Thanks for being with us today on our New Year's Eve special on
Transit Unplugged, the world's leading transit executive podcast.
I have with me a new friend, Rudy Salo, from L.
A.
He and I today are going to delve into what we think are the hottest
topics coming for transit in 2025.
Rudy, welcome to the show.
Paul, thank you very much.
And I love the fact that this is being released in 2025, because dare I say
2025 could be one of the most exciting years in transportation as we know it.
Really?
Tell me why.
There's, there's a lot of very interesting reasons why.
I think that For the first time in my lifetime, when I'm talking about
transportation, people are not just rolling their eyes going, oh my God, this
guy's talking about this boring topic.
Right.
And by the way, to be fair, I don't hang out with a bunch of transit.
folk, right?
I mean I hang out with I was right about to say normal people,
but that's pretty insulting.
I hang out with non transit professionals Most of the time I
happen to be the one that's the most passionate about transit, but people
are talking about transportation What are they talking about Paul?
They're talking about robo taxis.
I happen to live in Los Angeles robo taxis have been launched here That
they're not yet in my area of Los Angeles, because I live in the South
Bay, kind of close to LAX, and they currently don't go to LAX, but I'm sure
with the Olympics coming here, Yeah.
It's, something's gonna happen.
People are talking about electric vehicles.
They're talking about, oh, the credit's going away.
Oh, what kind of charger do you have?
Oh, do you have a hybrid?
Oh, what kind of EV do you, I mean, it's, it's very, very
exciting to talk about EVs.
I also think that, people are, look, like, I, I, I hate to, this, I hate to point
out a big name in, in transportation.
and I, and I, I'm not trying to start off controversially in any way, shape,
or form, but Elon Musk brings a lot of attention to the transportation industry.
For whatever, whatever you feel about him.
Yeah, absolutely.
The world's richest man happens to be in transportation, Paul.
So obviously we're going to talk about transportation.
And I think a lot of people are, people are going to be focusing on
what this new Department of Government Efficiency is going to do, what
it's not going to do, and how that's going to affect transportation.
I think, I think this could be an extremely important couple of years.
Yeah, I'm right with you, Rudy.
I think this we're at a pivotal time.
I've been in conversations And we're recording this in December, but I've
been in conversations just in the last two weeks, with a number of top public
transportation executives, CEOs, company, CEOs, they're all, you know, a little bit
of trepidation, but a lot of opportunity, Rudy, I just was in LA, right?
So our last episode of Transit Unplugged TV, for this past month, of November,
was from Los Angeles, and we filmed there an episode with the, the top leaders at
LA Metro, with some of the top leaders at LADOT, and they were talking about
a car free, transit first Olympics.
Now, as we mentioned in the opening, you have a blog, you have a podcast,
you're, you know, in addition to being an attorney and someone who kind of advises
the transportation industry in a lot of aspects, especially when it comes to
financing bonds, et cetera, municipal bonds, you're, you're deeply involved
and ingrained in the LA Metro scene.
Give us some of your predictions or what your thoughts are about.
Where LA Metro is now.
I mean, we just did a podcast with Steven Tu, who's the head of station experience.
I think you listened to that one where he talked about the kind of the new
things they're doing there to, to address vandalism, crime on the system,
people feeling safe, doubling down on fares like a lot of systems are.
Give us your general thoughts and then where you think we're headed on the
Olympic preparations for, you know, a car for, you know, they're gonna have
to borrow 2000 buses and all that.
Any thoughts you have on that being that you're right there in LA?
Absolutely, and I'm really glad you brought up that topic because I'm
somebody that's extremely passionate about transportation in Los Angeles.
I think you saw the video that I posted of, of, of me in my office when I, when
I had just put up a map of the Pacific Electric Railway, that a map from 1926.
And then right underneath it is a, is like an artistic rendering of
the LA So when I say I think about this stuff, I think about it with
deep passion and I care about it.
So I happen to live in the South Bay of Los Angeles.
South Bay is everything that's kind of south of LAX.
Traditionally, the South Bay was one of the first areas of Los Angeles
that was serviced by the Green Line, right, which was called, which
was called the train to nowhere.
It happened to go to North Redondo Beach to Norwalk.
It's funny because I happened to grow up pretty close to Norwalk
and then, and then I lived in North Redondo Beach for a long time.
