

At, you know, valley Metro, just, I think she's one of the top maybe 20

CEOs in America of transit agencies?

Yes.

Uh, you know, not only in the time we spent there, but she's also done

a panel for us last year, a live event, and interacted with her on

the podcast and seeing the results.

I mean, that's where the rubber hits the road, right?

The results opening up those extensions with the great artwork.

I'm big on doing all the artwork and

Oh yeah.

The connections with the community.

While we were there, we met with all kinds of community leaders.

I mean, just phenomenal.

I know you were a right hand there, so to speak, but I mean, what an amazing leader.

Huh?

Yeah, she is a firecracker.

She has a lot of great vision and she, she is a great team leader.

She really gave us the support we needed to get our jobs in every day.

No nonsense.

Uh, with the contractors.

She held them accountable.

She was, uh, as nice as could be, but, uh, you gotta deliver your product and

what you're selling, especially when the, uh, complex, uh, audience we have of, of

our customers being the member cities.

Very demanding.

They are very, very, close to, uh, monitoring, and into the

statistics, into the daily activities

Oh yeah.

Of what's going on in their transit for their communities.

Very actively involved, I'll say.

And, she was really supportive and she has gotten a lot done there.

opening those extensions successfully under budget and on time, may I say, with

the, uh, Metro Center and driving and uniting a team to really deliver the, the

quality of service and get things done.

And they're still doing so much more there.

They just, recently announced their new rail.

Instead of doing the capital extension, they're gonna do the

Indian school, which is a west most, western bound, uh, rail extension in

conjunction with the city of Phoenix.

They got a lot of great ideas and expansion.

I think, uh, Phoenix is probably the fourth largest metropolis in the country.

At one point it was growing really fast and everything

slowed down a little now, but.

There's a great need for public transit there, and Jessica and the

team are delivering and they're knocking it out of the park.

We're talking to Michael Dylan Pal, who is the, director of Public Transit for NFTA.

When we come back after this word, we're gonna dive into what he's doing

now at his agency and some of the big extensions and expansions that are

coming in his service right around the corner right after this word.

Are you a transit executive who's making big decisions about AI, cybersecurity,

safety, crime, and fare evasion?

Well, what if you could get behind closed doors with a bunch of your industry peers

and have a real down to earth conversation about these topics facing the industry?

Join Paul Comfort as he hosts the Think Transit Executive Summit, a one day VIP

meeting for transit executives only, run under confidential Chatham House

rules in Boston on Monday, March 30th.

We'd love to have you join the industry's best and brightest as we solve real world

problems and build stronger networks.

To learn more and register, go to Trapezegroup.com/thinktransit.

That's Trapezegroup.com/thinktransit and head to the executive summit page.

We'll see you there.

We're back with Michael Dylan Pal, who is the director of Public

Transit for NFTA, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

Michael, before we left, uh, for the brief break, you were talking about

your background and history, and I love that you started out with New

York City Transit, I mean New York City Transit, obviously is the largest

transit system in North America.

one of the largest in the world.

I mean, by far.

around 40% of the people who take a trip any given day on transit in

America, take it in New York City, man.

Uh, we had Demetrius Critchlow on the show recently, and I've interviewed

all of the CEOs recently there.

Or, um, the, the head of public transportation there.

Um, and, uh, you said you started out in Brooklyn, man, and that reminded me,

you know, my dad was born in Brooklyn.

Billy Comfort and, he told me when I wrote my children's book and I was asking him

about things about it, before then, he told me, Paul, we used to be able to ride

the subway all day long for a nickel.

And, um, and they had a token back then, right?

A, a nickel token.

And, uh, it was his key to freedom as a young man.

So just what you said, man, getting out of, of Brooklyn, going out.

He used tell me, you go to Coney Island and all these other places he would

go to and just great memories how the role of transit plays in the life

of New Yorkers, how it's thoroughly woven into the fabric of the community.

Everyone rides transit every day to get to everything they do.

Uh, and uh, it's amazing, isn't it?

You don't even need a car in New York in certain parts.

Yeah.

Most parts you don't need a car.

And that's the amazing transit system they have there.

and, and it's a model for so many cities to

Yes, it is really is a model.

So, okay, so we left your story, when you were leaving Phoenix.

So then you came out here, you've been here almost a year now.

Tell us about that and then we'll talk about what are the

new projects you got going on.

Sure.

