The Challenges for Public Transport in the US

Nicole talks to former Executive Director of the New York Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) and former board chair (and current board member) of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), Mort Downey. In addition to his experience on Metro systems, Mort was also the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation from 1993 to 2001, making him the longest-serving person to ever hold the post. He was appointed by President Obama to serve as part of his transition team in 2008 and led the review team for transportation. In this episode, Mort talks about the political, logistical and engineering challenges currently facing public transport in the U.S. He also talks about the infamous "death spiral" of under-investment that led to the Washington Metro train collision in 2009, the deadliest accident in the network's history, and the changes this brought about in metro (and wider railway) investment and planning in the U.S.

You can listen to The Challenges for Public Transport in the US online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Challenges for Public Transport in the US is an episode from On Our Line: The Rail and Transport Podcast by London Reconnections.

This episode is 01:13:25 long.

This episode was published on May 29, 2016.

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