And that, and that train has now, I bring this up because that train has now been
converted as of a month ago to the new K line, which is going to be, you know, kind
of along the west side of Los Angeles.
And right now there's a disconnect between the, the K line isn't complete yet.
But hopefully soon it's going to go right through the LAX People
Mover and connect to the expo line.
So right now I happen to be living in an area that's like
in this weird transit desert.
So if I sound a little bit Irritated it's because I can't my my current transit
use has been disrupted But I'm hopeful for the future and I'm doubling down on
hopeful for the future for the LA Metro for a lot of reasons Number one Paul I am
seeing a lot more I'm seeing a lot more focus on, on making things safe on Metro.
I use the Metro system.
I use a combination of the light rail.
I use the commuter express.
I use buses.
I use the silver line.
I use the route two 32.
I mean, I'm, I'm on the transit system and I like it.
In fact, like, I actually try to plot out if I have, if I have a
spare Sunday or some spare time, I'll actually plot out like different
ways to get to places in Los Angeles.
Like, for example, as a result of this transit disruption that, that occurred
with the switching over from the C to K line, I tried to figure out, okay,
well, how can I get to SoFi Stadium to go see the LA Rams by not using a car?
Unfortunately, it wasn't an easy thing to do because of the disruption of this line,
but hopefully soon enough that'll be all interconnected and I could just take the
K line to the downtown Inglewood station and then have a shuttle over from there.
Speaking of Inglewood, and speaking of the Olympics, and speaking of the
future of the LA Metro system, There is some disappointment in the fact
that the, the Inglewood, you know, it's called the, I forgot what it's called,
the Inglewood connector where they were, they were planning on having a,
a little small little, people mover.
To connect you from the different rail lines to the stadiums that are
now built in and around Inglewood.
I don't know if you were here, if they took you around Inglewood, but
that's going to be where a lot of the Olympics are going to take place because
the new Clipper Stadium is there.
It's called the Intuit Dome.
We have the SoFi Stadium and there's a lot happening there for the Olympics and
they, they've got to figure something out.
I, unfortunately, I think light rail is out of the question.
Because there's just not enough time.
Right.
And, Paul, it's kind of a pain.
parking in, in that area is, is expensive.
It's not an easy ingress.
It's not easy egress.
It's, it's kind of painful.
And I do think that should be the area of focus over the next several years
because there's just a lot happening in the Inglewood area, a lot of
concerts, a lot of sporting events.
So my hope is if anybody from LA Metro is listening to this, is that they do work
on, on solving something for the Olympics.
Now, is there actually going to be a car free Olympics?
No.
Why?
Well, I just gave you one reason because there, I mean, the Inglewood
people mover is not going to happen.
I think when they first said that there was still hope that that was going to
be built, but I think now as a result of that not getting built, that that
is just not going to be a reality.
Will it be mostly car free?
I hope so.
I, I plan on, I plan on only using public transportation when the Olympics
are here, and I'm hopeful that Los Angelinos will help out the tourists,
help people out to navigate the system.
The system, the system is not intuitive, Paul.
I, still to this day, even though there's apps, even though you can go onto Google,
even though Metro, I think, does a pretty good job of putting out information
people just don't feel comfortable using transportation in Los Angeles.
Why?
Because we grew up, because we grew up with the car, you know, you, you
figure out how to get around with a car.
you know, back in the day, all of us, teenagers, all of us, gen Xers.
We had a Thomas guide.
Now these days with Google maps, you can drive everywhere.
I do think though that there's hope for the with the younger generation
because a lot of people a lot of younger kids are not even bothering
getting their driver's licenses, right?
And and I do think that we should be focusing on those people who don't want
to drive we should be helping them.
There should be more support for them I think that that is something where you
know, I know this project that you and I are working on might be one of the focuses
on is how can we help people not to drive?
How can we help people navigate public transportation in an easier
way and I yeah, I commend LA Metro for making it safer And I think that
that needs to be the focus and they also need to get like, you know, like
people ambassadors, people who know how to use the system to promote it.
And that's what I try to do with that newsletter blog that I have, which I
call The Commute, which is on Substack.
I try to post videos of me riding Metro, and showing, you know,
how to, how to navigate it.
