Hi, I'm Paul Comfort and on this episode of Transit Unplugged.

I'm joined by a man who has done just about everything in city government and

keeps coming back for more After a 26 year career with the Louisville Metro

Police Department, rising all the way to Deputy Chief Ozzie Gibson retired in 2016,

but that retirement didn't last long.

From animal services to public health, fire to public works, and

even overseeing the city's parks, Ozzy has taken on 11 different

leadership roles across city government working under four different mayors.

Talk about a public service Allstar.

And then in December of 2023, the mayor Craig Greenberg tapped Ozzy once again.

This time as interim executive director of tarc.

Louisville's Transit system, the Transit Authority River City, and in July of 2024

with the city's full confidence behind him, he was named the permanent executive

director ready to guide TAR through a time of big change and big opportunity.

And in this conversation we talk about a major network redesign and

what it means for riders updates to paratransit policy that improve service.

Partnership with a local school system, and when is the right

time to roll out big change.

Get ready for some great stories, some practical wisdom, and a few surprises from

one of Transit's most versatile leaders.

Ozzy Gibson on this episode of Transit Unplugged.

Let's dive into the conversation.

Ozzy, , great to have you on the show with us today.

Thank you very much for having me, sir.

Yeah.

As I mentioned, I was down there a few years ago for a podcast with your

predecessor, Carrie, who now is a, I think, region seven administrator

for FTA, so, uh, I believe it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, uh, congratulations.

How long you been in the role there as executive director at TAR in Louisville?

I have been here, , they put me in in December of 23, and

then, um, they were trying to do a search and then I came on full time.

Uh, in July of 24.

Okay.

So, yeah.

So going on a year and full-time in the position.

Yep.

That's great.

What do you think so far, how is it, 'cause you kind of spent your career

in law enforcement and government.

You were the parks director and all that.

What's it like, just, you know, kind of from a third person perspective

coming in to be transit after all that?

Absolutely.

So the first is, uh.

All the red tape around the federal guidelines.

Ah,

um,

as far as, , how you can use grant money, how you, uh, all that

stuff, uh, the different audits, uh, that was all stuff that I had to come

up to speed on, uh, the best I could.

But

yeah.

, Ozzy Gibson: Very important role here.

You know, I've always been here, I've worked with past directors

here on projects or if we had some type of an emergency, but

as far as getting in the weeds.

And looking at, um, what all they do and how often they do it.

Uh, , I was drinking water through a fire hose, as they

say, uh, the first few months.

Yeah.

Well, that's good.

Well, welcome to the industry.

You've got a great agency that you're heading up there, but you

spent 26 years in law enforcement.

Tell us about that and, and kind of what you did there and how you grew through

the ranks and ended up with this job.

Uh, there again, I started my career like in 1989

with the, uh, the police department here and, uh, was been a detective.

, Spent eight years on a SWAT team.

Um, worked my way up to the assistant chief.

Um, did all the budget, their fleet, everything like that, got promoted to

Deputy Chief, which was their car two,

, Paul Comfort: I salute you for your service, uh, and I'm really

happy you're in our industry now because I'm sure you've got a lot

of lessons you brought with you.

But first, how did you go into parks?

Because like, were you retired and then the mayor asked you to come back and

become the head of parks or something?

Oh Lord.

So like when, when, when they called me and asked me to come back, I actually

took over the, our animal shelter here.

Okay.

'cause it was in such disarray and they needed to build a new shelter.

So, uh, I said, look, I'll jump in.

I think it'll take us about three years to turn it around.

We'll, we'll do some fundraising.

We ended up building like a $12 million state-of-the-art facility.

Um, worked hard with some people there, turned it into a no kill shelter

for the first time in like 30 years.

And I actually started liking it.

And then, um, we actually had, uh.

My boss, like about two, almost two and a half years in, who

was over like six departments.

He was like a deputy mayor.

Well, he up and retired and they asked me to take his role and I'm

like, man, I don't wanna be that.

I don't sure that's what I wanna do.

