So we were in San Diego.

At the Community Transportation Association of America Annual Conference

and Expo just a couple months ago.

And we had a couple preset interviews with, uh, public transit CEOs that

we've already played on the air.

And while we're there, uh, Chris O'Keefe, uh, my, um, producer, he

and I both produce a show together.

, He had an idea, why don't we go around on the floor and just interview

people, uh, you know, transit leaders that you know, et cetera.

And I said, that's a great idea.

You know, I've kind of touched on that maybe in the past, but

never did a whole episode on it.

So that's what today is.

I'm Paul Comfort.

This is, uh, America's number one public transportation podcast, transit unplugged.

And today we're gonna dive into roving reporter mode.

I'm gonna, I roam around the halls of the, of the, uh.

CTA expo, you know, Scott Bogans, uh, CTAA, he's the executive director, and we,

I caught up with some incredible people in community and rural public transportation.

By the way, I've been going to the CTAA Expo for, you know, 25 years

off and on, and, uh, more than that, probably 30, 35 years actually.

Uh, I was a state delegate, uh, from Maryland when they used to

have that to CTAA and strongly believe in what they're doing.

And so this is a great chance to catch up with people and learn, et cetera.

I got to speak while we were there as well, and some great entertainment they

had for U.S. Uh, so on our first guest, let's just dive into our first guest.

I, I walked over to the booth of, uh, mass Transit Magazine, our industry's

top, uh, public transportation magazine.

That and Metro Magazine are the two big ones.

Uh, and I talk with Megan Perro, she's the editor in chief.

Of Mass Transit Magazine.

She's also the board secretary for Latinos in Transit.

And you know, we all know Mass Transit Magazine.

Well, thankfully I got on the cover one time, actually.

, It is a great magazine.

Uh, Misha Wonk Libman, the former longtime executive editor.

I. Left about a year or so ago, and Megan has picked up right where

she left off and is taking it.

. She's doing a wonderful job.

And I talked to her about, um, what's next for the magazine?

What are they doing?

What are the hot topics?

Take a listen to this one.

Alright, I'm playing Roving Reporter today at the CTA Expo on the floor, and I'm

with my friend Megan Pereira, who is the editor in chief of Mass Transit Magazine

. Hey, by the way, you're doing a great job.

Thank you so much, Paul.

I really appreciate that.

Yeah, you

, Paul Comfort: You're not only a printed magazine, now you

have like a big online presence

, . Meagan Perrero: That's correct.

Yes.

So we have a daily news website.

Every day you come on there, you'll find brand new content.

We have our daily newsletter Monday through Friday, straight into your inbox.

All the industry news you need right there curated for you.

. Paul Comfort: You all are the number one source for news and

information from a magazine perspective, I think, in the country.

Right.

I would agree with that statement.

. Paul Comfort: And uh, as we were talking about beforehand, you had

big shoes to fill with Misha there.

She was there for quite a while as editor and you stepped

in and, um, , kept it going.

Yeah, the Misha really set U.S. up for a great success.

She really curated and built a brand that's known and seen across the

industry, and I'm really excited to continue the legacy she built for U.S.

, Paul Comfort: You know, I post something about the transit industry every day

on my LinkedIn where I've got 26,000 followers and, um, I use Mass Transit

daily updates at least once a week.

'cause you've got the breaking news.

What are you breaking now?

Like what are the hot stories in the industry right now?

So obviously we have the supply chain, , specific

to BUS and the North America market, uh, with the vendors and the OEMs.

There's obviously in the spare parts, you know, that's a huge thing.

The other thing that I've been hearing a lot is about procurement and contracts

and specifically updating those terms and conditions to kind of better balance

out the, , liability and the risk that comes with those types of really big.

Years long contracts.

What have you got in the future coming from mass Transit

that people wanna know about?

Oh, that's a great question.

Coming in the future, you know, I think we're gonna be doing a little

bit more focus on paratransit.

Obviously technology is always something that we want to loop in.

Um, our infrastructure technology podcast is actually really taken off and we

have some great conversations in there.

Really delving into the actual tools on the ground that are.

Helping people do their day-to-day operations.

Where can people find that podcast?

Anywhere you stream your podcast.

And also, if you come to our website, mass transit mag.com, just look up

the Infrastructure Technology podcast.

All the links are right there for you.

That's great.

And the magazine is free, right?

Yep.

A hundred percent free.

almost nothing's free anymore.

I know, right?

It's a great deal.

All you gotta do is just send U.S. your information.

We verify you and you're set.

The other thing I thought I should mention is you, you run a program

every year called Top 40 under 40.

Which has become kind of like, you know, that's a big deal.

