Post-Election Impact Unplugged with SWTA

We have a legislative update hosted by Rich Sampson, the Executive Director of the Southwest Transit Association or SWTA and Becca Green, their Legislative Committee Chair talking about, well what's next. Now that we have a new administrate. Restoration coming into the United States and both houses of Congress. Are controlled by the Republican Party. So what does this mean for transit? Well, Rich and Becca. Layout. Everything. The thing that they think is on the horizon and some fantastic tips.

Tips for how you can connect with your elected officials. No matter where they stand on the political spectrum. This advice. Nice works. Even outside of the United States. All politics is local. All politicians want to look good for their constituents. Fronts in the areas they serve. And, you know, There aren't that? Many better ways. To serve your constituents than supporting public transit. Now. Here are Rich and Becca and their legislative.

And I'm sure many of you out there are in similar positions, but we're excited to talk about the importance of the work that we do in the public affairs space, especially as we, gear up for an incoming administration.

Some issues on regulatory relief and policy changes that will play into the reauthorization, just, you know, aspects and proposals as we move forward, and then kind of we'll wrap up with how do we, you know, move forward with messaging for the new leadership that was just elected or, you know, in some cases reelected in Washington. So that's kind of our game plan for today. Becca you want to kick us off?

So let's start with transit ballot initiatives. 87 of transit initiatives on the ballot won this year, which means that transit investment continues to be popular among voters. some of our initiatives were part of the SWATA Nation, so Rich, do you want to take us through those and what we can learn from their success?

It's been a multi year effort that Valley Metro and advocates in the region have been really pressing forward and a lot of, you know, demographic and political changes in Arizona the last few years and the timing of this seemed to be just right for Valley Metro and their peers. Arizona Transit Association has done great work on this topic, kind of galvanizing everybody together.

So, this presents some short and long term funding for Phoenix and Valley Metro to focus on their current services and do even more. So, that was one of the highlights in the same state up in Arizona and Flagstaff. Mountain Lion had another successful measure that continued, their existing sales tax that they used to support their service there and will allow them to fund new and improve services in the town that is home to Northern Arizona University.

And, you know, a real good market for transit. Lots of folks that are taking, you know, lots of frequent short trips, online and elsewhere. So we're pleased to see that one in a small urban type community. And then Denver RTD was a little different. there was a ballot measure that.

was basically allowing Denver RTD to keep funding that was above or kind of not, fully allocated within the, sales tax that if they got more revenue through the sales tax, they're allowed to keep it rather than having to send it back to the state, along with some other measures that really provides some stability for Denver . We know there's some other ballot measures across country.

Nashville was another good success story of increasing fixed route service along with paratransit and microtransit there. Previously, Nashville's had some trouble at the ballot box for transit measures. This is a good sign to see them, come through for the transit system there, so, again, most of the measures put before, voters on election day were successful, so, if we look at the local level, transit is and has, keeps doing very well among voters.

it's a few weeks until 2025, just a few weeks, and we have a new administration taking the reins. What is most important for the transit industry to gain and protect in the new year?

the main bill that funds transit is the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the infrastructure bill. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

and some good news on that front, Becca, we don't often get to say there was wisdom that happens in Congress, but when they passed this bill, about five years ago, four or five years ago, they extended it not only through this presidential election, but also into late 2026, September 30th of that year, to be exact, and What that's going to do is take this bill right up to the front door of the midterms election cycle.

So this is where the funding for all the programs, both discretionary and formula, comes through. We're set at least for the next foreseeable future.

you know, the real focus is going to be the appropriations process, and I'll get to that in a second, but In terms of setting the stage for what will happen in the reauthorization going forward, there was a group of bipartisan folks on the Senate side last time that really set the stage for what became this bill, at least in terms of the, the funding aspects of it.

There weren't a whole lot of policy changes in the BIL last time, We had a couple of folks from our region on that group who, really negotiated that compromise. A few of those folks have left, but I think that the SWATA Nation has real good opportunity, especially through Senator Cassidy, and I think Mark Kelly from Arizona so hopefully the stability continues with this, with, a bipartisan group going forward. We'll see, um, other folks that might be good opportunities.