I really kind of like this, but I, I'll, I'll do it in,

uh, until you find somebody.

So at that time I was over corrections fire department, um,

fleet facilities, public works.

Um, wow.

9 1 1. That's a big portfolio, man.

It was a big one.

And then we, I did that for about five months and we found a lady, they

actually hired the, a lady named Amy Hess, who was the like number, uh,

the highest ranking female in the FBI.

Oh wow.

And,

um, she came into town.

I transitioned out in 30 days.

I got to go back to the animal shelter and covid hit.

Um, and then they, uh, I have an IMT background, obviously

from the police department.

So you, we set all that up.

Month later, they said, Hey, will you be the chief over the health department?

I'm like, uh, sure.

Always wanted to be over a health department.

Why not?

So, wow, Ozzy, I kind of took that on and stayed with that mayor.

His name was Greg Fisher, and, , finished out that row.

I actually ended up getting public works and fleet facilities back and

then took on Riverport authority here.

So I kind of did all of that through the end of, uh, that administration.

When I met our new mayor, Craig Greenberg, a man who's doing a great job.

Um, he asked me, would you go take over to parks department?

So I'm like, okay, uh, you know, I'm assigned to the animal shelter,

but I'm gonna help you out there.

And, uh, it was great.

Uh, there about a year and a half and he come to me and said, look, I need you.

Will you go to TARC and take over that?

And I had always told him.

You know, I'll do anything I can to help you to make our city great.

If that's where you need me, that's where I'm gonna go.

So here I sit.

That's fine.

A true public servant willing to go where you're as to man.

Wow.

What a great story.

Ozzy, you, you and I were talking, sharing offline here that I, I

have a background in, in government too, local county government.

So I really appreciate all those jobs you held.

That's amazing.

What, uh, what did you take from all that coming into tarc?

I mean, do you have any leadership lessons or thing?

'cause you've done.

You know, just about everything there is to do in local government.

What do you bring into that to transit?

Well, you know, if I was to describe myself, I don't like to lose.

And that's how I look at things, man, as I, if you pay me, I work and I

hold myself, uh, to a high standard.

I run it like I own it, and my life depends on it.

Um, I ask a lot of questions.

Um, I believe in holding people accountable.

Um, you know, because people say, well, how can you do those many jobs?

I said, well, once you've done many jobs as you know yourself,

down in the weeds, it's always gonna be the same little issues.

Whether, whether it's an employee issue, it could be, you, the same little problems

will occur in all places, but if you seek out what are you supposed to be

doing at all those agencies to be great.

that's what you have to seek out and you have to make those things important

throughout the whole organization.

So like when I, when I come here, all kinds of stuff to learn, but we are

supposed to be putting service out and we need to make sure that service

goes out and we need to be on time.

If we can't do those two things, we're gonna fail.

And it's just that simple, a lot of working things to make that happen.

But when I got here, that to me was, Hey, we gotta, you know, plus

you were in the political world, so you talk to other people like, Hey,

what do you hear about this agency?

And if you create a good working relationship in your community

with your local politicians, you're gonna get a lot of information that

comes up through them from citizens.

And then you can start, how do you, how do you build something back?

Uh, so what did you, what, what was your biggest challenges

when you got there and, and, uh, have you been able to resolve them?

It sounded like, you came in and you were, uh, you had like a, a

vision, a focus of what you felt like the most important things were.

Yeah, so the biggest thing here is we were, we, like

everybody or many other cities are facing a big financial cliff.

I knew we had one and it was, uh, when I come in it was

estimated at about 30 million.

And once I got here and started studying up on this field, it sounds

like there's other cities that are, have bigger financial cliffs coming.

So when I started drilling down and people ask me questions, well, you know, as well

as I do if when you're in government, when you're talking that kind of money, to get

that, you're talking about a tax increase.

Okay.

Especially as a small town like Louisville.

Yeah.

And you know, you look at the cities that are thriving.

Well, they all did things back in 2018 around me.

2018, 2020, got indie sensing and Nashville obviously packs packed one.

So what I, the.