And I think if we can get more people excited about it on how to use it, then
I think we'll get more people on it and it'll become a part of their daily life.
Yeah.
Rudy and I are talking about 2025 being the year that we do a potential
documentary on public transportation and the challenge or question that
we're talking about addressing potentially could be, you know, what's
wrong with public transit America?
I just had a guy on the podcast recently from Hong Kong.
90% percent of the people in Hong Kong ride transit.
I have people in London had this, the, the Transport for Commissioner in London,
Andy Lord, who, you know, very high percentages, 40 to 50 percent of the
people in London use transit in America.
On a total average, especially outside of New York City, less than 5
percent of people ride public transit.
What in the world's going on here?
why, so, so that's what we want to explore potentially in this thing.
And I think it's that trust factor.
And I don't mind that my friends and family and even some co
workers reach out to me and say, how do I get from here to here?
Even though they can literally type that in, they want to hear Yeah.
me say it to them.
That's right.
Yeah.
And explain the little tricks about it.
So they feel more comfortable.
Cause it's still, even though LA is building out this fantastic transportation
system that I'm very excited about, it's still alien to some people
because we didn't have it growing up.
So, you know, I think having a documentary, having people talk
about transportation, having people excited about it, having
people make it entertaining.
We'll take that 5%.
Can you imagine if we went from five to 10%, Paul, I mean, how, how that
would, how traffic would dissipate, how everything would, would, would occur.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm very excited for the future of LA Metro.
What I'm, I, what I am curious about though, I haven't seen
much talk about this yet, and I'm hoping, I'm hoping there's going
to be more news stories about this.
As I mentioned, robo taxis are, are now in Los Angeles, they're now in San Francisco
. I'd like to see how those robo taxis are going to be serving some of these
transit deserts, and how those are, you know, those are going to be used.
Because otherwise, my opinion AVs, is what I think is somewhat controversial,
in that to me, a robotaki is, is, is cute, and it's cute for social media,
but it's just a car without a driver.
And, and after, you know, you filmed it 20 or 15 times or 30 times that
you're in a car without, who cares?
Like, how is that solving a traffic problem?
Right.
It might actually add to it.
Definitely going to add to it.
And it's also, it's also, there's already new stories coming out
about how ride share drivers, their, their earnings are dropping.
I mean, you know, we're in, some people are suffering economically, right?
I think that's why we've been seeing some political changes here.
And so what ride share drivers, they're, they're now a big
source of incomes going away.
I don't know, like for me, the future of, of autonomous vehicles
is if we're just literally taking jobs away from ride share drivers.
I'm not interested in that.
If we are having autonomous vehicles be a part of the existing transportation
system, where we're literally, they have their own dedicated lanes, where
they are away from human drivers, where they're, where they're just
some minor little infrastructure tweaks so that, that, that these.
Driverless cars can talk to each other.
So they're not like turning around and honking and going in the wrong ways.
If we just have these cars and they don't need to be full cars, right?
They could be driverless pods.
They could be smaller little vehicles and they're, and they compliment
an existing transportation system.
That excites me.
To me, that's maximizing the use and efficiency of driverless technology.
Robo taxis.
I'm not very excited about them at all.
That's my opinion.
I know maybe that's a little bit too controversial.
Maybe I'm angering some people, but I have been writing that for over a decade now.
So I'm not trying to pick on any companies.
I'm not trying to pick on anybody.
That's just my opinion.
I think we're not using utilizing them to their maximum
use and safety and efficiency.
Yeah, on the public transit side, you may be aware of this, but, Jacksonville
Transit Authority, Nat Ford, the CEO, has been quite a visionary there,
and he's developing, what they call the ultimate urban circulator in
Jacksonville, where they have a separate, dedicated lanes that they already have,
They already have some service on those lanes.
They would expand it beyond the two and a half miles, and it
would basically do what you said.
It would be ten to twelve passenger mini buses, That are autonomous, that would
run on regular schedules, that people could pick up, and, it would not interfere
with existing traffic necessarily.
it would do all the things we talked about, integrate into the overall network.
There's a niche role.
I just got back from Australia.
And they're not doing much with autonomous vehicles there.
And they asked me, you know, what do you see the role as?
And I said, well, from my perspective, what's happening in the U.
S.
is we're refining what we think the role of them are.
And it's a very niche application.