I remember when I was in Baltimore as CEO, Kevin Quinn was my director

of planning, and I remember he won it that year and I got to present

it to him in front of all the staff.

We had a, we had a frame for him.

You know, I mean, that's a big deal.

Tell U.S. about that.

Yeah.

It's one of our, , flagship programs.

Every year we get nearly.

200 submissions of people wanting to have that recognition.

, It warms my heart reading all the applications and just the pure

passion and dedication that these young people bring to our industry.

And, uh, I think we're close to a good couple hundred, , nominees from our past

that have been honored with that award.

I see people on LinkedIn, they keep that in their bio.

I mean, there's a lot of pride in having this recognition and, um, I

take a lot of pride and respect in the effort that they bring to the

table for U.S. to recognize them.

Yeah, we did for a number of years.

I've interviewed people after they win that award.

It's so fun, isn't it, to see, you know, they're not really young people, right?

If they're 38 years old, but, but they're younger than me.

And, uh, to see the passion they have, uh, and a lot of them have gone

on to top, top jobs in the industry.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's really awesome to follow their trajectory.

Or I'll see 'em out on the show floor and I'm like, I know so much about

you because I just read two years ago.

You're a whole bio.

And I just, it's a really good way to build a network and get.

To know the up and comers and uh, just the really cool, innovative things

that a lot of these agencies are doing.

Well, congratulations, Megan, on the great job you're doing.

We wish you the very best at Mass Transit Magazine going forward.

Thank you so much, Paul.

I appreciate it.

Up next, I, uh, we met up with Rudy Salo.

. Rudy is a partner in infrastructure and transportation finance at

a big law firm , based in Los Angeles, Nixon, Peabody, LLPI.

He's also a prolific writer, a speaker and educator and co-host of a great podcast

called Good is in the Details podcast , Rudy actually came down and had lunch

with U.S. um, there at the conference.

And Rudy talked about commuting as creative time.

He.

What we're losing in car culture.

And uh, Rudy's got a great background in public transportation

and he shares all that.

And we talked to you a little bit about it in my interview.

what is being taken away from U.S. when we're driving in our car,

stuck in traffic for two hours a day, going to work and back.

I mean, that's kinda what you're talking about here.

That's

exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

What it is is.

Call, and you and I are think life, it's a mindset shift.

If you, if you view the time that you're driving in the car

as like, oh, this is great.

It's my personal time.

I can listen to the radio, I can do this, I can do that.

Yeah.

But you also need to drive safely and you're, you're a good citizen.

You don't want to, you know.

Take away.

You can't really be looking at your phone, you can't be

doing anything you're driving.

That's all what you're doing.

That should be the only thing that you're doing when you're writing public transit.

What you're doing is you're delegating the driving to somebody else and then

you have that time back to yourself to do whatever you want to read, to

listen to a Transit Unplugged podcast.

Boom, baby.

I didn't pay him for that either.

To, to to write, you know, everybody in the world.

Paul wants to write that book or write.

That's right.

Write that script.

Or do that thing that they always wanted to do.

You wrote a script while riding several, the bus, right?

Several.

I've written several scripts.

I've written books, I've written, you know, done the Forbes thing.

If, if there's something in your mind that you want to do, the only

thing that's stopping you is time.

Yes.

So what you gotta do is.

Think differently about how you commute, delegate the driving

to somebody else and take public transit and take your time back.

I mean, the fact that we have smartphones these days and the amazing

things that you could do on them, that it, you can pretty much achieve

anything that you want to achieve.

And I, and I mean that I, it's not hyperbole.

If you think a little bit differently about your time and how you're

using it, there's no stopping you and what you could achieve.

Rudy, what do you think about the Olympics coming up to LA and the connection?

Mayor Bass has suggested that she's working for a. You know,

a car free as much as possible.

Olympics a, a transit first.

That's what the folks at Metro told me.

You know, it's a transit first Olympics.

What are your thoughts on that?

You have a lot of experience in transit there, both as a rider and

as an observer, a rider about it.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm excited.

I, I think that, , there's some unfortunate things, for example,

in, in the city of Inglewood where there's a number of stadiums.

Now there's the SoFi Stadium and, and the Intuit Dome.

Unfortunately, there won't be any kind of, uh, you know, connector that's

gonna be completely built that'll take you directly to the station.

But there will be, there's gonna be two,, transit stations that are gonna be within

a mile, and they're gonna have like buses that'll, that'll shuttle you through.

I use that when I go to the Rams games on Sunday, so I'm used to

taking the bus to those stations.

So I think people need to have their expectations.

Of, yes, we'll be using public transit, but you, but it's

not just gonna be trains.