That was the biggest hurdle is trying to get my arms around that and what it was.

Because, you know, the first thing people say that don't know public

transit is, well, what happened?

How do you, how are you that short?

You know, we give you money.

What happened?

What are you doing with the money?

And it's like, well, not really here.

Let me show you some numbers here on revenue hours.

And when I kind of look at this.

ridership, it seems like across the country since 2012 it started

slipping and it did it here probably a couple years sooner.

And you know, at that point you can't undo time.

But we've probably operated too big here too long and probably should have

made some cuts every couple years.

And we, we didn't do that.

And now we gotta pay the piper.

Well, when we come back, I'll ask you about that.

I'll ask you to tell us about your network redesign that you had,

the great consultant Jared Walker work on, and some other updates

that you've done to policies.

I think it'll be fascinating now for our listeners to hear, you know, what

did you do about those challenges?

Right?

When we come back after this with Ozzie Gibson,

executive director of Tar

Hi, I am Julie Gates, executive producer at Transit Unplugged.

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listening to Transit Unplugged.

We're back with Ozzy Gibson, who was the executive director

of the Transit Authority of River City.

So you guys are on a river, right?

Ozzy?

We are on a river.

What river is that?

That's the Ohio River.

The Ohio River, that's right.

Yeah.

I've been there actually, when I was there last time, I was there for a

conference of some type and I missed it.

We were gonna go to where the Kentucky Derby is held and have like a reception

there or something and I, I had to leave.

I couldn't.

Man, I was so bummed out about it.

But that's the big thing out there, right?

You got, you just had it.

I mean, when we're recording this, you just had it a couple weeks ago.

We did.

Awesome.

I can tell you this, unfortunately, I had to, I was a policeman for 26 years

and I got to work 26 of straight derbies.

Oh.

So, oh man.

How many people come to town?

Bad.

How many people come to

town for the Kentucky Derby?

Do you know?

Oh Lord.

They average anywhere from 140,000 up to 175,000.

Wow.

So,

uh, it's a big deal for Louisville.

You know, it's, uh, what this was the hundred and 51st Kentucky

Derby, so it's 151 years old.

And you know, when you look across our country at other big events, there's just

very few that's been going on that long.

That's right.

Yeah.

Part of the Triple Crown for those people who watch it here in Baltimore, we've got

a piece of that action, uh, with Pimlico

. And then, uh, where's the other one up in New York?

Right.

Yeah.

Belmont.

Belmont, that's right.

Yeah.

The Triple Crown.

Last time we had one of those, been a while, a winner, but, um,

I'm, I'm assuming obviously in law enforcement you were involved,

but does Transit get involved too?

Do you guys add extra service and things for those big events?

We actually, um, do not, they contract out a lot of that, uh, okay.

Around the track because they, they, uh, move people to the football

stadium is where people, uh, gather and then they, 'cause that's not,

that's only like, uh, maybe about a. Half a mile or a mile from the track.

So it disrupts our service because they block all the streets around the track.

So we have to make a lot of adjustments, do a lot of community

outreach to let people know.

But most people that live here use public transit.

They know exactly what's gonna happen when the Kentucky Derby's going.

so let's talk about, you had mentioned right before the break

that, You really analyzed your service and realize that ridership was maybe less

than what the service was out there doing.

And I know I've heard people in the past, you know, say, well, what do you

got these buses running half empty for?

And things like that.

And so you're constantly working on efficiency of the routes.

Tell us what you've done, uh, to redesign your network.

'cause a lot of cities have done this.

Yeah, so like when I took over, I think they had gotten

a grant from the federal government.

They, uh, they're getting, uh, Jared Walker and Associates, uh, won it and they

were gonna come up with like two concepts.

They were hoping to grow actually.

, But I think as we know now to grow, when you talk, if you're gonna increase

taxes, you just don't go do that.

It's a longer process.

So we had two, when I got here, there was two maps.

There was one that was a 50% cut constrained network that

would've, uh, really gutted tar.

And then there was a growth plan that was gonna require

like 50 million to grow to that.