If you have a college campus where parking is way away from the campus
and it's roasting hot or freezing cold, it'd be great to have a little shuttle
going back and forth all day long.
You can get into it and go back and forth to your class or a business campus.
But is it ever going to replace, you know, a 40 foot bus or a
light rail vehicle or a train?
Probably not.
but it does lead us to the idea of individually owned autonomous taxi cabs,
which are different than autonomous buses.
And we talked about Elon Musk, you know, President elect Trump's new best friend.
As they're calling him, he's, you know, obviously has Tesla and, while Trump
is saying drill, baby, drill, in his, you know, in his pronouncements, you
know, the his new best friend is saying, you know, I want electric vehicles.
So do you see those two conflicting?
Rudy?
Any thoughts on that?
No, I don't.
I mean, do they conflict on the surface?
Yeah, I do.
But are we ever gonna completely eliminate fossil fuels?
No, not, not, Paul, not in your lifetime and not in my lifetime.
Like, that's just, although, if you listen to Good Is In The
Details, it's a philosophy podcast.
There's an ongoing joke about me trying to live forever.
That it's a whole philosophy, fear of death type stuff.
And, and like, I'm, so like, Elon's trying to put implants
and transfer people to computers.
So, Elon, I will, I will, I will volunteer.
But that's not the point here.
no, I, fossil fuels are, they're, they're an important part.
Of the U.
S.
economy.
They're an important part of our security and safety.
They're an important part of our, you know, economic powerhouse here, right?
What, what I like to see is the other day, I took my kids over to top
golf here in El Segundo and the EV charging stations sponsored by Shell.
Right.
And that was, that was great.
I love, I love to see that these traditional fossil fuel companies
are getting more into clean energy and we can't just have an
immediate transition overnight.
Paul, that's just.
It's just not going to happen.
That's like me saying, Oh, driverless cars we should just rebuild the infrastructure
and then we can all go to sleep in our pods and never have to drive it.
It's going to be a slow transition.
And that's why we need to double down on our infrastructure.
Right.
And that's why I'm such a big proponent of talking about infrastructure finance,
talking about municipal bonds, educating people about the importance of municipal
bonds, educating people about the importance of finance in a clean way.
I mean, I'm, I'm not as worried about drill bill baby drill as I am, you
know, about tax exemption going away.
Well, let's talk about that.
Yeah.
It's a big deal.
Let's switch over to that.
I think that's a very interesting topic that people may not understand.
Can you explain that?
Sure.
Okay.
So United States, right.
Great country.
Guess what we have that no other country to my knowledge has
what tax exempt municipal bonds.
The vast majority of our infrastructure in this country
is financed by municipal bonds.
So if you own a municipal bond a tax exempt municipal bond because there's
taxable municipal bonds There's tax tax exempt municipal bonds But if you hold
a federally tax exempt municipal bond, you don't have to remit that interest to
the federal government Basically, it's a subsidy from the federal government
allowing local governments, your schools, your transit agencies, your
water agencies, et cetera, et cetera, hospitals, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera, to borrow at lower interest rates.
So the cost of the infrastructure that we individuals all use every day to take our
kids to school, to go to work, to travel.
It's a lower cost.
So tax cut and jobs act, 2017, first couple of renditions of it.
I definitely in the first one, muni tax exemption was gone, right?
Because they, they're making all these tax cuts and they're shifting things
here and they're shifting things there.
They're like, well, we got to take from here in order to pay
from their muni tax exemption.
It was gone.
They muni tax exemption wound up staying alive.
But they did make some changes that, that have impacted local governments.
One of them being that, that you can no longer advance refund
on a, on a, on a, you know, tax exempt basis, one time for free.
And now they're talking about, Hey, okay, no, let's not tax on tips.
Let's not tax on overtime, let's not tax.
And how are you gonna pay for that?
Well, one of the things that people have been floating.
And maybe it's just people fear mongering.
Maybe it's clickbait.
I don't know, but having gone, having been like in my, you know, mid to late,
mid to late thirties in 2017 and song tax exemption being in being talked about
being taken away, I got pretty scared.
And so seven, eight years later, I'm, I'm a little less afraid of it, but it's
something that we need to talk about.
If you get rid of tax exemption, the costs of borrowing for the local
governments will absolutely rise.
