¶ Does the project match our mission and vision
Our new brand vision statement is connecting communities, creating opportunities, and being kind to the planet. So those are the lenses which we now, you know, look at our projects, and if we can't say that we're doing one of those three things, or all of those three things, then we don't do it.
This is Transit Unplugged. I'm Paul Comfort. Good to be with you on another edition of the world's leading transit executive podcast, Transit Unplugged. In depth this week with Carl Sedoryk CEO of the Monterey Salinas Transit District in sunny California. Carl, thanks for being with us on the show today.
Thank you, although I don't know that anyone would ever describe Monterey as sunny. Is that right? 61 and foggy, 4th of July, 61 and foggy.
Yeah, tell people where you're at in California geographically.
So we are on the coastline, about 120 miles south of San Francisco, 380 miles north of L. A. It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here.
I can tell you've practiced that a few times.
People would recognize us by locations like Pebble Beach, Cannery Row, but then also inland, we have the Salinas Valley, where John Steinbeck would write his stories, took place in the Salinas Valley. And, uh, we're about 80, 85% of all that healthy stuff like lettuce and kale and all that stuff. Nobody likes to eat is all grown in Monterey County.
Gotcha. That's interesting. The good stuff. Well, you have been there at Monterey Salinas Transit for a long time, 23 years.
23 years, yeah, yeah. Um, it's, time does fly. Um, but I really enjoy here, being here. I was 12 years prior to that Long Beach Transit. I, I'd like to tell people that for the entirety of my career in transit, I've never been, my office has never been more than about a 10 or 15 minute bike ride to the beach.
So, when I'm having a bad day, because you can have a bad day in coastal California, there is such a thing, you know, I can either walk or, Get myself off to the beach and relax and say I could be having a bad day in Tulsa, so I'd rather have a bad day in Monterey.
Scott would, my buddy Scott who runs it there would be like, yeah, we like it in Tulsa, but I get your drift, believe me.
My daughter's in Lawton. I just visited her this summer at Fort Sill. she's a captain in the U. S. Army, and I got a dose of Tulsa, this summer, and I was really happy to be back here in Monterey.
That's funny. That sounds like one of those stories where you say, I spent a week in Atlanta one night. Oh my goodness. I did that a couple, uh, a couple weeks ago. Hey, tell me about a little bit, I think people will be interested, just right up front, you're a martial, you're into martial arts. Tell us a little bit about that. Some of the things that you do, I've never even heard of before. The types of fighting you do.
I've got a second degree black belt in uh, art called Tang Sudo, which is a Korean style, a striking style. And then I also practice, something that's a little less, uh, physically demanding on the knees. I've been getting into something called the Screama, which is even more obscure. It's a Filipino fighting style that's, um, uh, more hands and short weapons type of thing.
And. Frankly, um, I, you know, I think some people who know me well have heard me gas on about this, but there are a lot of, uh, I think, uh, uh, lessons to be learned from practicing the martial arts and, and that discipline and apply as CEO. things that we, you know, they, they stress, integrity, focus, perseverance, humility, positive attitude are all things that you would strive for as a martial artist. And those are all great attributes, of a leader, of any sort.
strength, flexibility, stamina, um, are all attributes that you want to build into your organization, whether it's, you know, financial strength or political strength, being flexible, being able to, you know, move, in unexpected ways. COVID certainly taught us the ability to do that. And then just stamina, you know, being in it for the long haul, we've been working on. BRT here for decades, and we're almost there.
We've been talking about it for decades, and we finally have 100 percent funding and 95 percent design. So all of those things that you strive at in that art can also have parallels in your leadership role.
That's really good. Which one of those is Chuck Norris, uh, known for?
The Tang pseudo. Chuck Norris is the, so it's the, a lot of the high spinning kicks and that's why at, at 61, I'm a little slower and the kicks are a little lower, but I'm still out there. and I, I spend more time teaching, you know, so I can't do it as much. So, you know, if you can't do. So if you can't teach
martial arts. Well, I'm sure you're pretty good if you're a double black belt. That's really interesting, and I love the fact that you've taken some lessons from what you do outside of work and applied them there. That's so good. Thanks. Family, uh, I mean, all that kind of stuff. what kind of music do you like, Carl?
Oh, um, most everything. I play guitar, piano, and clarinet, uh, since I was a kid. Um, so, you know, jazz festivals here, I go, I, I like to go to jazz festivals.
Oh yeah, that's a, they have a lot of them there, right?
Yeah, they have a large jazz, uh, program here. Monterey's the longest running, continuously operating jazz festival in the world. Wow. Um, and so, uh, we actually have our first bus rapid transit, uh, system that we implemented about 10 years ago. Uh, it's called the Jazz. we did that in partnership with the Jazz Festival.