So I was able to sit down with Jared Walker and another guy to scutter wag.

Um, who is, uh, on this project with us and said, look, I, I,

we gotta have a better option.

So we was able to come back to the table and I said, look, we gotta

come up something we can live with.

So, like, uh, in our community right now, people with the CDL is a premium and we

struggle to get, uh, school bus drivers.

So at the same time, um, our school district, uh, this is over a year ago

because there again, if I do a constraint cut, I got a $30 million budget.

Uh, that was layoffs.

Well, nobody wants to lay nobody off.

You lose a CDL driver and you, nobody wants to do that, so.

That's

right.

Yeah.

We was

able to partner with the schools and we actually, um, I reduced

some service to free up drivers to buy me time in the budget, which was

like saving, eight to 10 million.

And we leased our bus drivers to the school system so they didn't have to,

They didn't have enough bus drivers that they were gonna tell kids, Hey, we

can't get you to these magnet schools.

So we worked out agreement with the Teamsters, uh, a TU

Union, everybody come together.

The mayor, politicians, we leased them.

They brought back some schools.

And then as I talk, started talking to, uh, Jared Walker and

Scudder, it's like, look, how do we design some type of network

within the amount of money we have?

We know we're gonna have, that will get us to some of these schools.

Because it seemed like across the country, a lot of public transportation, they

intertwined with the school systems.

And I don't think we have done a very good job of that here in

Louisville over the last 20 years.

So he come back with a good plan that we can implement.

Uh, it is probably, hopefully next August of 26 that is better than for our riders

that we're on now and get us to those magnet schools that we took it a step

further that we could go to all of our high schools here in Jefferson County.

So, um, appreciate their work.

We made that happen and.

Looking forward to finishing that project up.

That's great.

Louisville has around 625,000 people, I think, in the city proper.

Of course, you serve even a larger area, right?

You go some into the suburbs there.

Yeah.

Tell us about the size and scope of your system.

Yeah, so like right now, we probably, when I took over, we were

operating on about 600,000 revenue hours.

Okay.

Okay.

On $114 million budget.

So like when I compare us to like just Indianapolis, um, they are doing

about, they were doing 590,000 revenue hours with $146 million budget.

So we were getting a bang for our buck, but we're, we're going in a hole.

So we've reduced now down to about 400, uh, thousand service hours,

and I still have the same ridership.

Wow for boardings per month.

So yeah, that tells me, going back to what I said earlier, that we should

have probably cut many, many years ago, uh, and redesigned our network.

And so as long as we keep our boardings up, and we do anywhere from

475,000 to 530 boardings a month.

Um, in 2012, as I mentioned, they were doing a million, and

then covid hit obviously in just.

To apart across the country.

Yes.

Interesting.

And, uh, how are you doing, uh, your pre, you know, like 2019 ridership

just before the pandemic to now?

Do you know what percentage you're at?

A lot of 'em are like 70, 75%.

Yeah.

I don't think we've got that back yet.

Okay.

I think we're, we, we haven't, it hasn't come back as bad like that.

Um.

But it is what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

You got anything new you're doing?

any new services or you, you're doing something on paratransit, right?

You got some new policies there?

Yeah, because I started looking at that, you know, I'm a,

one thing I brought from me from the police department was I. Um,

you know, they do, you've probably heard of louis sta com stat where

they compare the numbers nationally.

Yeah.

You get to FBI.

Well, I'm, I was big into that, so, uh, there again, I compare us to other places

and what I learned is obviously the, you know, the federal guidelines are the

three quarter mile that you, you don't have to go off of that or out of it.

A lot of guidelines around that.

When I started looking, I think we've been very gracious and

we've never done that, ever.

Whenever we made service changes.

And like right now we're doing 31,000 trips a month and I compare us to Sensei

and Indy and they're doing about 14 or 15.

So we are work working with them to get their policies.

I'm gonna be bringing on, I brought out bringing in a, a, a lady in our community

that, um, is an attorney and, and she is disabled and she's gonna help us look at

all the, um, other cities to see what, what should we be incorporating because.

