2020 - A Year to Remember

2020 has been one heck of a year. The “best laid plans of mice and men” as they say. Well here we are at the end of it and ready for a new year. But it wasn’t all bad. There was a silver lining for those who could find or make one.

This year of 2020 started out with a bang for me. My new book “The Future of Public Transportation” was released on March 1, 2020 and went straight to #1 on the Amazon new Best Sellers list for books on transportation. We had set up a world-wide book signing tour that would be sponsored by many groups like Young Professionals in Transportation (YPT) and Women Transportation Seminar (WTS)  with events set for cities like New York, Toronto and in Europe and Asia and then the pandemic hit and all travel was stopped and everything had to be cancelled. Ugh..

But things quickly picked up with on-line virtual events, speaking engagements, TV and podcast interviews, magazine and blog posts. Here is a list of some of the events I spoke at virtually from the "comfort" of my own home during this wild year of 2020 ??:

WISCO Podcast – April, TripSpark Webinar – April, Digital ThinkTransit Webinars April – 3X, Trapeze Engineering Summit – April, Global DRT Webinar – May, Metro Magazine Webinar – May, UITP Trapeze Webinars - May/June – 2X, City Staff Mtgs Presentations- May/June – 2X, CUTRIC Workshop - June, ACT Impact – June, Co-Motion July, JTA Presentation July, CalState Leonard Transportation Center July, Trapeze Town Hall August, Smart Transit August 2X, Smart Cities Asia Sept, APTATech CIO Roundtable Sept, Dubai RTA Innovation Summit Sept, Trapeze Coffee Chat Sept, ACT Conference Sept, SWTA Webinar Sept, UITP South America Sept, CTAA Webinar CEO Roundtable Oct, CUTA Conference Oct, India University Presentation Oct, St. Louis Bi-State Staff Presentation Oct, New York State Public Transp Assoc Keynote Oct, Cal ACT November, CUTA Conference Nov, Coffee Chat Trapeze Nov, CoMotion LA Live Nov, Bethesda Transp Conf Nov, CUTRIC Conference Nov, Australia Future Transp Webinar Nov, Torrens Connect, Adelaide Australia December, Lagos Transportation Fest December...

Additionally, I worked with a great illustrator, Sudeep KP, to produce a new children’s picture book about public transportation called “Public Transportation – From the Tom Thumb Railroad to Hyperloop and Beyond”. It too, went to #1 on the Amazon new Best Sellers list for books on public transportation in October.

I also was selected to be on the Board of Advisors for the George Washington University’s Transformative Leadership in Disruptive Times program at the Business School there in Washington DC.

Our podcast Transit Unplugged widened its reach to at least 99 countries and we had many international guests from the Middle East, Africa, Australia and the UK. In addition I started a new version of the podcast called “Comfort’s Corner” to highlight news and information about the public transit industry responding to the Covid pandemic as well as shorter interviews with headline newsmakers from our industry.

I also took on additional responsibilities at my employer Trapeze Group and started a new position as Executive Director for the North American Transit Alliance, a group of the six largest private transportation contractors. It was formed to educate policy makers and legislators about the role of transit operators. We have been collaborating with APTA, UITP and others and are excited to have input into how transit can build back and play a critical role in the economic recovery.

One cool new opportunity also came late in the year from LinkedIn. As you may know I publish a post nearly every day on LinkedIn about the latest trends in the public transportation industry with nearly 20,000 followers. Well the editors of LinkedIn invited me to be one of their expert voices commenting on the news of the day and using their algorithms my comments/posts are shared more widely on the platform. So that’s been happening.

Looking ahead into 2021 my article on the State of the Transit Industry will be published in the January issue of METRO Magazine and I hope to have many more opportunities to continue to share best practices and the brightest voices in our public transit world. I truly enjoy being a transit evangelist and continue to strive to influence the world for good. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.