Contrary enough. Hey, let's use that as a great segue to talk about your system, and why don't we just start right off with the Jazz BRT system, and tell us about that, how it got started, and where you're at with it right now, because it does have some, weren't you the first in America, kind of in a mid sized city, to do BRT?
In a small urban, I believe so, you know, there were, there were some small operations that did, did BRT, but I don't think they were in small urban areas under 200, 000. So we were, if not the first, among the first for sure. that was a small start. and it was really, you know, traffic signal prioritization, traffic signal coordination at about a six and a half mile long segment. We upgraded about 24 intersections. And, implemented a theme service called the Jazz
.Each Station, we got with the Monterey Jazz Festival, and they had all this great artwork of, you know, going back to pictures of Billie Holiday and, Elmore James and just all these great, uh, musicians from the past. Many of whom, you know, no longer with us. And we were able to make our 24 stations like a linear jazz museum where photos of these performers and talking about their contributions to the jazz art form.
And then, even 10 years ago, we were doing QR codes, before they were really a thing. And, we were able to link to live performances from the Monterey Jazz Festival, so you can hear Billie Holiday from 1957 while you're waiting for your bus. We're now in the process of, uh, we just got a CIG grant for the next leg of our BRT, another six miles going up the coast towards Marina, called the SURF.
you know, that may be our theme for future BRT legs, um, you know, jazz, surf, um, and who knows what other genres we'll, we'll look at in the future as we, um, implement a vision of BRT through Monterey County.
that sounds awesome, your connection with the local community there, that's quite a great, uh, quite a great thing. I guess your community really grabbed on to that, huh?
It really did. And it's, and they're very supportive of, uh, even the next leg, the surf project. It's one of the unicorn projects where I have, both the hoteliers are supportive of this project because it's going to move their workers faster, uh, and make their lives better. And then the environmentalists are, and land use people are supportive as well.
And I can tell you on the California's coast, that's a rare thing to have the business associations and the hospitality industries both supportive of a project like this. So in this, you know, um, sense, we've been able to bring pretty disparate groups. who have been at political odds for decades together to support a project that's good for the community. And so that's a great way that, you know, uh, you know, our new brand, we adopted a new brand and a whole new service model, this past year.
Our new, our new brand vision statement is connecting communities, create, creating opportunities, and being kind to the planet. So those are the lenses which we now, you know, look at our projects, and if we can't say that we're doing one of those three things, or all of those three things, then we don't do it.
but we really focus on those three, vision statements that connecting communities, creating opportunities, being kind to the planet, and we've just recently taken our board through a the whole process of changing our reporting structure, so that we're really focusing on people, planet, and performance. So, how are we impacting people? How are we impacting the planet? How, what's our performance in doing so? Oh, I love that. So, we're really tying the whole thing together.
It's been a great, um, You know, we, we got our board engaged and created a subcommittee and we actually unveiled the new board starting with the new fiscal year. It started yesterday, the report started yesterday with July, came out, uh, with our board and we're, we're, we're moving forward tying the vision forward. To the service model, now to the reporting. so that's been a fun project to work on too.
I love that, having those north stars that all your employees and your board and the public can look to to see what you're doing, what you're about.
And it's easy, you know, I think it's memorable and it's something that, um, actually is being used in recruiting and has been effective. I've had new employees come on, young people who have come to MST for positions, and I ask them, you know, what made you select MST? And we're small enough, I can meet all of the new employees when they come on board, which is a nice thing. And, uh, one of them, a more recent one said, I, you know, I read your statement about being kind to the planet.
I want to be, I want to be kind to the planet. I want to do that with my career. So, they're just not nice words. They're, they have meaning and they mean things to the people here locally, so.
And tell us about, um, your funding and Measure Q and the countywide sales tax that you implemented there and how that's helping.
So, Monterey, um, is in the enviable position of being one of the larger transit operators in California that doesn't have a local sales tax for its fixed route systems. and until, 2014, we didn't have any local funds. So we were strictly for our operating. We had state sales tax, which I know many other states don't have, state sales tax for transit, and then federal operating dollars.
and that put us in some pretty precarious financial situations over the years during bumps in the economy or when there's a congressional shutdown when we were depending on federal operating dollars. we were successful in 2014 in getting a small one eighth of one percent sales tax, for mobility programs for seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities. And that covers all of our ADA paratransit, uh, which is a huge lift for us.
You know, we, we cover an area that's one fifth the coast of California. A vast region in four counties. And, um, half of our trips in the Salinas Valley are to dialysis, and people are traveling long distances, so they're very expensive trips for us to make, and so getting that sales tax in just to cover the ADA and special mobility programs for seniors, veterans, and folks with disabilities, that has taken the pressure off of our fixed route operating budget, uh, to a certain degree.
