(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 498: Transit Leadership for the Future
September 4, 2024
This week on Talking Headways we’re joined by podcaster and transit expert Paul Comfort and former California State Transportation Agency Secretary David Kim to talk about their ensemble book The New Future of Public Transportation. We talk about writing cookbooks, road user charges, and the importance of leadership.
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Below is a full AI generated transcript of the episode:
Jeff Wood:[00:02:45] Paul comfort and Davy Kim. Welcome to the talking headways podcast.
[00:02:53] David Kim: Thanks so much, Jeff. Great to be with you. [00:02:55] Jeff Wood: Yeah. [00:02:55] David Kim: Good times. [00:02:56] Jeff Wood: Yeah. Thanks so much for being here. I appreciate you all coming on the show and sharing your work with us. [00:03:01] But before we get started, can you tell folks a little bit about yourselves and we’ll start with Davey and then we’ll go with Paul. [00:03:06] David Kim: Sure. Davey Kim. I’m with WSP where I serve as a senior vice president for national transportation policy and multimodal strategy. That’s a lot of words, but basically it comes down to transportation policy. [00:03:18] Davey. Davey. Strategy and funding. Those are the areas I work on before W. S. P. I was secretary of transportation in California, so I lived and worked in Sacramento up until just a couple of years ago, and I’ve been in transportation for most of my career, [00:03:34] Paul Comfort: right? I’m Paul comfort. I am the senior vice president and chief customer officer of Medaxo, which is the world’s largest transportation technology company with offices all over the world. [00:03:45] And in that role, I host a podcast that Jeff and I have been on each other’s podcast called transit unplugged and a TV show I just got back last night. From filming episodes in Fairbanks, Alaska, man, which was wild. And then Anchorage and Sacramento, Davey, where you spent quite a bit of time. I was with Henry Lee there and we did podcasts and TV shows. [00:04:06] I write books now I’ve written a book a year, and this is the sixth book that we’re going to be talking about today, all on public transportation and most of them collaborative works, meaning I invite others to write in the books about topics that they’re experts in. And this one is no different. With Davey, as you’ll hear in just a minute, one of the nation’s leading experts on his topic prior to that, like Davey, I wasn’t the secretary of transportation, but I was the administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, which oversaw all transit in Maryland. [00:04:35] And I was the general manager of Baltimore City’s transit system at the same time. [00:04:38] Jeff Wood: That’s awesome. So high level officials here with us today. Boom, baby. Former big dogs now midsize dogs. I want to go back to when you were little dogs, when you’re younger, when you were kids, was this something that was interesting to you all, like transportation or urban policy? [00:04:52] Was it something that you knew that you wanted to do when you were, maybe looking at buses and trains passing you by or getting on them as a kid? [00:04:59] David Kim: Jeff, you’re going to love this story. As a kid, I grew up in Davis, just up the road from you. And right when the BART system opened. 1973 or somewhere, my dad said to us, the whole family, let’s go to Berkeley and check out this brand new subway system. [00:05:17] We drove from Davis to Berkeley, parked somewhere, hopped on BART, and I just found it so mesmerizing as a young kid, elementary school at the time. And as that portion of BART in the East Bay is elevated, and just to see the world go by as you’re riding through Berkeley and Oakland and other parts of the East Bay, I was hooked. [00:05:40] That was a life changing moment. Little did anybody know that would be a life changing family field trip. It was supposed to be a civil trip. No one knew that would become, eventually, a career in transportation, but that family trip really planted the seed. And that seed grew many years later. It took a while, but eventually it did. [00:05:59] So I really credit that trip to check out the BART system in its first year or two as spurring the development of a career in transportation. That’s awesome. [00:06:09] Paul Comfort: So my background, my dad was a pastor of a church and he instilled in me a desire and a heart to help people. And so I knew. Early on that I wanted to work in government to help people. [00:06:21] I really believed in the adage. I’m here from the government and I’m here to help you. And I ran for office while I was still in college. I ran for County Commissioner and for Democratic Central Committee. I won for Central Committee, but lost for Commissioner. And just, super involved in politics from an early age. [00:06:36] And that led to the county, Queen Anne’s County, where I lived, offering me an interview to become the county’s first transportation coordinator. So that’s what I did. I worked for the Department of Aging at the time, which a lot of counties still have. And was their transportation coordinator for, the senior centers and elderly and disabled transportation built the county’s first public transportation system in my twenties and back in 1991, we won the Community Transportation Association of America’s Award for the best small community transit system in America. [00:07:07] From there, my career just took off. So I have been super interested in transportation, obviously, since I graduated college is my very first job. And it basically has been what I’ve done other than a six year stint as county administrator for two counties. That’s what I’ve done my whole 35 year career. [00:07:23] Jeff Wood: You’re also a cookbook author as well. [00:07:24] Paul Comfort: There’s things like that too. That’s right. Yeah. We’ll get to the new future of public transportation in a bit, but I do want to ask you about, the cookbook and kind of the genesis of that and how you jump that up. [00:07:34] So my three loves have always been music, media, and politics. Those are the three things I’ve loved since I was a kid. [00:07:41] And I’ve always wanted to have my career, my vocation combined with my avocation. I had a band when I was in college, I play piano. So I used to play piano in the senior centers. Now I play piano at subway stations all over the world. And