Senator Moran in Kansas is one of those folks. so we'll be seeing if there's a sense of bipartisanship that will continue in the Senate when it comes time to reauthorize this bill.

Three A's of funding programs, and this isn't just our bill, but many programs, is the authorization process that establishes a multi year bill, the appropriations process by which Congress decides how much those programs are going to be getting , and then the apportionment process by which the bureaucratic programs actually says, okay, we have that funding available, this is, we're going to distribute it according to the formulas or different competitive grant programs.

So, I always like to note that.

And then, just look again what happened in the current Congress, so as in, not the folks that have been re elected for 25, 26, but The folks that are in the current Congress, what they've done on the transportation and housing and urban development appropriations so far is the House, both, both chambers passed their bills on appropriations for our funding , but House bill had a cut in transit, about 10 percent less than the authorized level, but most of those funds were targeted

at the capital investment grant program. We'll talk about that more in a minute. On the Senate side, now, this is a Senate that's currently controlled by Democrats that will be transitioning to Republican control. They actually increased funding, above authorized levels. and I also want to know, and we'll talk about this again later, is, they made some changes to the federal share requirements for 5310 and 5311.

So, I can't say what's going to happen again, but there were some trends that may continue or we may see snippets of going forward in the appropriations process. So, again, we'll help you keep attuned to what's going on on the appropriations side. But this is where, for 2025 and most of 26, we're going to be looking at in Washington.

The good thing there is, those funds are backed up by the Highway Trust Fund and the Transit Trust Fund dollars. So, it's harder for, If anybody wants to make specific cuts to go after those because they have specific revenue connected to them. so I would say if you're, you know, if you get a lot of funding through those programs and if you're on the call today, you probably do. I would not be as worried about those funds.

The greatest threat would be like a general government wide rescission of a certain percentage. But my, my perspective is these programs were, will probably not be targeted directly. 5309 for bus and bus facilities program, both the, there's a formula aspect of that, which again I think will be pretty, pretty, you know, safe moving forward.

Even the competitive slash discretionary program, this is a program that is purchasing vehicles, purchasing things for transit systems, again, across the country and not just for particular urban areas on in any areas. It's a nationwide program. I don't predict a lot of, turbulence heading that way for that program.

State of Good Repair repair programs also probably have some good leniency there, but we need to start thinking about how we message this program specifically in terms of fixing assets that we already have. The, you know, President Elect Trump, you know, that was something you focused on before, but if you noticed on all the speeches, he had a sign up below his podium saying, Trump will fix it. State of good repair is a chance to connect to that, that momentum on fixing things.

so I think this is a chance for the transit industry to kind of connect with some of that messaging. and I don't mean to suggest that Democrats also don't want to fix things. This is something that, if we kind of distill it to that message, we, we probably have a good shot of making a good case lastly. The capital investment programs, new and small starts, core capacity.

This is where we may see some friction, and we have in the past, particularly in the previous Trump administration, of these are programs that were moved outside the trust fund, funding levels before, and this is where you may start to see some, some issues going on as the appropriations process unfolds, and specifically how much money is authorized for those programs.

So, this be a tougher one to figure out where we're heading on, but now is the time to make your case for these programs that we do need to continue investment. SWATA strongly supports them. just in terms of looking at the dynamics though, this is, this will be our toughest battle, going forward.

But do you think the incoming administration will be open to this idea and are there other actions we should be taking to bring more incoming administration awareness about the ongoing shortage of fixed route bus operators and any other forms of relief that we can find?

And regardless of what's going on, I think in the Trump administration, we heard pretty clearly from Congress that they don't have much interest in changing the legislation there. It was a lot of hard work on both sides. I don't expect that dynamic to change, but a waiver is a process that doesn't require reopening the hood, so to speak, of that legislation.

So, it's one area that, you know, doesn't require any additional funding, and generally, if you want to make government less cumbersome for folks, this might be a, an approach that has some, some currency right now, is trying to remove things that, are needlessly complicated in government.

I think also on the CDL aspect, we're going to want to look at how that impacts with, the testing program in general and how we can eventually start heading towards a you know, standalone transit exemption from CDL rules. But again, that's something that we're going to take, need to take a longer term effort in delivering in really, you know, delineate where we stand out in terms of what are our needs for, drivers licensing for buses.