We're still not flush, necessarily, as, as, you know, some folks in the large urban areas that may have multiple sales taxes, like my former career with Long Beach. I think we had access to three different local sales tax measures. it was, uh, It was a bit of an awakening when I left Long Beach to come to Monterey. It certainly is beautiful here, but, uh, it's a little more challenging to cobble projects together.
But now that you've got those funds, do you, uh, do you contract out the operation of your paratransit?
We contract out all minibus operations, so all of our paratransit, and then we have, we have, uh, A number of rural communities, there are, um, you know, small towns of maybe 10 12, 000 population along the Highway 101 corridor in Salinas Valley, where all this lettuce and other products are grown. So we have minibus operations that are circulators or microtransit operations in some of these areas, and we contract all the minibus operations, which is about 40 percent of our hours.
Combined that and the ADA is contracted out to MV.
Okay, yeah. Yeah, you know, that's important to comment on, I think, for a minute, is that people think about public transportation in cities. You know, I started my career in a rural area where I live over 30 years ago running the county transit, starting a county transit system here in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and people rely on that. I mean, that bus coming through every half hour is their only means of mobility sometimes.
Oh, absolutely. No, we have, uh, people who live, as the crow or condor or seagull flies 15 miles from the ocean. but they're separated by, uh, a range of low coastal hills and mountains. they've lived their, these communities their whole lives as farm workers and have never seen the ocean. Really? Until, until we provided bus service.
Okay. And we provided connections and the, the Monterey Bay Aquarium put together, um, some programs, that they funded that allowed us to bring, these low income farm workers and their families to the aquarium and to experience the ocean. And these, again, folks have lived there 30, 40 years, their whole lives. 15 miles from the ocean and never seen. So, you can have a great medical facility.
You can have a great university, which we have here, uh, one of the, a world class aquarium, a beautiful coastline, but it means nothing to the person who can't get there. If you don't have mobility, yeah. So, if you don't have mobility, you don't have access to any of those things. You're stuck in a 10, 000 person, you know, surrounded by fields.
Right. That's something. Now, you're also the taxi authority there, right?
We are. Tell us about that. Well, it actually has been quite a journey. It wasn't something, you know, that the taxi cabs originally wanted us to have, but they were unregulated. and there were a lot of problems, a lot of complaints from the hospitality industry, uh, with regard to taxi service and lack of accessibility. Um, you'd see someone show up at the airport, maybe with a wheelchair and have no access to a taxi cab and, you know, very uncomfortable situations.
Um, trying to get people around. So, about 10 years ago or so, uh, the powers that be locally wanted to form a taxi authority and they looked at our structure and we just basically took it on as the administrator of the taxi authority because we represent all the communities in the county already. We're doing mobility.
So, we're responsible for making certain that the companies implement drug testing programs, have the proper insurances and certifications, and then we do ADA, uh, certification testing for all of our cab drivers, and then we provide, uh, vouchers to seniors, veterans, and persons with disabilities through Measure Q, which we previously talked about, and those, for 3, uh, copay, if you will, cash fare of 3, They can get up to a 17 trip on a cab, which will get you pretty much anywhere on the
Monterey Peninsula or anywhere within the city of Salinas, that you need to go. And that's been a very popular program, especially for, seniors and folks with disabilities, because they don't have to do the... It's a cab. They call on demand, and it's on demand service. We've tried to get Uber and some of the TNCs in place, but again, we demand to have this ADA certification for all the drivers, and that's been a little, um, we still haven't got there yet.
Gotcha. Someday you are. Yeah. You are celebrating 50 years in operation this year. Actually this month, right? And you have so many new things going on, not just your new kind of marketing, but tell us about some of the things about your network redesign, your new lower fares, your increased ridership, your open loop contactless payment. I mean, wrap all that up for us. That's amazing.
Yeah, boy, it's exhausting hearing someone else say it. I don't know why I'm so tired all the time. So, yeah, um, you know, during COVID, we learned a lot, uh, that there were, um, there were many, though, people that, needed services that didn't have access to them, and there were many people who had access to services that perhaps they didn't need, and that included, public transit.
and so that forced us to take a look at, uh, what we were doing for our community and how we were deploying our resources in the community And our board went through a bit of soul searching and, um, with that vision of connecting communities and creating opportunity being kind to the planet through that lens.