I include music in my TV show. Then there’s the media, right? [00:07:57] So I had a, Talk radio show for 16 years on local radio while I was working full time, I worked for newspapers and columnists and wrote articles and probably 50 different magazines about various topics. And so all this, I combined with my transportation career and, did a newsletter and started the nation’s first FM radio station run by a transit agency in Baltimore. [00:08:18] Last is politics, which is government, right? Politics is another word for getting in government. And so I wanted to combine all that. Basically, I want to combine fun. With work and so that’s what I’ve been able to do in this job and one of the things I think is fun and I’ve seen to tap into the zeitgeist of what’s happening right now in the moment seems like every industry has a cookbook right? [00:08:39] You’ve got TV people having a cookbook. You’ve got sports stars and cookbooks. And I’ve been traveling, I think I’ve visited maybe 85 different transit systems now around the world in person over the last six or seven years. And I always eat at great restaurants and all that. And so a friend of mine who was a regular on my podcast suggested to me a couple of years ago, you ought to do a cookbook, Paul, from all the best recipes and the best restaurants that you’ve eaten in around the world. [00:09:04] And I said, I got, We’ll do one with the best recipes from CEOs and leaders of transit agencies around the world. We should have a cookbook. Everybody else has one. Why can’t we have one in transit? So that’s how it got started. Then I invited 30 of my friends, 15 in the Americas, 15 around the world to submit a favorite family recipe. [00:09:22] Most of them turned into being. Or a recipe they’ve come across that they’ve changed in some way to make it theirs. And then stories of them Melinda Metzger from Pace. She gave me a recipe for something from her family in Argentina and that she can serve to the drivers now. And then pictures of her making it in her kitchen. [00:09:38] And so that’s what it was. And it’s a good hardback, very well done book. We’ve sold thousands of copies around the world, and it’s just a fun way to show the softer side of Sears as they used to say, right? So these transit leaders who are the only time they ever get to do anything on the news or whatever. [00:09:53] Is when there’s a, a strike or a derailment. Now they can do something fun and show a different side of themselves, which I think is important. That’s what my podcast is largely about unplugged. We just talk to them about what’s going on in your life, man, what’s happening. And one other little quick tidbit I want to throw out is that when I go to these conferences, like APTA coming up and I’ll go to APTA tech in Philly, I like to throw a big dinner. [00:10:13] And I call it a salon dinner. It’s the same kind of thing. Like they used to do in England, where I’d invite a dozen people. I say, set aside two to three hours, cause this is going to be a long one. And we’ll sit someplace comfortable and ask each person, Jeff, spend 10 or 15 minutes, tell us about yourself. [00:10:28] What are you passionate about? What are the loves you have outside of your work day to day? Those kinds of things. And so by the time we’re done, we’ve done it a half dozen times over the last few years, and Everybody knows each other and feels like we could be lifelong friends then. [00:10:40] And we are, there’s all kinds of connections that happen after that. And that’s what I’m about connecting people through the cookbook, through the podcast and a TV show through dinner, through live events. You and I have similar passions, you’re a transit evangelist too. You want things to go great. [00:10:52] And so I think we all have to help each other. [00:10:55] Jeff Wood: Yeah, we talked about that before too is we’re not in competition, right? We’re in collaboration We’re trying to do all the same stuff, especially with what we’re up against. Yeah, which is tough, right? We don’t have the huge budgets of car companies And so we have to do it on a bootstrap and try to get to the places where we want to go together And so I appreciate that. [00:11:12] Let’s talk about the book the new future of public transportation I want to know a general kind of overview of where the book came from You What some of the ideas are generally in the book. And then also, Davey, I want you to jump in, whenever we get a chance, because obviously you wrote a chapter, Paul wrote a chapter, but this is a book about the future of transportation. [00:11:28] And there’s so much to think about when it comes to this topic. [00:11:32] Paul Comfort: Yeah. So tying back to everything connected, I believe I’m in the river of life and I try to go where it takes me and the people I connect with along the way, I try to build relationships with them, et cetera, and I think it’s all leading to good things, right? [00:11:45] All things working together for good. So that’s what I did when I first got this job with Medaxo at the time it was trapeze, I said, Hey, do you mind if I write a book, not through you just on my own, they’re like, no, fine. Do whatever you want. That’s why I’m still here. Seven years later, they give me a lot of freedom and flexibility. [00:11:59] So I wrote the first book, which was like stories from my career and nine other CEOs. The next book was the future of public transportation, because I’ve been talking to all these people like Davey and others on my podcast. And there were so many interesting topics that I felt like we ought to have a book about it. [00:12:13] What is coming? And of course, you and I talked about this last time, Jeff, the book was published in February of 2020, just before the freaking pandemic. And I got one event. Where I got to shake hands and sign books, and then, of course, all travel stopped. So anyway, zoom ahead four years and then SAE, Society of Automotive Engineers. [00:12:32] They’re a book publisher side of their group. They publish all these books that are the Bible of the, bus and mechanics and automotive industries. They contacted me and said, we do general books too, about public transportation. We loved your first book. We’d love you to. Revamp it for the post pandemic world, because so much has changed after the pandemic and man, they were right. [00:12:50] So I said, great, we’ll do it. And I ended up not using really any of the original material. I asked a few of