So I really did love, working and living in Phoenix.

I actually still keep a, a place there and I'll go back there next week and visit.

But, uh, so, you know, family plans, no one plans these things.

Uh, my daughter, uh, had a, a baby, my, my third grandchild and

I kind of got tired of flying back and forth every month to see him.

And, uh, but I had to be closer to family.

My family is all here in New York and New Jersey.

My son actually is a train conductor at New Jersey Transit,

following dad's footsteps.

but, uh, I, I wanted to be closer to home.

You know, I tried to lasso some of the kids out west and no one wanted to

come, so they dedicated east coasters.

so I, I started looking, uh, for some place closer to home that I could work.

And I had a few great offers, but, NFTA, uh, Metro really resonated with me, first

and foremost with their leadership.

Kim Minkel is amazing.

very steady hand.

She's been in the seat for probably about 15 years as the executive director.

Leads really effectively and has the trust, uh, and the confidence of

the board and the community around her, really has great vision.

Drives this agency forward, keeping us very fiscally, responsible and solvent,

and are very responsive to the community and very interwoven with the community.

But, uh, you know, NFTA is at a turning point, moving from maintaining legacy

systems to building a connected, equitable modern transit network that supports

Buffalo's next generation of growth.

I came out here and visited.

And I saw what was happening.

It's going through like a kind of a little renaissance.

at one point at the turn of the century Buffalo was huge, you know, the city of

Lights and then industry moved away and it went through a little bit of struggles.

But, uh, now there's a great interest here with biotech.

we have UB and, and the medical school and a lot of, uh, pharmaceutical and,

different, uh, kind of businesses.

And we have the waterfront, which, uh, so many people want to be on the water.

You know, it's just beautiful, you know?

Um, yeah, you have a little bit of cold it snows during the year,

but a little bit of sacrifice for gorgeous spring, summer, and fall.

and some people love the winter.

Uh, my, uh, uh, Tom George recently departing, uh, vice president.

He's an avid skier.

So, uh, the snow made sense to him and it becomes part of life.

But I gotta tell you, just the energy here.

I was skeptical when I came out.

I fell in love and also gained about 12 pounds.

As we both know, we went out to eat.

They have some of the best food out here in Buffalo, the, one of

the best food spots in the country.

And I've been around this country, different agencies,

different cities, and the

We had some amazing fattening food when I was with you for lunch that day.

Yeah, yeah.

That was a great time.

And, and, uh, good pizza.

Good wings.

Buffalo is known for the buffalo wings, right?

Yeah.

But, um.

and then the upcoming, uh, projects that are, that are,

yeah.

Tell us about them.

Sure.

So I'll dive right in.

Uh, we just recently opened up the DL&W station and, uh, DL&W isn't just

a station, it's a civic front door.

You know, it's, it's a symbol of the reinvestment.

It's, you gotta anchor it somewhere.

And this is right downtown on the waterfront.

And, uh, it's a small extension, but it brings people down closer to the water.

We are building a bridge that'll connect, uh, in conjunction with the KeyBank

Park that'll go right into the arena.

So people could literally park at a park and ride, get onto the train in

the subway, no jacket, and get off and go through a tunnel or over the, you

know, the elevator bridge to a tunnel into the stadium and vice versa after

a hockey game, a Sabers game, or I know they just recently announced they wanna.

raise the amount of events they do from like 140 or so to like 200 a year.

So it grants a lot of people a great opportunity to get to

that, enclosed arena, as well.

It's just a beautiful station.

Uh, you gotta come visit it.

The artwork is amazing.

The, uh, tile walls feature birds from all over the New York, the Erie County area.

a lot of thought went into that, and, uh, we had some great artists work

in collaboration with us on that.

So, uh, DL&W originally opened up in 1917.

It was a passenger rail terminal.

it was heavily used until again, it closed down.

Uh, probably the fifties or sixties or so.

And then, uh, it's still close to the Amtrak hub over there and it's

right in the heart of downtown.

And, uh, it's great to have that reopened.

We have a lot of plans with the second level of it, including some shops and

some merchants and even, maybe some, uh, food trucks in the summer, there's

actually an elevator for the trucks that'll get up to the roof, and have, uh,

events, over at the top of the station.

So it's gonna be not just a rail terminal.

It's gonna be a, a, a centerpiece of downtown that people can gather and

have a good time and not just, use as a place to go get the train.