We developed a new bus network, we call it the Better Bus Network, and what that did was decrease travel times, make more direct connections, cutting some travel time, say from a community in rural Monterey County, someone coming to a hospitality job in the Monterey Peninsula, cutting some of their travel by 60 to 80 minutes one way. Right?
by changing the connections, changing the transfers, and then we reallocated resources to where unemployment was the highest, where car ownership was the lowest, where the need was the greatest. And so we eliminated some services, uh, in very well to do communities. We, we were trying to provide a little bit to everybody, and the board made a very conscious decision to say, no, we're really going to focus our resources where it's needed the most.
And we've seen a 25 percent jump in ridership month after month for the first six months of this, uh, new service level. So it's been tremendously, uh, popular. And with that, we also changed our fare structure from, we used to have, uh, varying fees, depending on the distance of the route traveled. So it was a dollar 50, 2 50 or three 50 depending on the type of route.
Now we've just gone to a flat $2 for two hours, and so you can ride unlimited for unlimited trips for $2, uh, in a two hour timeframe. And then we've implemented fair capping using contactless payment systems, uh, for that two hour, daily, weekly, monthly. Uh, we were the first transit operator in California to do an open loop where you can use your Visa, MasterCard, or enabled device, Apple Pay, anything else, um, if you're just tapping right on the bus.
So using, paying for transit like you pay for your coffee. Use the same card you use to pay for your coffee to pay for your transit. Don't, don't go buy a card with another card.
Yes, exactly, Carl. We make it very difficult. Yes, we do.
To, to purchase our services. Yeah, we're trying to break down that barrier here. And we think we're on to something with this model. And, a contactless validator on our buses right now is about 900 a unit versus a, you know, you can pay tens of thousands of dollars for the traditional old farebox systems. we'd like to move more towards those contactless payment systems and reduce our costs and provide more fare equity to our passengers. That's
awesome. Carly, I wish you the best as you continue to, to, uh, man, you're doing amazing things. I hope I get a chance to come and visit your system one day. You
should. You know, I know Monterey is a difficult place to come to. You know, we, we do get a lot of conferences here. So, if you ever get an opportunity to come on by, I'd love to show you around. And it's, it's to me the perfect, location to do the types of projects we do. We're big enough where we can do interesting things. And we're small enough that people aren't paying that much attention to us. You're
kind of under the radar, huh? Absolutely.
You like that. It works for my particular style. It works well.
Excellent. Best wishes, Carl.
Thank you so much, Paul.
¶ Mike's Minute with Mike Bismeyer
Hi, this is Mike Bismeyer, kindness advocate, and this is Mike's Minute, where we talk about mentorship, leadership, and kindness, with the hopes it'll inspire you to pay it forward. A fantastic interview with Carl Sedoryk passion is evident in every subject he discusses, and I love the fact that their new vision statement contains being kind to the planet. And speaking of kindness, I just returned from last week's APTA Transform Conference in Orlando, and kindness was a theme throughout.
Starting with Mass Transit's APTA edition, where they actually did a story on the importance of kindness in the workplace. But asides from that, kindness, mentorship, and leadership were an action and evident throughout the conference, from the sessions to the trade show, and all the industry leaders sharing their information, interacting with business members and industry peers.
It's great to see new technologies on display, hear the sessions and the lessons learned, and the many pilots, but not just on the technology side, along with DEI, increasing user cases for AI, data, workforce development, all with the purpose of making transit a better experience for everyone, every day. I'm always amazed at the talent in our industry throughout organizations, and I'm always humbled to learn and have so many interesting conversations with those willing to share.
Additionally, it was so energizing to hear the many leaders who were quick to call out their teams when they were sharing their success stories, their lessons learned, and acknowledging that they couldn't do it without the internal champions and the many people throughout the organization.
Lastly, as the conference ran through the Canadian Thanksgiving last week, and like myself, many Canadians did attend, I just wanted to say a delayed Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, grateful to be part of this industry, and thanks to all those who took time out to do something for someone else. Kindness is cool. Thanks for listening.
¶ What's coming up next week on Transit Unplugged
Have a great week.
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of transit unplugged with our special guest Carl Sedoryk. Now next week on the show, we have a very special episode coming up for you. It was recorded. Live at the APTA transform conference and expo in Orlando. It's the new CEO panel, Paul Comfort interviewed Corey Cuff Lonergan, Dave Dech Dottie Watkins, Frank White and Tiffany Homer Hawkins. About what it's been like their first year on the job. As CEO of a major transit agency.
Hope you tune in for this. It's a really great program. While you're listening to transit unplugged. If you could do us a favor and rate and review the show, wherever you listen to podcasts, we'd really appreciate it. Rating and reviewing the show helps other people interested in transit, find the show and become part of our transit enthusiast community. If you have a question comment or would like to be a guest on the show, feel free to email us [email protected].
Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo. At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people. And that Transit Unplugged. we're passionate about telling those stories. So until next week, ride safe. And ride happy.