the people back to update their chapters, but at least 25 chapters are all brand new material. And it’s on topics, from hydrogen fueled buses, which of course weren’t the trend before the pandemic, but now they are, now it’s the hot upcoming trend, AI driven enhancement, cybersecurity, all the post COVID stuff like workforce shortages, infrastructure challenges, autonomous vehicles, zero mission, where we’re at now, everybody knows what’s happening with the bus manufacturers here in Canada and the U S especially where we went from five down to basically two or two and a half, if you want to count one of them, that’s bankrupt, trying to come back. [00:13:28] And so all that stuff is covered and we’ve got people like Mohammed Mezgani, the head of UITP, who writes the opening chapter about a global perspective. Dr. Karen Philbrick Institute. She writes on, workforce shortages, mental health challenges, all the stuff that’s current right now. Laura Hendricks talks about the future of contracting. [00:13:46] She’s the head of TransDev and the North American Transit Alliance. And Nat Ford, my buddy down in Jacksonville, he’s one of the leaders in the country on autonomous vehicles. And then, of course, Davie Kim. Former secretary of transportation and now helping the country move forward on a new way to fund public transit. [00:14:02] And so that’s what it is. That’s what it’s about, Jeff. And my chapter I wrote, cause I’m a people person primarily is all about how to lead people better in a post pandemic world. People are very different now. Young people are very different. People that were in their teens during the pandemic and now in the early twenties, they have a whole different outlook. [00:14:19] I’ve got two kids that are that way. And I know personally, their view of work is very different than our view of work. Those of us who are. Like over 40. And so all that stuff has to be addressed, right? We want them in our industry. We have exciting things for them to do in our industry, almost more exciting than anything else outside of medicine. [00:14:36] I think is transit what we’re doing here. And so that’s what the book’s about. And I hope it to become, curriculum, like my first book was apt to use it for their emerging leaders. And, as used it, and I’m talking to them about using this book as curriculum for the young people as well, because it really is a handle. [00:14:52] On the next one to three years, so we can pull you forward and I encourage people not to read it like a novel, don’t read a straight through go to the table of contents, find the chapters that you’re interested in the topics, maybe it’s road funding what Dave is going to talk about, or maybe it’s autonomous vehicles, or maybe it’s, what can I do to get more people into my employment? [00:15:12] We have chapters on all those topics. Just read those and get started with those. Get right into the topics that are of interest to you. And then you can read the other stuff later and get an education. But I’d say start chewing immediately on the bone that’s tasty to you. Davey, what roped you in? [00:15:26] David Kim: I’ve been involved in the whole issue of road usage charge or RUC for quite some time. And that’s the topic of the chapter. The future of transit funding and what I say at the outset is that there is a looming crisis impacting the highway trust fund. And that’s a serious concern to anyone who cares about transit. [00:15:47] And we talk about how the gas tax is dying a slow death because of the rise of electric vehicles. And for gas powered vehicles, they are generally more fuel efficient today than they were in the past. And so the concept of a vehicle miles traveled tax or mileage based user fee, road usage charge, whatever you want to call it, that is gaining traction now. [00:16:11] And although it’s been around for the better part of 20 years from a pilot and testing and research standpoint, and that continues today. I think there is a general desire to take the next step towards full scale implementation, maybe not full scale, but gradual implementation to move away from the gas tax and take on a new revenue source. [00:16:34] And that’s where we are right now. I will say that road usage charge is not without its challenges. There are still some outstanding questions that need to be answered. Still some more research that needs to be done. A lot of states have embarked on pilot programs like Caltrans and like many states around the country. [00:16:52] Those will continue and eventually there will be a national road usage charge pilot program. which is required by the infrastructure law. USDOT has not yet embarked on it. They will within the next few years. And that will be a really important test of viability and national scalability. And all of the state pilots that have been done to date will hopefully feed into that national pilot and enable USDOT and Federal Highway Administration to tackle it. [00:17:20] Issues that states have not been able to do. And so this is a really exciting time, a chance to really start making concerted steps towards moving away from the gas tax and towards a new revenue mechanism. [00:17:33] Jeff Wood: The gas tax was a tough revenue mechanism for thinking about transit in the past. I feel like, because as you mentioned in the book, you have a 20 split, basically it’s a function of how much people drive. [00:17:42] And how much people use gasoline. And it’s almost the antithesis of kind of transit itself. And so I’m interested in how this next generation of funding is going to get us to think about transit maybe differently, or at least fund transit differently in a way that allows transit to be itself. [00:17:58] And to change from this kind of thoughts about mobility and more towards access and getting people that want to get to places, the thing that they need to get there. [00:18:05] David Kim: One of the unanswered questions has been and will be. How do you allocate all of this revenue from a RUC system? That has not been answered. [00:18:14] That has not been resolved. And I’m glad you mentioned the 80 20 split. I’ll say so called 80 20 split because it’s somewhat of a misnomer. [00:18:21] Jeff Wood: 14%, maybe 60%. Yeah, something like [00:18:24] David Kim: that. And it’s very technical, but the 80 20 split was a deal in Congress many years ago to roughly allocate 80 percent to highways and 20 percent to transit. [00:18:34] Okay. The question will be once we someday