And so what does that mean?
Taxes will rise.
Property taxes may have to rise.
Are the fees may have to rise.
The sewer revenues may have to, the water revenue.
So we're going to pay for it.
The individuals will pay for it one way or the other.
So it's a scary thing for municipal governments.
Obviously it's going to impact transportation.
It's going to impact anything and everything that you could think of.
That's how important muni tax exemption is.
That's good.
Yeah.
Just to, Elaborate on that a little bit more.
So I think you know that in a previous life, I was a county administrator
and a county commissioner.
And this is how it works, folks.
We go to the local cities and local county governments, the commissioners
and their finance folks go to New York once a year to the bond rating agencies
to Fitch standard and Poor's and Moody's, which I did these visits and we pitch
the county government, you know, Queen Anne's County, where I'm from, where
I was a county administrator, or when I was in Charles County, Maryland.
This is why we're strong county and we you can guarantee we can guarantee that
we're going to repay the debt that we borrow from you to build a new school
to buy some new buses for our county to build a new road, to build a park,
to do astroturf on our on our soccer fields or football fields for our
high schools, all that stuff, anything over, you know, half a million dollars.
Normally we bond that we don't pay it with pay go money.
And so we borrow that money.
And so you'll see on your local government's budget each year,
there's a line of debt service.
That's what that debt service is.
We're paying back the bonds and we normally get really good interest rates.
Like Rudy just said, two and a half, 3%, on these.
Whereas if you're borrowing your own money, you know, you're, you're
trying to buy a house right now, you know, it's six and a half, 7%.
and so, like you said.
It's a lot less and institutional investors will buy up these bonds
as, as will individuals, because they're tax free, as Rudy said.
And so if they weren't tax free anymore, the county government would then have
to pay higher interest rates on the amount of money that we borrowed, which
means that there would be less new projects built or your taxes would go up.
So, that's the municipal side from my mind Rudy's giving
you the finance side together.
They meet and kind of hopefully show you a full picture.
Let's move on to the next topic, Rudy.
That was great.
And that is the intersection of entertainment and transportation.
You and I are both into that.
Most folks know we have a TV show, Transit Unplugged TV, which is a travel show.
Matter of fact, just yesterday, I did my first podcast interview
on another guy's travel podcast.
Talking about the travel we've done for the show and what we've learned.
So, entertainment you know, we try to open each episode of Transit Unplugged
TV with a fun, entertaining sequence.
For instance, I just did Australia.
We were in Brisbane.
We were gonna go jet skiing, to showcase the Noosa River.
And my, creative director came up with a crazy idea, which we ended
up doing, which is what people will see in the February episode.
Me opening like a James Bond movie, coming in with a full suit on, driving
the jet ski, you know, out there jumping and all that in the suit, and then
coming in to open the show, you know, my name is Comfort, Paul Comfort, and I've
got a license to ride, and you know, it's funny stuff like that, so we try
to grab people's attention through the entertainment value and then show them
the food, fun and culture of a region, but then also how you can use public
transportation just like Rudy does in L.
A.
To get around that city to see all the fun things we just showed you.
You've got another angle on entertainment.
Give us your angle.
Yeah, I mean it.
It's actually perfect that you brought up entertainment right after
we just talked about funding, right?
Because maybe when people were listening to the municipal bond part of this
whole thing, like, like they do, like my wife, their, their eyes rolled or
they, they stopped paying attention.
just kidding, honey.
but yeah, most people, when I start talking about muni bonds and tax
exemption, all that type of stuff, they're not paying attention.
So I got to go.
I'm thinking, how do I get people interested in this?
Yeah.
How do I get people to care?
And what you do on Transit Unplugged and you're showing these public
transportation systems and you, and I watch transit and you showing
people how to get around the cities.
With it, that's where I think is the most important part.
If people can see what public transpo that public transportation system that's
alien to them, or they're afraid of, Paul, if they could see where their tax
dollars are going to, if they're seeing that, oh my god, I don't need to rent
a car, oh my god, I don't have to wait in traffic, oh my god, I could sit with
my kids and have like free sightseeing via a safe public transportation
system, then people will care more.
So the connection, the entertain, the doubling down on entertainment by me and
by you is so people will care more about their public transit systems, and maybe
they'll be willing to pay more, right?