Um, there again, I'm spending I think approximately $20 million a

year and it's growing at about 8%.

Um, and you know, I told you what our budget was, was 114.

And realistically, after we do this, um, I. Route changes and we bring

it all in to where we're operating in, in the green, I call it, we're

gonna be about $102 million tar.

So when you look at $20 million out of our budget, obviously that's 20%.

So, what happens here every time, if we don't have money, we can't

keep cutting the fixed routes or we're not gonna have nothing left.

Yeah.

So you're gonna look at all that and you brought in a, a, a

community advisor to help you do so.

Yep.

Brought her in as that she'll be on contract.

Um, and that way it, it's everybody.

I, I look, you know, I've, I've tried working with our DI disability

community is, I just wanna be upfront and honest and just, you

know, and my goal here is that I.

If 31,000 is the number, then we need Louisville.

Kentucky needs to learn to budget for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And do you contract that work out or do you operate

it in-house, your para transfer?

We do contract

that out through mv.

Any other things you wanna bring out that you're working

on or what you're hoping for?

there again, you know, what I've done is just got back to the.

Basics here and from, uh, you know, I, I explained it real simple.

Everybody that gets paid by TARC needs to be contributing to our on time performance

and making sure work gets out every day.

Um, I think when I took over, we, we were trending in 24 at 67% on time,

and we've got increased that to 77.

Um, our work not going out of pieces of routes or whatever was trending at 5%.

I told 'em, I said, lookie and them, they're all at 0.20 0.40.

I said, that's taboo.

You can't, you say you're gonna put a route out, you gotta do that.

You gotta, your community has to respect you and wanna ride, and

you'll never get riders back if you can't be where you're supposed to be.

So we've cut that down to about 1.45 now, and we're gonna continue that.

And everybody's engaged now and understanding that,

hey, we have to do this.

And, uh, very proud of that so far.

And, uh, if we can get these routes redesigned, uh, next year, that,

uh, we'll, you know, Jared Walker is saying it's gonna be a better service.

When I look at our maps, I call it spaghetti because we've got a lot of

routes out there that make no sense.

I. Yeah.

and that's when you hear that from people, like, I see buses

all over the place empty.

Well do understand though that we do exchange out on the street and

empty bus goes out, takes over, and a lot of people don't understand.

But

yeah.

Uh, no, that's a really good point.

A lot of those routes, Ozzy, that I've seen, like in Baltimore, they

were, um, adjusted over the years through individual requests, you know.

Oh, can you bring a bus stop over here?

Yes.

Can you bring one over there?

And eventually it looks like spaghetti.

It's not a straight line.

So you gotta go through every now and then to straighten things out, don't you?

A hundred percent.

You know when I asked when Scooter, when I met Scooter Wag, Jerry Walker, I

said, you guys have been here one month.

Tell me what you see.

I said, because I see empty buses.

He goes, Ozzy, I'm gonna tell you what I see.

Every time we do a project, there's gonna

be 10 to 12% of your routes that make no sense.

And they're called political routes.

That's right.

That's right.

And they've been

added over the last 20 years.

That make no sense.

And now we're gonna clean all that up.

Yeah.

And then my encouragement to you would be to consider standards so you

don't make adjustments in the future unless they meet certain criteria.

And that way it doesn't end up being, you know, messed up in five or 10

years from now after you leave.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good, man.

Well, Ozzy man, this is great getting to know you, my friend.

I think, uh, you're the right man for the right time and the right place to help

things that tark, uh, really even, even get better and, and straighten things out.

And that's wonderful.

You got good stuff going on, brother.

Thank you,

sir very much.

Anytime.

Yeah.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode

of the Transit Unplugged Podcast.

We're so glad you're here.

My name is Julie Gates.

I'm the executive producer of the show, and our goal is to create

programs that promote the great things going on in the transit industry

by providing you with behind the scenes access with industry executive

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Head to the show notes to find the link.

Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged with Paul Comfort, our favorite transit

evangelist, and we'll catch you next week.

Thanks for tuning in.