pivot from the gas tax and embrace RUC is will Congress need to revisit that issue or not? They might need to, they might come up with a whole different allocation plan that remains to be seen, but hopefully there will be more of a holistic approach to how you allocate transportation revenues across all modes of transportation. [00:18:58] That is an issue that has not been tackled and is waiting to be tackled in the years ahead. [00:19:04] Jeff Wood: Are you guys upset that Kathy Hochel, Governor Hochel messed up your chapter a little bit? [00:19:09] Paul Comfort: On congestion charging? Yeah. I imagine it’s a pause until after the elections. That’s what I’ve been told by insiders that Democratic congressional candidates in New York were concerned about the impact it could have on this year’s election. [00:19:22] And so they wanted to get that off the front burner, put it on the back burner. And then after the national elections are over, I imagine we’ll see a refurbished version of it coming back. They’ve already invested millions and millions of dollars in all the gantries. And by the way, For everybody in New York. [00:19:38] I’m sure they know this. It’s already up. They’re taking pictures of your tags. I’ve been told they’re just not charging you right now. It’s a good practice session. Basically. It’s a dry run. So to speak. I think it’s coming back. They’ve been able to figure out a lot of countries. I’ve been to Singapore and London that kind of congestion charging. [00:19:54] I think could even visit other cities as well. Once New York gets it going, but it is just like Davey said. New things like this for new sources of income, man, it’s always difficult to do. As a former county commissioner, I can tell you that people don’t want their taxes raised. They don’t want their fees raised. [00:20:09] They don’t want to pay any more. They feel like they’re already paying through the nose. But back on Davey’s issue for just one second, the ruck charges. One thing that people are seeing, even people that drive gas cars, are like, wait a minute, people that drive electric cars, it’s not fair. They’re driving on the same roads I am, but they’re not paying any gas tax, like I have to pay to make our roads, so it’s almost an equity or an equality thing. [00:20:32] Miles charge treats everybody the same no matter what type of fuel source you’re using Versus a gas tax only charges people who are in gas So in maryland, for instance There’s a statewide task force and my state senator from my district who’s a friend of mine is on that task force and we’ve had conversations about one of the big issues needs to be tackled is treating everybody the same when it comes to funding transit and roadways because It’s unfair that one doesn’t have to pay anything. [00:20:58] So anyway, and just so everybody understands, maybe Jeff, you could ask Davey how does the transportation trust fund work? Because I don’t think people fully understand that and how road taxes or gas taxes now are just one component that make up a transportation trust fund in each of our 50 States and at the national level, I think understanding that context would help people. [00:21:18] David Kim: Yeah, and before we get into that, Paul, let me just say, I totally agree with you on New York City’s congestion pricing program. I think it will eventually come back. It was put on pause for a lot of different reasons, but so much has been invested in the program. They’ve set it up and to use a sports analogy, it was on the 2 yard line. [00:21:38] And a decision was made. For a lot of reasons to call a timeout, but I think it will come back in some version. It will come back. [00:21:46] Jeff Wood: I hope so, because I feel if the Republicans get elected in November, you have a very small window before election day to get something done. And, the DOT has said that they’ll sign that paper that, we’ll push it forward and only needs a signature from the governor as well. [00:21:59] And so I hope that they accept that and go through, otherwise it’s dead because the opposition has said they want to kill it outright. So that would be 500 million down the drain and, gantries up and everything else. So I’m crossing my fingers for that. But Paul’s question is totally valid. [00:22:13] How does the highway trust fund work? What do lay people understand about how it works and how do they feel their funding exists? I know from watching Twitter that. There’s a ton of people that have no idea that property taxes take care of a lot of road funding and they think that, you pay your gas taxes and it covers everything, which we all know on this podcast. [00:22:31] We know that’s not true. [00:22:32] David Kim: Yeah. Most states have a pretty diverse portfolio of funding and revenue sources to cover the cost of road maintenance and other forms of transportation, whether it’s. Property tax, sales tax, of course, excise tax on motor fuels, so many different ways to raise revenue at the state level. [00:22:52] At the federal level, it’s primarily the gas tax, but not limited to the gas tax. So for example, there’s a tax on tires for commercial vehicles for long haul commercial trucks. Those revenues go into the highway trust fund. So that’s generally how it and I think you hit the nail on the head. If you ask someone, how much do you pay per year in gas tax? [00:23:15] A lot of people will say 2000 a year. 3000 a year, not even close. It’s maybe a hundred or 200 at most, depending on how many miles they drive, but it’s certainly not thousands of dollars. And so people in general don’t really know how transportation is funded and don’t have a good sense of how much they are contributing to the system. [00:23:37] They are contributing, but certainly not in the thousands. And so that’s one of the complicating factors with road usage charge. The idea that paying by the mile would be a worse deal than the current system where you pay by the gallon. That turns out not to be the case based on the results of state pilots. [00:23:58] There are a lot of myths out there when it comes to road usage charge. For example, if you live in a rural part of the country, you’re going to pay a lot more in mileage based user fees because of your distance. The opposite turns out to be the case. A lot of rural drivers, not all, but many of them drive fuel inefficient vehicles. [00:24:18] And so that means they’re putting more gas into their car and they’re paying a little more in gas tax. And