APTA establishes COVID-19 recovery task force; publishes guide aimed at the safety of employees and riders
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) released a new guide and announced the launch of a new task force as it works to help its member navigate through the COVID-19 crisis.
The new guide, The COVID-19 Pandemic Public Transportation Responds: Safeguarding Riders and Employees, was developed with WSP USA, Inc., and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU) to provide senior public transit operations leaders with strategies and tactical solutions that can help protect riders and agency employees from COVID-19, as well as help with future pandemic preparedness.
“This guide is more than a resource tool of best practices and policies; it represents who we are as public transportation leaders, not just what we do. Keeping our riders and employees safe has always been a core value for every APTA member,” the association writes in the foreword of the guide. “We remain resolute and optimistic, as an industry and an association, about public transportation’s indispensable role in a new, more mobile and safer future.”
To help see that future come to fruition, the association launched APTA's Mobility Recovery & Restoration Task Force. The task force will work to develop a path forward for public transportation's core functions and financial stability; and explore new methods, tools and approaches to reposition the industry's essential role in a post-pandemic mobility world.
“The end product will be a set of recommendations that cover a wide range of issues critical to public transit's success, including public and rider confidence, safe-guarding our employees and riders, customer-focused operations, quick-strike rail and bus scheduling as well as resiliency, equity and societal needs,” APTA Chair Nuria Fernandez wrote in a letter to members.
Phillip A. Washington, CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, will lead this task force with Joanna M. Pinkerton, president and CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority and Paul Wiedefeld, general manager and CEO of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, serving as co-chairs.
“There is no more important or urgent undertaking for our association at this time in history. All of APTA's strategic goals underpin this immediate work to lead and support our industry,” said Fernandez.
The task force will begin work on May 1 and conclude September 1.
Mischa Wanek-Libman | Group Editorial Director
Mischa Wanek-Libman is director of communications with Transdev North America. She has more than 20 years of experience working in the transportation industry covering construction projects, engineering challenges, transit and rail operations and best practices.
Wanek-Libman has held top editorial positions at freight rail and public transportation business-to-business publications including as editor-in-chief and editorial director of Mass Transit from 2018-2024. She has been recognized for editorial excellence through her individual work, as well as for collaborative content.
She is an active member of the American Public Transportation Association's Marketing and Communications Committee and served 14 years as a Board Observer on the National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association (NRC) Board of Directors.
She is a graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and Mass Communication.