There'll be actually events there and things to do, and it brings

'em right again, right to the waterfront, which is amazing.

some other great stuff we have going on is the Amherst Rail extension.

So right now our system's 6.4 miles.

This will be about a seven mile extension with 10 new stations, three at the

University of Buffalo North campus.

It'll connect, uh, all three campuses when that's, uh, completed in around 2032.

we're just expecting the, uh record of decision for our,

environmental impact study.

Hopefully it's gonna come down any day now.

Uh, we're hoping for good news and proceeding forward.

It's going to be about a $2 billion project, half funded by the federal

government, and half is counting on a state and, local contributions.

But again, it'll the to UB campuses, the Boulevard Mall, uh, medical campuses

downtown and canal side, The waterway, like I was talking about before, it'll

also increase, Job accessibility, from currently 84,000 to about 143,000.

it's gonna encourage 2.85 billion in new development of $519 million,

estimated increase in property values.

And we talked about the cost and the split of how that's gonna be funded.

And a construction window of 2028 to 2032.

So again, rail extensions aren't about trains, they're

about access and opportunity.

And this is gonna bring a lot of opportunity out to

Amherst, out to Tonawanda.

Yeah.

Some of the other communities we serve.

we're not building this hoping there will come.

The density is there, they're building factories all over the place over there.

And there's, uh, a lot of great development.

This lines right up into that.

And we'll make it a lot more accessible.

Take traffic off the road.

There's road improvements that'll come with that, uh,

construction project as well.

we're gonna try to minimize the amount of grade crossings.

Again, I rather everything be on the ground, but it's a lot

more expensive and not sure the, environment is conducive to that.

But, you know, it's gonna be, uh, a really effective and efficient system

that's gonna serve and bring a lot of great opportunities to a lot of people.

great.

Um, last but not least, we have our Bailey BRT, that's coming also.

We're hoping to roll that out second quarter of 2028.

Construction's gonna start this year.

That's a 7.5 mile corridor with 13 stations.

It's gonna go from our University Station, where our route currently

terminates, to, uh, South Park Avenue, which is, it's basically

the north south spine of Buffalo.

the corridor will serve about a hundred thousand residents.

Currently the Route 19 is the primary route that serves, uh, those residents.

Carries about 2,600 average riders per weekday.

We're hoping to obviously grow that.

it's not gonna be just a dressed up bus.

It's gonna have signal priority, fewer stops, dedicated lanes.

And we're also exploring automatic camera enforcement.

We're not there yet, but we're still exploring that There's

some legal issues and, and, um.

enabling legislation would have to get approved.

but you know, it's all being talked about at this level.

That's awesome.

I love BRT.

Yeah, BRT is, uh, you know what, it delivers rail like reliability

for sometimes a 10th of the cost.

That's right.

A fraction.

And it's portable.

If it doesn't work, eventually one day you could move it somewhere else.

You, you nailed it.

Yeah,

absolutely.

But you have to have, you know, the commitment to it.

You have to have the enforcement, you have to have the bus lanes

that, uh, queue jumps, all these, uh, amazing technologies.

And there's a lot of great companies out there that assist with that.

To provide this, uh, this, make it the success it is, and give people

back minutes of their life every day.

That that is what it's all about.

It's about giving them time back, our most precious commodity.

they'll also have heated stations, and we're gonna use 12 dedicated

low no buses for the project.

the cost for Bailey is about 107 million.

104 of that is coming from federal and about 3 million, the states

ponying up to make that a reality.

again, like you said, Paul, and we talked about BRT delivers rail like

benefits with bus level flexibility, and it's gonna be our first, uh, we have,

um, a future network we have, uh, that we're developing in the background.

A lot of great ideas.

We even just recently did a study.

We had some, trails, uh, of, abandoned rail core that we own.

Would those be feasible for BRT lines?

Since we already have it?

we're still exploring that.

but with the BRTs, as well as, uh, fleet and facilities to support it, we're also

just, endured a alternative fuel study.

Uh, we're looking at things like hydrogen, uh, and, uh, or CNG for

our, uh, one of our bus facilities.

We have three, uh, garages now.

One's CNG, and the other two uh, one is our electric.

the other one, uh, Babcock is standard diesel.

So we're looking at Babcock, the future of our Babcock bus facility.

Do we want to, is hydrogen a reality?

Is it close enough?

or is it gonna be another CNG, or more electric?