so for a lot of rural drivers, they actually make out better under a road usage charge relative to a gas tax. So there are a lot of myths out there, or maybe misunderstanding about how REC would work. [00:24:37] We have a collective challenge in terms of how to message it, how to communicate to the public, how to explain it and why this is being done and what’s the value. What are people getting out of it? [00:24:49] Jeff Wood: I’ve heard a lot of different innovative ways to fund transportation that people are coming up with. [00:24:53] There’s like delivery fees and things like that on all the Amazon trucks and when whatever driving around, obviously there’s decongestion pricing and things like that. But are there any that are like weird that probably are just like, not really possible, but just fun to think about at least. [00:25:07] David Kim: Nothing comes to mind right now, but what you see a lot of states doing, and Pennsylvania is the latest, is enacting an annual registration fee on electric vehicles. Again, nothing new, because many states have done it. In the case of Pennsylvania, your first year registration would be set at 200 a year, and then it would go up to something like 250. [00:25:31] And then after that, it would be based on inflation or some other factor. Pretty interesting. And again, Pennsylvania is not the only state to do it, but based on the numbers, I’ve seen an EV registration fee alone in and of itself. Will not make up for the loss of revenue through a gas tax. It is a mechanism for sure, but in order to fully replace lost revenue through the gas tax, you need something like a road usage charge. [00:25:59] Jeff Wood: I’ve got one for you that I’ve been hawking on the show and it’s unrealistic, but it’s fun. So here in San Francisco, there’s been discussions about taking over PG and E’s infrastructure and creating a public utility, that’s only for San Francisco. And obviously we have hedge Hetchy and we have all kinds of stuff going on here that makes that possible. [00:26:16] But, for years and years, people buy gas and all that money. We. Talk about the green dividend in places like Portland and stuff where, you spend locally or you walk and bike and take transit and you take all the money and you spend it locally instead of sending it to the oil and gas companies. [00:26:27] And so I have this idea of a green dividend for a public utility, which is like SFMTA or whatever, sets up all the charging stations around the city and powers them and then, whatever profit the companies that would have done that otherwise get off the top. They actually use that to fund Muni or multimodal stuff, micromobility, whatever it is. [00:26:43] You take that off the top. So that’s my crazy idea. I don’t know. Paul, do you have a crazy idea? [00:26:47] Paul Comfort: I have the counter arguments that I’ve heard to the road uses charge, which I think are important because if we are going to transition, there needs to be an eventual release of the gas tax. And one big opposition I’ve heard is I don’t want to pay two taxes because once the government gets their hands on one tax source like gas taxes, are they really going to let go when they transition over? [00:27:09] Or are we going to get double taxation? So that’s one concern people have, is about the transition. And the other is, people are concerned about invasion of privacy. They feel like, is the government going to track everywhere I’m going, because they’re charging me now based on my miles. I think most people, if they think about it, know that they already are being tracked. [00:27:27] That every car you get these days already tracks all that. And your phone, you can go to Google Maps and see every trip you’ve made in the last year. I think people do a double think. Of course, they think that’s in the hand of a private company, not in the hand of the government, necessarily, and so that’s a concern. [00:27:43] I just want to throw them out as real viable opposition points that need to be addressed. Would you agree, Dave? [00:27:49] David Kim: Absolutely. And on the issue of double taxation, and I’m glad you brought that up. Funny anecdote. When I was secretary of transportation, there was a hearing in the state legislature on the future of transportation funding and one state legislator, and I will not reveal that person’s identity said, I cannot believe Caltrans is embarking on this pilot program to test the vehicle miles traveled tax. [00:28:18] That’s outrageous. Given the fact that we already have the nation’s highest gas tax, we’re being double taxed. That’s terrible. Clearly that state legislator is misinformed. It’s not a matter of double taxation. It’s a matter of one revenue source, eventually replacing another. And so if a state legislator had that level of understanding that shows we’ve got a very long way to go in terms of educating, not just policymakers, but the public at large, because there is that notion for sure, absolutely. [00:28:48] And then on the privacy issue, yes, that is out there. That continues to be an issue. I don’t want to be tracked. But the reality is. The only thing the government wants to know is how many miles you drove. They don’t care if you drove to a certain restaurant, business, or wherever. Location doesn’t matter. [00:29:06] They just want your miles. And there are different ways of collecting mileage data. High tech, medium tech, low tech, no tech. Just [00:29:15] Paul Comfort: look at the odometer. That’s right. Take [00:29:17] David Kim: a picture of your odometer reading, upload the picture. Or states that have a annual safety inspection or a smog check. Your odometer can be read with someone’s eyes and handwritten down and recorded and that’s it. [00:29:30] So there are many different ways of collecting mileage data without being intrusive or without raising privacy concerns. [00:29:38] Jeff Wood: I still want to cover this kind of issue of the transit of it all, because I think that’s an important part of it too, is like talking about, charging for miles driven and things like that, but that’s all car based. [00:29:47] So like, how does that function as something where we were funding transit as the primary transportation mode for a lot of people, I don’t have a car here in San Francisco. And I might pay some taxes through Amazon or whoever delivery companies might come to my house, but for the most part. [00:30:00] It’s my property taxes and it’s my sales taxes and things