- Alma Mater: Abilene Christian University
- Favorite TV Show: “Jeopardy”…but nowadays I only watch television shows my four-year old likes
- Favorite Movie: “The Godfather”
- Favorite Hobby: Listening to audiobooks while jogging. I made a goal for 2019 to read two books each week. It’s been tough, but it’s also been fun and rewarding. I should complete 104 books by December 31.
- Favorite Book: “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church” by N.T. Wright
- Fun Fact about yourself: I have an identical twin. We were born and raised in Texas, but both ended up marrying girls from Florida. Now we live only 50 minutes from one another on the East Coast.
- Favorite transit system (other than yours) and why: When I went to Portland in 2016 I was very impressed with how easy the TriMet system was to understand and use. I took it everywhere! Also, I especially loved that the city had “transit only” bridges and lanes. I’d be all for that in Indian River County, Florida!
- Favorite Transit stop (and why): The main transit hub in Indian River County on 16th street. Construction on that hub was a long project that finally came to fruition in 2017. It was both fun and challenging redesigning seven of our system’s 15 routes to converge there. It was also very rewarding for our system because after all the work we put in, ridership increased by 10 percent and we received zero complaints from the community about the redesign. People like it and are using it! It’s a beautiful stop that 1,000+ people pass through every day.
Chris Stephenson began his work in transit as the transportation projects coordinator at Indian River Transit in 2012. He then became the operations manager in 2014 and the director of Transportation in 2015. In 2016, he was also given the additional role of director of Mobility Management for Indian River County.
Indian River County is a community with approximately 160,000-170,000 people, but the transit system provided 1.2 million fare-free passenger trips on 15 routes last fiscal year. GoLine, the fixed route system, has been recognized with both state and national honors and the paratransit system has also been honored at the state level.
Stephenson says GoLine’s honor as the 2018 Community Transportation Association of America’s Urban System of the Year was a key accomplishment because it highlighted two areas where the Indian River Transit system shines: Providing fare free transportation and increasing ridership at a time when ridership is trending downward nationwide. Currently, Indian River County is on track to meet its 14th straight year of growth.
In 2018, the Senior Resource Association became responsible for Martin County’s paratransit fleet after no organization went out to bid for the services. Stephenson is now responsible for helping run two paratransit systems in Florida. He says helping people every day is the best part of his job. He enjoys seeing how public transportation can play a vital role in quality of life regardless of a person’s age, socio-economic status or physical or cognitive ability.
Stephenson has overseen more than 40 bus shelter installations since 2012 and helped redesign nearly half of the fixed routes in 2017 when a main transfer hub used by GoLine was relocated. The result was a ridership increase by as much as 20 percent on some routes.
Stephenson has seen the transit system go from a “mom and pop” transit agency to a technologically savvy system. Under Stephenson’s leadership, the system now has security cameras, GPS and automatic passenger counters on most of the public transportation buses. The system also has a smartphone app that can be used to see real time information about the buses while passengers are waiting at their stops.
“Working with the public can be very challenging. A lot of the time you have multiple groups that all want something different, and with limited resources it’s hard to make everyone happy. The trick is just to understand that everyone has a voice, and a lot of the time people just want to feel like they’re being heard and being listened to. I’ve found that just by being respectful, patient and understanding the difficult situations can turn into positive opportunities for growth and (reasonable) compromise.”
“In Florida, the public transportation industry is like one big family. The Florida Department of Transportation, the Indian River County Metropolitan Planning Organization Staff, the Commission for Transportation Disadvantaged and the Florida Public Transportation Association; everyone is passionate about helping others and helping each other succeed. I know my job has been exponentially easier than it could have been because the individuals I’m lucky enough to work with, and the leadership here at SRA, have been willing to take the time to work hard to make Indian River County a great place to live.”
“Remember this job is about the people. Our passengers are not interruptions to our work, they’re the reason for it. We are not doing them a favor by transporting them. At Indian River Transit, we always say the top two priorities should be 1) Safety and 2) Customer Service. If you prioritize those things every day, you’ll have a good system!”
“I will shamelessly steal from Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People because I agree with them so much.
o Be Proactive!
o Begin With the End in Mind
o Put First Things First
o Think Win-Win
o Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
o Synergize
o ‘Sharpen the Saw’ (strive for continual improvement)”