Let's say muni tax exemption goes away.
Are we just gonna stop funding public transportation?
No, we're gonna need to double down even more on the importance of it.
And show people what they're getting for their dollars and how important it is,
especially if the costs are rising, I like to bring entertainment entertainment
into it just because it's, it's, I have such a deep passion for transportation.
I can't expect anybody to have the passion for it.
And that passion was instilled in me from my grandmother.
She immigrated to this country in the 70s.
She didn't speak English.
And she taught herself how to use the bus system in North Orange County.
And she instilled in me from a very, very, very young age about what a great
country we live in because you can, you can use a bus system and you can
get around on public transportation.
And that stayed with me for the rest of my life.
And as a result, I'm trying to like double down on that passion and
spread that to other people and say, Hey, look, like we should really
care about public transportation.
You know, you can use it for entertainment purposes.
You can use it to get around.
You can spend more time with your family.
I'm, I'm a big believer, Paul.
And this is why I was talking about a lot about the Inglewood people mover and how
important it is going to these stadiums.
The transportation aspect, Paul, of going to an event can ruin an event.
Let me give you an example.
So I'm a big punk rock fan.
I was in a bunch of punk rock bands, back in the day.
I went to the, it was like punk rock Woodstock out in Pomona, California.
Okay.
It was called the no values concert.
I spent five and a half hours ingress and egress from this concert.
Yes.
And that, and it ruined it for me.
I wrote a Forbes.
com article about how horrible it was that they, and there was, and there
was literally a, a Metro link station, only a quarter of a mile away or a
half a mile away or easy shuttle bus.
They didn't coordinate the two and that.
And a lot of people, I mean, I went on to Reddit, I went on a whole
bunch of places and a lot of people like, I'll never go again, I'll
never go again, I'll never go again.
If you've ever been to a concert and had a horrible transportation
experience, it'll make you think twice about going to that concert.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why I don't go to Coachella anymore.
I'm like, look, I've done it twice.
I can't do it.
I can't deal with it.
So there's a huge connection between enjoyment of entertainment events and
transportation and more people got to care about that and more companies got
to care about that and more cities got to care about that because if we're spending
the amount of dollars that we're spending for these sporting events and these
concerts and it's getting ruined because because the ingress and egress and because
there's no option You know what then people then the value of those concerts.
They might drop.
I don't know.
I mean, I mean, there's so much virtual reality these days with with
concerts and movies and sporting events How is that going to impact
these live events if people really hate getting into and out of an event?
That's going to impact things.
So I think for business reasons, people should care more about transportation.
That's my connection of entertainment and transportation.
Yeah, that's great.
You know, there were big, music concerts across America and Canada
this year, by a certain starlet, very popular singer that she was promoting.
Hey, use public transportation to get to my concerts.
Yeah, because she knew that it was going to ruin people's experience.
Probably like you said, if they had to wait around in big traffic, Taylor Swift.
Yeah.
I mean, everybody knows, knows it, but, yeah, she, God bless her, man.
Go ahead.
What'd you say?
No, I was just kidding.
I mean, she, I mean, that's fantastic.
She probably got people, Paul, to use public transportation for
the first time in their life.
And you know what?
They might use it again.
That's right.
Need more.
We need more Twitter, Taylor Swift saying this type of stuff.
I know Beyonce did something as well.
She worked with the Washington Metro, to like keep the trains going late
because it was raining and that's fine.
We need more, we need more artists that care about transportation.
That's why I talk incessantly about it.
All right, lightning round.
We're coming close to the end but I want to get your thoughts on
what I consider the three F's of transportation going into 2025.
I recently spoke about this in Brisbane and I want to get your take on it.
the first is fueling.
Where are we at on fueling for public transportation
going into 2025, do you think?
Yeah, I think electrification of transportation is still going to be
a, pretty, pretty big, uh, uh, topic, um, um, on The Commute Substack.
I actually had a whole little sub article about, there was this electric train.
I think it's called, she called the Tesla train in Germany.
It's literally run on electricity in Germany and it's been a wonderful kind
of test case for clean transportation.
So obviously most light rails run on electricity, but, but you know, big
rail is not still run on diesel fuel.
Yeah.
Heavy rail.
I actually worked on the Cal train.
Cal train is the big, train that runs from San Jose up to San Francisco.