You know, most transit agencies don't even have transit operators doing maintenance directly. They don't want them touching the buses. There's a different, computer aspect of modern vehicles, both small vehicles and large vehicles, that.

This process doesn't really get at very well, but for the time being, focusing on that under the hood waiver, we also want to examine the saliva testing for marijuana drug testing, and encouraging the Health and Human Services Department to accelerate the deployment of those testing sites for saliva. You know, we're not looking at any major drug classification changes coming up anytime soon, and we really aren't interested in that.

It's how do we have a comparable process for the way that we do alcohol testing now. Making that so these jobs are more appealing to folks who may be in a state where marijuana is legal at the state level. And aren't coming to work under the influence. And that's what we're looking for. So that's another element is that marijuana saliva testing.

But overall, we need to be connecting with new and kind of new ways of modeling encouraging operator jobs to make them more attractive to folks who might want to work at transit, you know, we're looking at shift assignments or the work life balance, you know, and opportunities for advancement is, and these aren't really areas that the federal government is responsible for.

This is more an industry response to the changing workplace dynamics we have since COVID in terms of it's really tough to make a bus driver jobs attractive if you have to show up every day at 4:30 AM and you might have a split shift in the middle and you're not getting home 'til 8 or 9 PM and who knows when you might have a Saturday or Sunday off ever. So making these jobs more appealing and kind of splitting up some of those shift things.

obviously, you know, a conversation needs to have with your, your, your union shop if you're a labor property. But regardless, that's something that we need to focus on as an industry. So, Becca, I'd say there's a bunch of issues there on the driver shortages that we can be looking at, both from an advocacy perspective, but also an industry internal perspective in terms of making those jobs more appealing.

Well, and, kind of switching over to, you know, we talked about some of the human based regulatory relief issues, let's, let's go look at vehicles, and it may be because, we finally received a bunch of our long outstanding deliveries of vehicles, for our agency, but I don't hear as much, I feel like, about the small bus crisis, so what are your thoughts on, whether this is a big of an issue, in our industry and if so, what are some opportunities we can

seek with the incoming administration to assist our agencies in getting the vehicles that we need to either continue service or start new service.

The backlog has really decreased, but the issue that we're still having is the price of the vehicles is not going down, and honestly, it's probably unrealistic to expect that they're ever going to go back down to where they were, you know, inflation has hit us all, and this is a ramification of inflation in our industries that the cost of the vehicles is increased.

And so I think that's where we're going to continue to see, you know, if not a crisis, a level, a point of concern on small vehicles. And I think the price point on large vehicles is also a concern. What the game is going to be for us going, you know, moving forward is making sure we're clear about the expectations that we're discussing with policymakers in Washington and elsewhere in terms of how much is that dollar in federal investment getting us in a new vehicle?

Even though they, the BIL really increased the amount of funding available to us, it hasn't really kept pace with the increased cost of both vehicles, along with the driver, pay that has gone up, and I don't think anybody's opposed to drivers making more money at all, or, you know, keeping pace with the industry, but there are direct challenges that came at a time when we got a bunch more money, But our costs went all up by, if not that same amount or even a

little more during the height of COVID. So it's a real battle that we're facing on that vehicle shortages issue. I think more so on the price point right now.

Congress just recently, I mentioned in the appropriations process on the Senate side, Looking at changing those requirements for the specialized and rural programs, and we obviously think that, especially for smaller urban properties, that is a big concern, particularly those ones that aren't eligible for, like, the STIC program right now. So, we'll see where it all heads. Senator Smith from Minnesota has put out a bill a couple times now to change the rural local match requirement.

And, I think that has a chance to build some momentum. in the current Congress, there were some, bipartisan co sponsors for that bill, previously. So, I think you'll see that bill get reintroduced when the new Congress comes in, and it really to be a, a marker for where they want to have, have, reauthorization proceed.

The more that we can bring up the case of, particularly for, you know, smaller systems, rural, specialized, and small urban, that, the local match is really a challenging, barrier to making more progress and, you know, running more frequent service, running more reliable service, and thereby attracting riders. We're leaving so much federal funding on the table that's already been approved.

