Paul Comfort: Rethinking Transit for Equity and Inclusion
Get ready for a captivating episode of Transit Voices as the tables turn for Paul Comfort, renowned host of Transit Unplugged. This time, he swaps his usual role and steps into the limelight as this month’s guest. Known as a "Transit Evangelist," Paul leads conversations from the front seat, driving discussions on inclusivity and representation in public transit.
In a conversation with Masabi co-founder Ben Whitaker, Paul, in his role as SVP and Chief Customer Officer at Modaxo Americas, talks about the need to improve inclusion and representation in transit.
In a riveting dialogue with Masabi co-founder Ben Whitaker, Paul highlights the potential of transit as a "vehicle - pun intended" for promoting equity and inclusion within our communities. Drawing from his acclaimed book Conversations on Equity and Inclusion in Public Transportation, he highlights conversations with 20 top-ranking transit officials from the US and Australia, showcasing the real-world steps they are taking to better their services. and provide more equity and inclusion both in their agencies and the communities they serve.
Paul explains how the pandemic, which saw transit play a vital role in getting key blue-collar workers to their jobs while white-collar professionals worked from home, revolutionized our perspective on transit. “Traditionally [the industry has] just been more riders, more riders, more riders. But the pandemic said, wait a minute, no, we can do more than that. What came out of the pandemic, [was] a closer connection with our customer… I felt like there are so many leaders doing so many great things when it came to equity inclusion, I should highlight that.”
Paul and Ben also discuss how those who deliver transit must ride the services they provide, with Ben commenting, “To find that there are people who were taking the decisions on public transit and did not ride public transit was a bit of a surprise to us,” and Paul replying that younger CEOs of transit agencies are far more likely to, explaining: “I just did a panel with eight brand new CEOs at our Think Transit conference in Nashville about a month ago. They are under one year on the job, and it's almost become de rigueur now where they're all riding their service, they get it. The new CEOs - a lot of them are car-free, or one-car families, not two-car families.”
The conversation doesn't stop there. They also ponder on fare-free vs. frequent transit services, the contribution of ride-hailing to plug transit gaps, the advent of hydrogen fuels, and even how Paul got up close and personal with transportation industry CEOs to share their favorite recipes!