There will be some bus transfers.

So just kind of, you know, for the people internationally that are listening

to the show, just realize there's, in a lot of places, you're not gonna

be able to just take one piece of transportation to a particular stadium.

Um, some stadiums, they'll be fine.

Some stadiums, there'll be some trains right outside of it.

Uh, if you go back and look at the history of the Olympics in Los Angeles,

this is gonna be our third, the 1984 Olympics was really interesting

because what they did there when we had zero public transportation,

that was when, the first time when they experimented with, , turning

Olympic and Pico into one way streets.

And they plan on doing a little bit of that again this time around.

Oh, interesting.

They're gonna be turn, they're gonna be converting some streets to one ways.

Just for the Olympics, and it worked very, very well in 84.

The 84 was one of the most successful Olympics ever.

It was profitable things were able to move around very well.

Yeah.

So I'm really excited for the 2028 Olympics.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Um.

And we recently, as you know, did a show in LA Transit Unplugged

tv, where we talked to Conan, the COO and a bunch of staff about how

they're getting ready for that.

So it is a hot topic.

Um, anything else that you'd like to share with U.S. about what's going on

in your world of public transportation?

. Rudy Salo: I'm really, really excited.

For the new station's gonna be opening up right outside of, um, LAX airport.

Oh,

yeah, yeah,

yeah.

And that's gonna connect the, uh, the Kline to the Eline and, and, and it's

gonna be, I'm very, very excited.

That's when I plan to start using public transportation again.

When my system, 'cause I live in the South Bay of Los Angeles, gets reconnected

back to the rest of the system.

So I'm looking forward to the future of public transportation in Los Angeles, too.

Very good.

Well, thanks for being on the show today.

Again, you're one of our few second time guests.

It's an honor.

It really, really is an honor.

Thank you very much.

up next, uh, after Rudy, who I always enjoy talking to.

You might remember, by the way, Rudy was our, our, uh, futurist guest on

the December 31st episode of 2024 as we headed into this year and did a great job.

I may have him back again next year 'cause he's always got his finger on the pulse of

what's happening, you know, in the future.

Uh, but next we, uh, caught up to somebody from Maryland, my home state.

Um, I saw Maximilian Dover there and I asked him, Hey man, uh, what's going

on in Prince George's County, Maryland?

You may know Prince George's County is right next to Washington dc.

Um, and, uh, I used to work in the county, uh, when I was, um, helping manage

paratransit service for Washington Metro.

Uh, Metro Access at Serve Prince George's County, as well as

some other jurisdictions there.

And he is the Transit Operations Manager for Paratransit and Microtransit in

Prince George's County, Maryland.

He oversees a fleet of 50 vehicles, including a mix of

electric, gas and propane.

And we talked about zero emission goals with real world needs in

a county like there, especially rural areas of the county.

And why fair free service can be both a blessing and a challenge.

Um.

So great to have somebody from Maryland there.

I actually lived in Prince George's County back when I was a kid, uh, real young.

Uh, when we first moved up here from um, Virginia, where I was born, I

lived in a community called Kettering.

There.

If you're from the area, you'll know it, but let's dive in and

see what Maximilian has to say.

All right.

We're walking outside of the main hotel in San Diego and I happen

to run into a friend of mine, Maximilian, who runs up, uh, the

Transits by Prince George's County.

. So Maximilian, tell U.S. um, first off, give U.S. give U.S. kind of.

You got a long title?

I won't try to.

Say it.

Yes.

, Maximilien Duvra: I'm the Transit Operations Manager for Prince

George's County Department of Public Works and Transportation Mobility.

, Paul Comfort: I saw you out there.

We just stepped aside from the bus show.

They have a lot of buses here this year.

Yes, they do.

Yeah.

Were you able to look through 'em?

I, I'm almost done with it.

I haven't gone through everything.

Yeah.

But there are quite a bit of nice ones out there.

What do you think the, where do you think we're going now?

You know, 'cause the new administration of Washington has basically said, the

secretary was at, um, APTA and he said, look, we're not against battery elect.

This is what I heard.

He said, yeah, we're not against battery Electric.

We're just not for mandates.

We're for local choice.

. I was just talking to a guy from Minnesota.

He said, we're all in on CNG.

Right.

So compressed natural gas, you've got ideas going for propane.

Some are low emission, some are no emission.

Uh, where, where do you think we're headed as an industry there?

, Maximilien Duvra: I, I definitely think that the local

operations should have a choice.

Everybody says if you see one transit agency, you've seen one transit.

That's, that's a great thing.

So everybody only has, has their, the options that they

need to do for their business.