We can make our, the federal investment go further by just, you know, extending that local match to a higher level. So I think there's some good prospects to see that as part of the bill that eventually replaces the, the BILIIJA.

I don't think you're going to see a lot of initiative on congestion pricing. Or maybe a little more dabbling on vehicle miles, travels, but, it's, it's hard to say that there's going to be a, a large, initiative and momentum to, to deal with the, you know, the 3, 000 pound gorilla or elephant or whatever animal you want to say of that size.

So I would love, love, love, love for the Trump Administration or the new Congress to prove us wrong and say, We've got a brand new idea on how to deal with this that saves everybody money and provides new investment. I'm not sure the holes in the Swiss cheese will line up quite so favorably on that one though, Becca. And I just want to note that, in the most recent, FTA circular, That kind of made some technical changes to a bunch of program requirements. This came out just a few weeks ago.

things like indirect cost, agreements and, property that you're doing in capital projects, but most notably the vehicle disposition, changes that, you know, a lot of folks were working on that sale of vehicles past useful life. There's a little bit more leeway here, in terms of what you're allowed to do between that $5-10,000 range. I just want to note all these technical corrections is some things that were recently changed by the current Administration.

I doubt that these will be targets to go back to what they were.

These are all very highly technical changes, but if you haven't taken a look at them yet, do check out that FTA circular if you like, we can send you a link to that, but I do think it kind of sets the stage for some of those regulatory and technical changes that don't cost a lot of money, or any money in most cases, that we might be able to build some easy wins on with the new Congress in terms of if you can change some of these things that don't

require us to get any new funding, but can help us act more like a business. I do think there's some real opportunities there in working with the Trump Administration along with the new Congress on things like, you know, you mentioned, the CDL issues and the, the, testing, saliva testing, but Also, potentially things like the Buy America Domestic Content provisions and things like that.

So, just keep your ears open and let us know what areas in current statute are really challenging for your agencies. And we want to start, you know, having a good extensive list of those technical corrections we need to be working on.

centered around housing and affordability.

You know, we've had, transit oriented development grants in place for a while, and they're actually one of the few programs that were sometimes undersubscribed in the last couple rounds of funding in that there was actually more funding available than was requested.

I know the last, I think, one or two might have been over that level, but I think we're talking about the way that we frame things like TOD in that we've always been making these projects focused on affordability for people to get to jobs and health care and education. If we do transit right, we solve a lot of these challenges that people who are struggling face every day from, you know, finding an affordable way to get to work or housing that might be better located to their jobs.

Faith communities and things like that. When transit works well and when it's properly invested, we kind of are one of those, you know, magic ingredients, you know, don't want to say silver bullet, but one of those, you know, things that bring all sorts of different needs and challenges together. if we do it properly.

So I, yeah, Becca, I think, you know, working with some of these programs on emphasizing affordability and connectivity with existing communities where they're talking about, you know, getting to childcare or, you know, training, things like that, particularly for folks that are looking for, you know, highly skilled jobs training. These might be really good, you know, emphases in the new government that's coming in.

The other area I wanted to point out is there's always, you know, the opportunity to realize some more funding through the highway administration funds, FHWA, you know, and there's a lot of allowability built into the BIL at least to shift and flex some of those funds.

We don't do that a lot because we don't have a lot of focus, you know, across the board, no, not calling out any particular State, and there's some that's, that States that do really well in this, of connecting That investment to how those states run their DOTs and flexing that, those highway funds to transit. So I think, you know, most immediately, those funds are already there in terms of new funding that you asked about, Becca.

So, opportunities to flex more highway fund dollars to transit might be an opportunity for us going forward.

You know, earlier this year, SWATA hosted, another session on advocacy work, at the, not only the state level, but also the federal level, and we had some colleagues from Colorado, Louisiana, and then also from Tennessee and Oregon on that call and I was so impressed with the work that they're doing with reaching out to their respective delegations and keeping transit investment at the forefront of those conversations and community conversations.

And some of the things that they struck me, that struck me as being relevant to moving forward with advocacy in 2025 was, just, just a return to basic relationship building. I remember, Anne from Colorado had said that she spent a lot of time in meetings that had nothing to do with transit, but she just wanted to be present to start building those relationships with other community members that she runs across in her work and her role as an advocate position.

