On December 10th, Commute Seattle hosted our fourth annual Transportation Transformations event, in partnership with the Seattle Department of Transportation. We had a great turnout for this virtual panel discussion, with attendees representing over 250,000 employees in Seattle.
We were joined by several transportation all-stars from the Puget Sound region:
- Carrie Avila-Mooney (Director of Regional Government and Community Relations at Sound Transit)
- Dongho Chang (State Traffic Engineer and the Director of Transportation Operations Division at the Washington State Department of Transportation)
- Alex Mehn (Innovative Mobility Planner at King County Metro)
- Caryn M Walline (Interim Director of UW Transportation Services at the University of Washington)
- Moderator: Rob Johnson (VP of Sustainability and Transportation at Climate Pledge Arena)
The panelists tackled some important questions:
- What makes Seattle/your work unique compared to other US cities? Tell us something you are excited about in your current role.
- How has your programming adapted due to pandemic?
- How are you incorporating new technology, and how do you see public transit in Seattle changing as 2022 progresses?
- What should the top priority be for the discretionary federal funding in the recently signed infrastructure bill for cities? How does this change your work?
- Assuming that folks are returning to commutes next year, what are the keys to a sustainable and equitable recovery? How can transit agencies and industry leaders foster stronger relationships with partners, the Seattle business community, and riders?
It’s important that we not just build, but also engage with tools that help people access services, incentives to help them try things for the first time, and subsidies that help businesses and others get benefits in front of their employees or their customers, in order to use the services that are being built out.
Did you miss the event? Want to revisit some of the discussion?