And we worked on the financing for the electrification of that train.
So I do think that electrification is going to be big, into the future.
Now, is it just going to be electrification?
What about hydrogen?
Everyone seems to be talking about hydrogen these days.
And that, you know, so I, I think fueling, will there be some drill baby
drill under Trump with, with fracking?
Yeah, I mean, I think there will be, and maybe there'll be clean ways to do it.
But I don't think electrification is going away.
I think we need to double down on building out our grid.
We need to, we need to think about alternatives.
You know, I think, I think the nuclear conversation has to come
back into, into vogue, if you will, maybe smaller scale nuclear projects.
I know Google's looking at a couple of them.
So fueling, when you talk about fuel, I'm not just literally talking about gas.
I'm talking about anything that can make things run.
And I think it, I think in 2025, that's one of the reasons, you know,
it's going to be pretty exciting.
Keolis, has proposed to MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation
Authority, in Boston for their commuter rail, it's the largest commuter rail
in America, to, start trying out new electric trains that have big batteries
in them, so you have the catenary wires above, As you get close to the station,
but then as you get out on the track and you get away from the wires, it
switches over to the batteries, and then it comes back up at the other end.
They're doing that in other places in the world is what I understand, but
this may be the first place in the U.
S., and so that looks like that's moving forward.
The other thing I was going to mention, what I'm hearing from people on the
fueling side for public transportation is, there probably won't be any more
money coming from the FTA ,under
Trump for battery electric buses.
However that doesn't mean that there still won't be local funding and state funding
in states like California where you're at, where they're going to continue to
provide a push toward that Let's move to the second topic, and that is funding
where do you think funding will go?
As you know, in America, public transportation is funded by a
mix of federal, state and local dollars and fares and advertising.
Do you have any thoughts on where we're going now that you know
ridership is still only around 70 to 80 percent of transit agencies?
pandemic ridership.
Government agencies are, you know, all at coming to the end of the subsidies
that came from the federal government for the CARES act, the CRISSA act
and the arpa act, which were unusual one time funding mechanisms to help
us make up for the impact of COVID
where do we go?
I mean, San Francisco BART is one of the big agencies has been saying,
Hey, we're at our fiscal cliff.
Philadelphia just announced last month.
You got any thoughts on that?
Yeah, I do.
I got a lot of thoughts on the first one.
funding is going to be huge.
And I think there's a, there's a lot, I mean, I'm on conversations right
now with transit agencies out here in California and they're scared.
They just are I'm not going to name any names, but we're, we're all watching.
And there's so many different.
things, aspects, of balls in the air, if you will, that can affect funding for
transit agencies that, and, and then, and then you throw in, oh, and tax exemption
might go, might go away for, for munis.
I do think that what transit agencies are doing with doubling down on fare
evaders, you know, I know that's a big issue with LA Metro, I know the federal
government really cares about fare evaders and they sometimes tie funding to that.
And I think that's going to be, something that transit agencies
are going to have to focus on.
I think right now it's going to be the wait and see.
I, do I think that the vast majority of our transportation
funding is funded by the gas tax.
Okay.
Gas taxes.
You got the federal level at the state level, sometimes at the local level as
electric vehicles have been rising, right?
The gas tax has been impacted by that.
I've been arguing for years that, Hey, look guys, this is not sustainable.
We got to come up with something else to help with our, with our infrastructure.
Is it going to be vehicle miles traveled?
Is it going to be some kind of user fees?
I don't know.
Is that really going to be realistic under a Republican regime?
I don't know, but the reality is sorry to pick on EV drivers.
I mean, I love EVs and I, you know, my wife has one and we have
a hybrid, et cetera, et cetera.
The reality is, the more EVs, the less financing for roads because of the gas
tax, something's got to happen there.
So I think that that needs to be addressed.
Yeah.
Here in Maryland, the state where I'm at, there's a special commission looking
at exactly what you just said, Rudy, with the introduction of more EVs.
the gas tax is going down and so there is a lot of talk of at least even if we
don't go to road uses charges at least raising the registration fees for battery
electric cars to be the equivalent of what the average person may spend in gas
tax in a year to make it fair to make it equitable so that you're look electric
cars driving on the same roads the gas car is driving on you should help pay
for road maintenance, and I don't think people would see that's unfair I've just
done a series of actually a podcast about that and and talks with one of my friends
the former secretary of Transportation of California who is working on that, for
the company he works for now And so it's a hot topic last one you you touched on
it Give us a little bit more on faring.