In Prince George's County, we have a lot of rural areas, so sometimes

battery electric isn't the best option.

One trip could be 45 miles, and, you know, the range of 120 means you're gonna

be looking for a charger right away.

Uh, so we need other options, uh, to make sure that we can do our trips.

So tell U.S. about your system.

Serves that county.

, Maximilien Duvra: On the paratransit side, uh, on the

mobility side, we have 50 vehicles.

Uh, a mixture of, uh, different propulsions.

We utilize it to, , provide microtransit service as well in designated areas.

We do a lot of senior trips, dialysis, uh, just taking care of our community

and getting them where they need to go.

Do you do any fixed route?

, Maximilien Duvra: Not on my side.

I don't oversee any of the fixed route.

But that is actually run by RATP Dev.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

They're my buds.

So, you know, I used to work at Washington Metro for mv.

Okay.

And we, I, I was in charge of the paratransit system, Metro Access.

Which actually serves some yes.

In your county.

, So how do you differentiate between who rides on Metro Metro Access and

who rides on your paratransit service?

Well, Metro Access will take people across the county line.

So we only service, uh, prince George's County.

Okay.

Uh, that's one differentiator.

And we are also fair free.

Uh, so people don't need to pay a fare when they ride

with U.S. I didn't know that.

But we also do have.

Limited hours.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're maxed out, I bet you right?

Yes, we are.

Yeah.

Uh, anything that's free, it's for me.

, Paul Comfort: That's great.

well thanks for being on the show, max.

Yeah.

Thank

you very much, Paul.

from Maryland, we had to North Carolina, we're headed to Charlotte, North Carolina,

where we talked to Ashley character.

I saw her outside.

Um, and we interviewed her right in front of the buses there.

They had a great outdoor expo with, I don't know, 50 different vehicles

there, probably from manufacturers.

She's the chief financial officer at Queen City Transit Solutions, and they're

a company focused on something which has gotten really big post pandemic,

which is transit safety and equipment, especially bus driver barriers.

You know, that plastic wall thing there that, um, keeps them from having somebody

throw coffee in their face or whatever.

Which happened when I was CEO of MTA.

And we, uh, we eventually worked with Union to get that done.

She's been in this role for almost 10 years.

She's passionate about protecting frontline workers as a

thoughtful human-centered design.

Uh, you know, back in the day, uh, when I first introduced them, there wasn't

universal acceptance of them in Baltimore.

Uh, but now the agencies I'm talking to say their unions want

them, uh, and they wanna put 'em in too to keep their drivers safe.

And so let's talk about that.

All right, we're out here in the bus display area and there are dozens of

buses here, and I'm with Ashley, ER from Queen City Transit Solutions.

Ashley, you guys do the barriers, right?

That's correct.

We do.

Yeah.

What's the story there?

So, we are an engineering company and when COVID hit,

we worked with our, uh, local transf.

Agency, North Carolina Public Transportation Agency to design,

manufacture, assemble, and install driver barriers for safety, not

only from COVID, but driver assault.

That's a big thing now, isn't it?

Yes.

75% of the agencies that were asked during the CTAA, uh, discussion panels

said that 75% of those agencies found that driver barriers are protecting their

drivers, as well as, , taking out the.

assault aspect of driving in the operator position.

Yeah.

I remember when I was CCEO of MTA, Baltimore, people

were, this was before the pandemic.

People didn't want 'em.

No.

Some of our employees were like, oh no,

I'll be claustrophobic and all.

Now they're demanding them.

Yeah, so in Charlotte we've had three operators killed, and

it's all because of either driver rage, irritability, mental health issues.

So if you can't get to a pilot in airplane, why should you be able to

get to an operator inside of a bus?

They're here to provide service.

They're not here to be putting themself out.

To be attacked, to be spit on, to be harassed.

And this provides at least a small level of protection or a divider between them

and people that are oncoming down the bus that may have some ill intentions.

Yeah.

I

I, every major transit system I'm aware of now is,

is thinking about or doing this.

Yes.

And we're hopeful that we'll also get a bullet resistant barrier Oh, interesting.

That we're coming out with, um, and just trying to provide the best.

Operator solutions to at least have some type of protection between them

and anyone that wants to do harm.

That's great.

Thank you.

great to hear from Ashley.

And finally come back to Maryland, my home state, because I got to see another friend

of mine there, John Duke Luki, who is the executive director of the Transportation

Association of Maryland or tam.

, That's Maryland's statewide Transit Association.

They represent over 130 organizations.

My friend Jeff Barnett, uh, was the past chair of it, and he told

me John's just amazing doing a wonderful job as executive director.