that are paying for things. So how does that reconcile? [00:30:05] David Kim: Yeah. If we think of transportation as a holistic package or portfolio of different fund sources, Ruck is a part of it, a very big part of it, but perhaps not the only part of it. And so for individuals who did not have a car like yourself, you could help. [00:30:22] Fund transit through other mechanisms, whether it’s the sales tax, a lot of counties have enacted sales tax measures to help pay for transit and transportation improvements. It could be through the property tax. It could be through other mechanisms as well. And yes, 1 does not have to own a car. In order to help contribute to the funding of transit, many different ways of doing. [00:30:46] Jeff Wood: Paul, I want to talk about your chapter about leadership. I’m wondering, why is that such an important topic in today’s transportation climate? [00:30:52] Paul Comfort: I like to start this conversation with a little story. Most people have shopped at Walmart or Kmart over the years. But what they may not know is that both those stores started basically the same year in the same state of Arkansas 50 years ago, and they both sold the same thing. [00:31:07] One went on to become the largest. Company in the world and still is the largest employer in the United States. And the other one bankrupt. What’s the difference between the two? Leadership. It was the leadership of those organizations. I would argue you had one Walmart that was based on Sam Walton’s philosophy of, sell low and sell more, the lowest price and we’ll sell more of that. [00:31:26] And that’s how we make the money, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s not directly analogous, but it makes the point that leadership can make the difference in success or if you call bankruptcy failure, which I do. Potential failure. And so having been in leadership, my entire career from right out of college at age 22, until today in my fifties, I have seen the impact on transit agencies and in big bureaucracies of government, whether it’s the county government, where I was CEO of two county governments or in transit agencies, I’ve been the leader of small ones with 15 vehicles, mid sized ones with 200 vehicles and large ones with a billion dollar budget and 5, 000 employees and contractors. [00:32:06] And I’ve seen. The difference that strong leadership can make in implementing our goals successfully. So that’s why I feel like that, especially in a post pandemic world, we need to reset the button. We’ve all had bosses that we felt were jerks and we were not motivated by them. There’s a study and an old adage that says that 70 percent of job satisfaction has to do with your relationship with your boss. [00:32:29] And I believe that if we all think back of our jobs, the ones we hated were the ones where we had a, you know what, as a boss and it wasn’t good. And being a good boss, being a good leader is critical, not only in, setting the vision and implementing the vision and being a manager to manage all the metrics and all that stuff, but also to motivate your employees to actually come into work and to give their best, no one person can do it all. [00:32:53] You need everyone rowing in the same direction. I know I’m mixing my analogies here, but. If we’re all rowing in the same direction, we’ll get there a lot faster. If you’ve got four or five people saying no, pushing backwards, you’re just going to spin in circles. Literally, that’s what happens if you’re in a boat. [00:33:07] So that’s why the chapter is important. [00:33:09] Jeff Wood: I must say, I personally identified with the delivery driver friend of yours who didn’t want the mess of being a manager. Yeah. I’m wondering when this leadership involved making a choice not to lead. [00:33:19] Paul Comfort: Yeah, it’s very good self knowledge, right? Davey and I know having been in leadership positions and it’s funny. [00:33:24] I just was talking to somebody else this week, the CEO of the Detroit transit, he’s on my podcast this weekend. He was telling me your life becomes an open book when you go into leadership, especially in a public agency. And some people don’t want their life to be an open book. I have relatives that don’t even want to be on Facebook because they just don’t want anybody knowing what’s going on with them. [00:33:42] And so this friend of mine, you mentioned he’s a delivery guy for FedEx and he’s the great driver. This is a perfect analogy. Like almost anybody that’s really good at what they do. It could be a great driver or it could be a great mechanic. Who’s a good wrench Turner, an a mechanic, as we call them, you do really good. [00:33:58] And then you get offered the job. You say, Oh, you’re doing so good in the line work. Let’s make you the boss of people in the line work. Some people don’t want that. And believe me, and this is what my chapter is really all about. The skillset required to be a driver. Or a line mechanic is much different than the skill set to be a supervisor or a manager. [00:34:17] It’s completely different. Now you’re not only responsible for your own work. Your real job is to get other people to do their job. And so it’s very different than having a set of headphones on working on, the engine of the bus versus getting 16 mechanics to get their butts into work on time to focus on the job and do all the stuff you have to. [00:34:37] You don’t set that down when you go home. When you’re a line worker, you’re a driver, you can basically, I’m off the clock. I’m not working and you shouldn’t work when you’re off the clock. You’re done. But management and leadership, man, no matter what they say, Davey, would you agree? [00:34:51] It’s a 24 seven operation, man. [00:34:53] David Kim: For sure. And since you’re a lover of food, and I think most of us are same analogy in a restaurant, you’ve got a bunch of line cooks and someone eventually will play the role of executive chef. They probably were a line cook before and same thing. Some of them may not want to take on the responsibility of being the executive chef to oversee the work of 20 line cooks in a restaurant. [00:35:17] They just want to cook. They don’t want to manage people. And that’s perfectly understandable. That’s right. So it really depends on individual preferences and their demeanor and aspirations. [00:35:27] Jeff Wood: And they don’t teach us line cooking and planning school, not how it works. [00:35:32] Paul Comfort: My heart