One chapter ends, another begins at Seamless Bay Area

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

It is with mixed emotions that, after more than five years working for Seamless Bay Area - and seven years since co-founding it - I’ve decided to step down as Policy Director and Co-Executive Director. I’m extremely grateful that my main coconspirator over the past several years, Adina Levin, will be staying on to lead Seamless Bay Area into its next chapter, stepping up as the sole Executive Director.

Seamless Bay Area’s board and staff, from top left: Ron Kilcoyne, Dave Sorrell, Beaudry Kock, Darnell Grisby, Ian Griffiths, Kaleo Mark, Adina Levin, JQ Ramos (picture taken October 2023. Not pictured: Felix Pomerantz)

The past several years I have spent with Seamless have been among the most fulfilling and exciting of my career - and I’m excited about the opportunity to apply what I’ve learned about seamless transit integration, customer experience, governance, funding, and other topics to other parts of the US and the world, which is what I hope to do in my new role at CPCS, an infrastructure consulting firm.

My involvement with Seamless Bay Area began seven years ago, when I was working at BART as a transportation planner. While I enjoyed my job, I wanted Bay Area public transit to be much better than it was. I began reaching out to my friends, family, and colleagues in search of other people who shared the belief that the Bay Area was capable of having a significantly better system that was seamlessly integrated and easy to use - if only we addressed root causes of fragmented governance and inadequate funding.

I quickly found a community of like-minded people - including fellow transit professionals working at other agencies, including AC Transit, Muni, Caltrain, and MTC, but also local advocates across the region that were working toward change in their own communities, including Adina Levin. The vision and organization of “Seamless Bay Area” emerged in late 2017, and after launching our website, mailing list, and social media accounts in 2018, it quickly gained traction in the media, among politicians, and the public. I eventually quit my job at BART in 2019 and became Seamless Bay Area’s first full-time employee, focusing on the mission of integrating the region’s 27 transit agencies into one integrated, rider-focused system.

Early Seamless Bay Area volunteers and board members Julia Verbrugge and Courtney Ferris at Sunday Streets in the Bayview in 2018.

Since 2019 I’ve been honored to be able to make advocacy my full time job and help build Seamless Bay Area into a staffed, funded non-profit organization. All along, this work has been a joint effort, with Adina Levin, more than a dozen actively involved board members who have contributed innumerable hours toward building our organizational capacity, and thousands of volunteers that have participated in actions, petitions, social events, letters, and more. While I have often been the spokesperson, Seamless Bay Area has succeeded and will be sustainable in the future because it’s a very broad movement of riders. We continue to benefit from extremely capable stewardship from a talented staff and deeply engaged group of policy advisors.

I’m proud of what Seamless Bay Area has been able to accomplish as a result of combining deep research about effective transit practices with the building of a rider-based movement to advocate for change.

Our vision map and integrated fare vision has inspired, and continues to inspire people about the possibilities that would be unlocked if transit was simpler, better connected, and more affordable.
Our work has shifted the region’s transportation priorities toward the goal of an integrated, rider focused system - with integrated fares, service, wayfinding, expanded accessibility, and more funding. The Region’s Transformation Action Plan, unanimously adopted in 2021 by Bay Area transit agencies, elected leaders, and advocacy groups, was heavily shaped by our effective advocacy, and continues to be the guiding ‘North Star’ for transit in our region. Actions recommended from the plan, like fare integration, are succeeding in rebuilding ridership.
Our Seamless Transit Principles, endorsed by more than 100 organizations and thousands of individuals, have solidified a broad regional consensus around the desirability of a more seamless system.
We were a founding member of Voices for Public Transportation, a coalition of community groups, transit advocates, unions, and policy organizations that has been working to pass a major regional transportation measure to invest in our transit system.
Our work to disseminate global best practices have broadened the understanding of how we can build a more integrated system, and set up an effective Bay Area Network Manager authority that has the mandate and capacity to oversee a more rider-focused system - following in the footsteps of Zurich, Vancouver, or Stockholm. Our work led to a group of a dozen Bay Area transit leaders traveling to Switzerland in 2023 to study coordination practices, and this experience has strengthened the commitment to change among key public sector staff and agency leaders.
Finally, we are even having a statewide impact - after successfully lobbying for emergency funding relief, with partners, to prevent transit cuts, the state has set up a Transit Transformation Task Force to assess and recommend statewide policy changes, including schedule integration and fare coordination, that can transform transit across California.

Awardees of rider first awards in 2023, including members of the Survive and Thrive coalition who successfully won billions in state funding to prevent transit service cuts.

While we have accomplished a lot, progress is still often frustratingly slow, and Bay Area public transit is facing an uncertain financial future that could stand in the way of transit’s continued transformation. With transit ridership recovering gradually from the pandemic, the region needs a new permanent source of transit operations funding in order to be able to sustain and grow service, provide improved mobility for all, expand access to affordable housing and opportunity, and dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Passing a major regional ballot measure in the next three years critical to our region’s future. And we know from polling that to get voters to support such a measure, we will need an inspiring vision and clear plan for an improved, connected network across the region.

Much more work is needed before Bay Area transit gets on to a ‘virtuous cycle’ of improving, expanding transit. Seamless Bay Area’s vision and thought leadership is more critical than ever in developing a unifying and motivating plan for a regional measure, and we look forward to working as part of Voices for Public Transportation and MTC’s Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee to develop a unifying plan for a sustainable transit funding.

Transit General managers at a Ride Along during Transit Month in 2022; Transit General managers now meet regularly to coordinate services and programs, and have a packed work program to advance integration via the Regional Network Management Council.

Importantly, one of Seamless Bay Area’s core objectives, the establishment of a Network Manager for Bay Area transit, capable of overseeing a regionally integrated, rider-focused system, is still not complete. While the establishment of the Regional Network Management Council and Committee, and the dedicated Regional Network Management staff group at MTC, are steps in the right direction, the Bay Area continues to have a fragile consensus-based model of coordination. Our fragile setup continues to inhibit our region from moving forward quickly with basic rider-focused improvements that will build ridership and build capacity to take on more transformative transit investments in our region - we must push forward with the establishment of an empowered Network Manager to set our region up for success for the next generation of transit improvements.

I believe that despite our region’s challenges, we are actually better positioned than ever to come together and transform Bay Area public transit. I know that Seamless Bay Area has an important role to play in making that a reality, and as I continue to participate with the organization as a board member, I remain committed to seeing through this collective project. While my chapter as staff is coming to an end, a new, exciting chapter in the story of Bay Area public transit transformation is just beginning, and Seamless Bay Area’s vision, leadership, and grassroots movement of riders is more important than ever.