Uh, and I know it because I've been to a couple of the conferences since he's been

executive director and they're fantastic.

And that's what we talk about, their upcoming conference on Kent Island,

which is in my home county, queen Anne County, and the big topics on their

plate, like state and federal regulations in the march toward electrification.

I really believe in state transit associations as a matter of fact.

Um, this fall, I'll be speaking at a couple of them.

The Kentucky one

And I'll also be speaking at the Midwest Transit Association Conference, uh,

this fall, which is, uh, in Kansas City.

Last year I spoke at the Missouri one, and, uh, this is a larger

one representing multiple states.

Looking forward to seeing them there as well.

and I used to be president of one.

I was president of Tam.

I was the second president of our association back in the nineties.

Uh, and it's a great way for.

You know, local, rural, suburban transit systems to interact with each

other, to learn from one another.

John, heads up a great one here in Maryland.

I'm with John Leski, who is the head of Transportation Association of Maryland.

Tell U.S. a little about Transportation Association of Maryland.

So, TAM is the Statewide Transit Association

for All of Transit and Maryland.

We have over 130 members representing every single transit agency from Garrett

in the Appalachians to the west, the town of Ocean City in the east, and every

jurisdiction, county and city in between.

As well as over 50 non-profit specialized transit providers.

That's great, man.

I, when I was younger, I was very involved with, with Tam, as you know,

and was president for a couple years.

Um, so, but every year you guys, I've been coming for the last couple years.

I was out for a while.

And then your conferences though, man, John, you do a

fantastic job setting them up.

You've got a big one coming up.

Tell U.S. about it.

So October 7th to ninth at the Chesapeake Bay Beach Club.

It's right there on Kent Island, right there with beautiful

view of the Bay Bridge.

Just as you pass over.

We're gonna have close to 300 attendees, over 40 exhibitors,

two and a half days of world class sessions, networking and transit.

So hope everyone can make it.

That's great, man.

Thanks for sharing with U.S. about it.

Any big, um, hot topics in Maryland and Transit?

It's definitely the regulatory environment.

It's electric vehicles.

It's figuring out what's coming next from our friends of the federal government.

It's figuring out what the state's plans are for overall electrification.

. Paul Comfort: Well, best wishes to you.

I hope to see you at the conference this year.

Absolutely.

All right, well that wraps up, uh, my roving reporter.

First time ever on Transit Unplugged, uh, tour of the CTA Expo.

A big thank you to all the guests and Scott Bogan and everyone at

CTAA for putting on such a great event and for working with U.S.

We did one of the interviews.

At a booth at the TripSpark booth, uh, and there was a DJ there and they

shut off the music for U.S. for about 20 minutes while we did the interview.

So I really appreciate them working with U.S. on it.

Hey, if you like what you heard today, make sure to subscribe to

the podcast wherever you're at.

Just click subscribe, whatever your favorite platform is, whether it's

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And visit our website@transitunplug.com to see it all.

And if you wanna see it once a week, kind of a wrap up summary

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Then sign up for our weekly newsletter.

It comes out on Fridays and you'll never miss what's going on on our

TV show on live events we have coming up on the podcast and more.

Final thoughts would be, I love the CTA expo.

As I mentioned earlier, I've been going to their conferences for over 30 years now.

Uh, CTA represents small, urban, rural, suburban and tribal transit.

They're very important to these agencies.

Um, as APTA represents the larger ones.

Uh, CTA represents the small urban ones to make sure you know that

they get, that their specific needs.

I love what I kind of a quote that we all quote in the industry, which is,

if you've seen one transit system.

You've seen one transit system.

They're all so different, right?

They, they, they're from their funding sources to their organization, how they

got started, whether city, county, you know, agency statewide, agency nonprofit,

um, you know, there's so many different ways that they're organized and how

they operate and how they're funded, that it's important for a conference

like TTA Expo to bring them all together where they can share best practices.

I hope to see you at an upcoming conference as well.

Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged.

I'm executive producer Julie Gates, and this episode was created by host

and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keefe, associate producer Cindy

Raskin and podcast intern Des Gates.

Transit Unplugged is being brought to you by Modaxo, passionate

about moving the world's people.

If you wanna dive deeper behind the transit headlines and get boots on the

ground intel on important updates like the Trump Administration's transit

priorities, or how to get funding check out Transit Unplugged Insider,

our new YouTube show where Paul and I take you inside today's hot topics.

Paul knows what's going on in Washington DC and has the inside scoop.

He's taking a lot of meetings with a lot of people and we wanna make

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You can watch and subscribe to Transit Unplugged Insider on the Transit

Unplugged Podcast page on YouTube.

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