though, on this Jeff is that if you do want to be in charge, if you feel like, Hey, look, I’m going to go to work every day. [00:35:39] And I feel like I could do this better than what is being done. I’ve got all kinds of ideas on new systems, new approaches. I want to move into management so I can have a voice that’s heard. If you do that. The very first trait of a future leader and that’s the title of my chapter five traits of a future leader. [00:35:54] I think it has to start with the right heart if you’re going to get to the right conclusion We always need to keep others in mind first so many bosses are filled with ego and it’s all about them We’ve all seen them You know, it’s all about being seen being heard being the boss everybody’s submitting to what I want to do. [00:36:12] No compassion Has to be at the heart, I think, of a really successful leader. One that people will want to follow, even when you’re not in the room. How many of us have had a boss that, oh yeah, when they come in, we’re like, oh yeah, I got to do what they’re saying, what they told me to do while they’re looking, but as soon as they turn their back, you’re like, screw him. [00:36:31] I’m going to go back to what I was doing, do it my way. So is that what you want as a leader? Because that’s what you’re going to get. If you come in like a dictator, it’s your way or the highway. And yeah, you know it all and all that. And you’re going to let it, That’s ridiculous. That does not work in a post pandemic world, especially with young people, etc. [00:36:46] It could be, the old guys that came back from World War II that were used to taking orders, that might’ve worked back in the fifties and sixties, but it just doesn’t work these days. And it’s not the most effective way to get, if you focus on a heart of compassion towards your passengers and your employees, you will end up. [00:37:02] I think in the right place as a leader, sometimes you got to make hard calls. We get all that, I love that quote by Martin Luther King, who said, everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agreed to serve. [00:37:17] You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And this ties back to what I told you at the beginning, what was my motivation, right? My motivation was coming out of a home where my mom and dad were involved in all kinds of community ministries, helping people who, didn’t have enough food or didn’t have this and have that. [00:37:33] And I wanted to carry that on in government and chose transit as a way to do that, actually fell into transit and then have chose to stay here. And so I think that’s the number one first place we have to start. [00:37:44] David Kim: Yeah. And I would simply add to what Paul said, servant leadership as a mindset. We’re here to serve others. [00:37:51] That’s what it’s about. And to listen and to really employ those so called soft skills, which I don’t think are soft at all, but it’s active listening and empathy and really understanding and knowing your people. And making sure they have the tools to not just do their jobs, but to thrive. And so I definitely see Paul in the mindset of a servant leader. [00:38:15] That’s what we all need to be doing. [00:38:17] Jeff Wood: Davey, who is your favorite boss? [00:38:21] David Kim: Oh my God. Wow. I’ve had quite a few outstanding bosses and I’ll just simply say. I worked for two D. O. T. secretaries, Ray LaHood and Anthony Fox. This was during the Obama administration. Both of them are very different, but Ray LaHood, larger than life individual, and I just talked about soft skills, he’s got them all. [00:38:44] He knows how to bring people together. He listens very well. He makes people feel included. He wants to know your opinion. Anthony Fox. Also very much a servant leader, pretty strong vision in terms of where he wants to go as a leader. And one of his heroes is the late college basketball coach from the university of North Carolina, Dean Smith. [00:39:08] Who was revered by his players because he was very much a servant leader and cared deeply about his players and was not the old school, rough screaming at his players type of coach. That’s not who he was. He was very much. How can I be of help to you? How can I make you the best player and person you can possibly be? [00:39:28] So I learned so much from both. And Anthony Fox, so many leadership lessons and lessons about life in general. I’ll ask [00:39:37] Jeff Wood: you the same [00:39:37] David Kim: thing. [00:39:38] Paul Comfort: Yeah. I think one that had a real impact on me and was great was my first boss, C. Irving Pinder, the guy that was director of the department of aging here in Queen Anne’s County. [00:39:47] And the reason was I was 22, I was right out of college. He entrusted me. To start a brand new public transit system, apply for the grants, do all the paperwork, and then manage it and do all this without really any experience other than he knew I was a competent person. And he led me the way I lead others today, which is agree on the goals, agree on the boundaries, and then let that person use their own creativity to get there. [00:40:12] As long as you’re moving in the right direction and you don’t go in the areas where you’re not supposed to go, if you want to stay with Davey’s analogy of a football field, on the two yard line. You got to be making incremental progress toward scoring and you can’t go out of the boundaries But other than that do it man, and then you know, I have these ways to bend the bureaucracy toward excellence a talk I was doing one of them is you know agree on those goals and boundaries and then agree that there’s going to be regular Reporting back and you have to be making progress and if there’s a crisis the boss may have to step in and Dictate this is what we’re going to do, right? [00:40:41] The ship is sinking. We have to, pull starboard and do this and do that. There’s no time for a lot of input at that point, but normal operations, letting managers who are competent, who communicate well, who are adaptable, who are resilient. The other traits I think are important, letting them use their creativity to get there. [00:40:58] That to me, it helps people blossom and they come fully into themselves and become self actualized. And if you’re a leader, that’s what you want from your subordinates. You want them to be self actualized at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy. Feeling like every day I go into work is a