We have right now 37 electric buses.

we are taking an order of eight more this year.

We have 22 in the pipeline.

so we'll be at about 67.

the next couple of years, point.

And how many buses?

About just under 300 buses, 289 buses.

Our fleet at one point was 330.

We have 21 in contingency, which we use for training.

And uh, actually we're 30% of our

fleet is past its useful

FTA uh, life of 12, uh, years and 500,000 miles.

So we're, you know, refurbishing that, uh, bus replacement program

and trying a long-term plan.

And really throughout the best strategy for, um, uh, replacing our

fleet, what fuels we want to go with.

And as you know, there's a lot of discussion or hesitation

right now with electric, right.

So we're really, uh, are weighing, uh, next move very,

very strategically and carefully.

at one point we led the state, uh, uh, as far as electric buses

and now MTA with their recent deployment, they're back ahead of us.

But we were proud to try that new technology.

we have a great fleet of New Flyers and a great partnership with, uh, all of

our, uh, bus providers for that matter.

But, uh, excited about it.

The public loves 'em.

They're very quiet, as you know.

It's an exciting time.

that, just jumping back to rail for a minute.

also looking to the rail car, the future, right.

Uh, and the rail system with our expansion our fleet right now

is 40 years old of rail cars.

We have 27 rail cars.

they don't even, make them anymore.

The company that we had is long out of business, Tokyo.

so we're exploring though, and I've actually discussed this with

the former CMO in Valley Metro.

The real way to save money in the future, I think, and, and again,

open to engineering right now is hybrid trains, uh, where you could,

you don't have to put up all the infrastructure, the OCS Rundel lines.

You could really, really achieve a lot of savings in the build and long

term cradle to grave nurturing and maintenance by, uh, having, uh, hybrid

battery, electric trains, charging at terminal ends, and, really, really

removing a lot of that huge cost for infrastructure and, and, uh, you know,

driving those pilings into the ground.

I think they go 20, 30 feet into the ground for the OCS poles.

It's a lot of work and, and a every.

You know, every 50, a hundred feet, it's a lot of cost.

So, really exploring these newer technologies and being forward thinking.

it's exciting.

It's a real exciting time to be here, between the BRT with the,

uh, Amherst extension, the rail extension as well as our new station.

And, looking at, uh, expanding, uh, paratransit service, exploring, taking

on a new study to look at, maybe explore microtransit, even, uh, introduce that.

There's a pilot going on now, that we're participating in.

There's a lot of great things happening and I am so excited.

I know I made the right choice coming here to Buffalo, I really do love the area.

it's true what they say about Buffalo.

Everything is 20 minutes apart.

You can get anywhere from here to there.

There's a lot of great roads.

they handle snow like nobody's business.

the airports.

A lot of times when we have delays at our airports, it's not about

getting out, it's about flights getting in from other places.

'cause they do it every day here and they do it very well.

I gotta say.

We have great teams and uh, everybody here is really dedicated again, the

1500 people or so, from NFTA, two thirds of that being NFTA Metro.

They really love what they do.

Our planning, I gotta say our planning department, I take

my hat off to them every day.

They actually, I think all of them ride the system every single day.

Wow.

They experience it as a customer, so they're really understanding

when they hear about concerns, uh, of what's going on out there, to

really quickly adapt and make the changes needed to keep the customer

experience improving at all times.

That's amazing.

Michael, what a great story for not only your personal story, but the

story of your system and what you have coming up over the next few years.

I can't wait to see it all come into fruition.

Thank you for taking some time today.

Share it all with us.

Paul, thank you so much.

I really appreciate, I'm sure the industry does the work that you do in promoting

transit, public transit, thanks for moving us forward, and I, uh, appreciate

and enjoy, uh, your show very much.

Looking forward to catching the next episode.

All right, thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Transit Unplugged, the world's

number one transit executive podcast.

I'm Julie Gates, executive producer of the podcast.

Many thanks to the team that makes this show happen.

Host and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keeffe, editor Patrick

Emil, associate producer Cyndi Raskin

Transit Unplugged is being brought to you by Modaxo.

Passionate about moving the world's people.

If you would enjoy behind the scenes insights and updates from the show,

sign up for our weekly newsletter, which has links to can't miss conversations

with the biggest names in mobility.

Head to transitunplugged.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you on the next episode of Transit Unplugged.