So there was a lot of, you know, people fell in love with the
idea that transit could be free, free, free after the pandemic.
And then they realized, wait a minute, really what people want
when you do surveys, and by the way, it's the same in Australia.
When you say, why aren't you riding transit?
First is, it's not frequent enough.
Second is, it doesn't go where I want it to go.
Third is, I don't feel safe on it.
Fourth is, oh, I got to pay for it.
So it's not even in the top three.
And transit agencies need more money now, not less.
What are your thoughts on faring going into 2025?
And the reason why I even brought up faring with the whole fiscal cliff aspect
of it is exactly what you're saying when these transit agencies fall off that
fiscal cliff, right, that's when they go into the death spiral was the death
spiral is well the only way that they're going to be able to stay, you know,
operable is if they start cutting service.
Well, guess what happens when you start cutting service?
Exactly.
You get less people on it.
Now, out here in California, a lot of our transit agencies, they're,
a lot of the projects at least, and probably some of the operations,
they're funded by sales taxes, right?
We have the county, L.
A.
Metro's primarily funded by, county wide sales taxes.
They have many of those measures.
And so, Anytime you buy anything in L.
A.
County and it's subject to the sales tax, a portion of that
goes to the transit agency.
Not every transit agency has the benefit of a sales tax.
Some agencies like BART, they, they, they're ticket fares, right?
So it's like, it's all about, is it fare box revenue that's
your primary funding source?
Or is it sales tax revenues?
So, If you're, if you're fare box revenue dependent, there's no way you
could be free if you're, if you're more sales tax dependent, you know, yeah,
I guess, I guess you could be free.
I'm not a big believer in free.
I mean, there's a lot of programs for students.
There's a lot of program properly.
So for, for disabled and ed or elderly and veteran, I mean, a lot
of those programs aren't there.
Yeah.
I think if people can afford it.
In fact.
I think by paying for it, they realize how much money that they
save by using public transportation.
How much did you save on parking?
How much did you save on that, on not using the toll road?
How much did you save on, on car maintenance?
And let's just take it just one step further.
What about the health benefits of public transportation?
What about the walking?
I think this is my opinion, and if this is controversial, I apologize.
I think there's an obesity epidemic in America because we're not walking enough.
I think the car, while wonderful as it is, has definitely contributed to the negative
health aspects of where we are at.
And I think if people actually implemented public transportation more, they
would also, you know, be healthier.
That's that's that's what I do.
I I purposely sometimes even stop a station or two away If I know there's like
a hill or if I know there's like a nice little walk I will I will do that extra
walk to get in even more steps in my day.
That's what I try to do
That's a great idea Now I haven't really thought about that the Maybe that's,
maybe that'll be a part of the documentary.
Yeah, the walking.
I thought of the health, but I've never thought about it being
the walking to the bus stop.
That's a really good point.
We don't get enough steps in our life.
We are very sedentary these days.
And, you know, with, like you said, everything virtual.
We sit in our houses, on our couch, or on our phones.
Dude, that's a really good point and a great way to kind of wrap up the show.
Thank you so much, Rudy, for being a part of the Transit Unplugged
podcast in our New Year's Eve episode as we look into 2025.
I'm sure we'll check back with you later in 2025 and see if
your predictions came true.
Sounds great, Paul.
Thank you for this opportunity.
I look forward to working with you.
Thank you for listening to the final episode of Transit Unplugged
of 2024, and thanks to our guest Rudy Salo for joining us.
Hi, I'm Tris Hussey, editor of the podcast, and coming up for
our first episode of 2025, we have the second episode from Australia.
Now next week, we have a true transit legend on the show, Howard Collins.
Howard has been in transit for over 47 years and is currently the Coordinator
General for Transport for New South Wales.
In this captivating interview with Paul, Howard dispenses invaluable wisdom
about transit, careers, and leadership, all the while expressing his passion
for transit and the work he does.
Don't miss this episode coming back to you on our usual Wednesday publishing slot.
Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.
At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people, and at
Transit Unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories.
So until next week and next year, we wish you a Happy New Year.