joy, just when I read a good book, I just finished reading a book on the start of the civil war by this guy, Eric Larson. [00:41:19] I’ve read all of his books and they’re phenomenal. And I told somebody the other day, When i’m reading this book when I put it down, I feel like i’ve been eating dessert It’s just so delicious to read it, And we want people to feel that way about coming to work that i’m engaged i’m giving my all I’m leaving it all out there every day, but I want to because I love what i’m doing. [00:41:37] I see the results of it We can do that in the public transit industry. Great leaders can get that results from their employees. And let me tell you, those are the top producing agencies with the best on time performance, with the lowest accident rates, with the best adaptation to their agencies and their services by the public, because their employees are fully alive and fully actuated. [00:41:58] Not like when you call in and you talk to a credit card company and they say, yeah, that’s what do you want? I’ll have to transfer you to some. We don’t want that and that’s unfortunately what we have still a lot of transit agencies in the frontline people who talk To the customer, we need them to feel like they’re working at Disney, baby. [00:42:15] I love what I do. [00:42:18] Jeff Wood: I want to give a shout out to Shelly Poticha too, because we wouldn’t be here doing the podcast if she hadn’t let me go free and start my newsletter and all that stuff. So it does take a really good boss to recognize that somebody’s competent and can do something even if they’re real young. [00:42:29] So appreciate that. I guess this is one of my last questions. How important is it to get out of the house? To go and meet people to, shake hands. And I know Paul you’re everywhere. You’re all over the place going to conferences and stuff like that, but that’s, how I got my first job is going to the Congress for the new urbanism in 2005 in Los Angeles. [00:42:44] And so I think that’s a really important point that you make in the book and that. Just getting out there and meeting people and talking, and it goes back to your cookbook discussion as well. [00:42:52] Paul Comfort: When I first started in the industry at 22, I remember going to my first conference. It was a TAM conference, Transportation Association of Maryland, a state association. [00:43:01] When I went to that, I said, it felt like before this, I was looking at transportation through a keyhole in a door. And then when I went to the conference, somebody opened the door and invited me in and all the good things that came after that were because of the relationships I made, the classes I learned things from, and the reason I could actually, do a decent job at what I was doing wasn’t because I taught myself is because I learned from others. [00:43:22] And so conferences are a great way to do that. And then, it’s. Davey knows it’s a side conversations you have with people over a cup of coffee is where you really pick it up, right? Cause sometimes on stage, people don’t want to share their vulnerabilities or their challenges. They just want to talk about their victories, but over a cup of coffee or an adult beverage, people are more willing to, the look, you don’t want to do that, man. [00:43:41] Here’s what happened when I did it, that kind of stuff. [00:43:43] David Kim: Yeah, building those deep connections and relationships can only be done in person in real life, as they say, it’s hard to do on zoom or virtual platforms. And so to that end, attending industry conferences, meetings, going into an office. If you work in an office, whenever you can, I think those are all really meaningful activities. [00:44:03] And just a small example, Today is my first day back in my office in about a week, and it’s not because I couldn’t or didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go because it’s so damn hot in Washington, D. C., where I live. And so I just wanted to stay home and stay indoors while it’s roasting hot outside. [00:44:21] Today is the first day it’s Not quite as hot. So I’m in the office today and it feels great to be around people and to interact with others and went out to lunch with a few people and it makes all the difference and as great as it is to work from home and I’m a big proponent of it, it’s good to mix it up and mix with others as well whenever you can. [00:44:40] Jeff Wood: For sure. It’s one of the things that I struggle with a little bit, just because, I’ve worked from home since 2014, way before the pandemic and, do the podcast and do the newsletter. And, we tried to do a monthly happy hour and stuff like that. And I try to go to conferences and stuff, but I find that every time I go, I get reinvigorated. [00:44:54] Paul, when I saw you in the elevator at. That had impact. I’m like, Oh, Hey, how’s it going? It’s good to see people and cross paths and, share cards and things like that. You can talk with folks later too. So I just really appreciate that. And it’s been bumping up more and more as we get further and further away from the heart of the pain that we felt in 2020. [00:45:11] So I appreciate that. The book is the new future of public transportation. Paul where can folks get a copy of [00:45:16] Paul Comfort: Amazon Barnes and Noble online or SAE, the actual publisher of the book, they have it for sale as well. [00:45:23] Jeff Wood: Awesome. And I would recommend going to local bookstores and asking for it. If you get a chance that’s probably the best way to go. [00:45:28] If you can go and support them, Davey and Paul, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time, [00:45:32] Paul Comfort: Jeff, you do an amazing job with this podcast. Thank you for having us on. [00:45:35] David Kim: Yes. Thank you, Jeff. This has been a lot of fun. [00:45:42] Jeff Wood: Thanks for joining us. The talking headways podcast is a project of the overhead wire and appears first at streets blog USA. Thanks to our generous Patreon supporters for supporting this show and Mondays at the Overhead Wire. You can support the show by gonna patreon.com/the overhead wire. Sign up for our 18-year-old daily newsletter by visiting the overhead wire.com, or check the show notes for other cool merch and opportunities to connect, follow along using your podcaster of choice. [00:46:04] But if you can’t find it there, you can always find the show at its original home usa streets blog.org. We’ll see you next time at Talking Headway.
