City + Transit Agency Partnerships: Teaming Up to Improve Transit

Click here to watch a recording of the webinar

Frequent transit service is critical for connecting people to opportunities. Yet transit governance in the U.S. too often leads to networks where service is thin and frequent routes are scarce. There’s nothing inevitable about this outcome, however. Through partnerships with transit agencies, some cities are asserting their need for frequent service and improving residents’ access to good transit.

Seattle and Salt Lake City are two cities leading the way. They have put up the funding and established the relationships with county or regional transit agencies to purchase service hours and enable much greater access to convenient, affordable transportation. These partnerships were extremely useful before the pandemic. With the budget uncertainty generated by COVID-19, they may be even more important as models for other cities.

Join TransitCenter and NACTO for a panel discussion about how cities are directly supporting transit through service purchasing agreements and funding partnerships, delivering transit expansions without waiting, and immediately making service more useful to riders.

Panelists:

Shefali Ranganathan, Former Deputy Mayor, City of Seattle

Julianne Sabula, Manager, Planning and Programming, Salt Lake City Corporation

Moderator:

Ben Fried, Communications Director, TransitCenter

This webinar is co-presented with NACTO