And so I think that's also important to kind of work on mending some of the relationships or even just starting them to begin with, with residents and voters who are both in the urban space and rural space. She also mentioned success in pairing transit initiatives with initiatives involving people with disabilities and people who are senior citizens because this country is aging. Which I think is, also important to keep in mind from a messaging standpoint as we, as we do our work in 2025.

There were also some stories about how other agencies would take their riders to Capitol Hill to visit with elected officials, one on one and A real world human interest story, which human interest stories are always key to our visits with our respective delegations and making sure they understand how we're using our funds. I know that every time I go to the Hill, I begin and end every meeting that we have with a thank you.

And tell, tell about the actual ways that we are using those funds and how it's affecting people's lives and how we're connecting them to the places that are meaningful to them. So what are some of the other messages that you think that we should be carrying forward in 2025 with this new Administration?

And. I think folks can disagree how much it actually exists, that things aren't working well, the opportunity for transit to be a solution, right out of the box to things working better, So tapping into that, fix It messaging through new vehicles, improved stations, you know, ways that we can get federal programs working to, you know, produce tangible changes and improvements, even in just our sector of communities.

You know, if we have a chance to rehabilitate some, you know, lighting at a transit facility or the streetscape along a good bus route.

This could be ways for us to demonstrate that, hey, these programs actually do have, you know, ways of improving things, but also, you know, that connection to affordability, that, you know, we can reduce your, you know, monthly costs if you don't have to drive as far to work every day, you can take transit to maybe a place that's a little closer to you, or you new housing that might be located, you know, in a good, look, you know, area for transit that also connects into, you

know, reducing cost for no shows for, you know, medical visits and things like that. There's a, a, a host of ways that transit is a source of savings, to the business community, to, you know, families and individuals, who might be low income or, you know, folks that just looking for some more options to congestion and things like that. And then I think branding, the changes that we need in Washington is common sense. That we're actually looking for less government in a lot of these things.

And I think we went through a number of ways where we could, we're looking for the government to be a little less onerous on us.

Tying those connections into ways that if we're going to have programs that, you know, if they're not really designed effectively to serve people, we can change them to be a lighter touch, and I think these three themes, at least at the federal level, along with, you know, like you said, highlighting that the good work that we're doing on a, you know, individual level where we can make connections with good stories through people.

And I know, you know, the national associations like APTA and CTA do a good job of this along with all the state transit associations.

The more we can share those stories and kind of find out what, you know, what makes light bulbs go on for folks in Washington or the state capitol is a good, good way to go forward and, just, you know, specifically on, state funding, the, the ways that we can get out before these legislatures, and I know some of them have different cycles than others, and getting those meetings established and exactly what we'd like to see in terms of, we can realize

more federal funding that's already in place, if we have better local match. but again, as you mentioned, it all comes down to building strong relationships and, Doing things like saying thanks, like you mentioned, and not always coming with an ask. sometimes it's just coming and saying, we'd like to tell you what's going on in our system, thanks to the investment you already provided for us.

You know, it, it, it, if you have an ask, that's, you know, it's never a bad thing to let them know what you're looking for, but it's always a good thing to say, we really appreciate what you've done for us already. We don't have a, something you need us to do. We need you to do for us right now. We want you to come and celebrate with us on a new facility or whatever and keep those relationships going in terms of positive development. So I think those are some of the keys, going forward.

And Becca, you know, if you have some other thoughts on that messaging before we take some questions and all that.

They want to be out there. They want to be part of the. The, you know, fun, festive things, to show, when you're showing off kind of what your investments are bringing, be sure to always invite people, even if they, they really had, like a low to no involvement in the project, it never hurts, it's never a bad idea to invite out people.

All of your respective local, state, and federal delegations, and they usually have staff members in your area, if they can't make it themselves, to come out and see, and that just helps build those personal relationships as you do things like that, when you don't have to have an ask. It's just a fun day where everybody gets to bask in everyone's happiness about a project finished, you know, so I see that we do have one question to start us off in the Q& A.

from Mike Bartholomew, he's asking if, will the tariffs proposed by the President Elect potentially affect supply, cost, and availability, especially for BEBs?

You know, like, private automobiles, are they going to be on things like steel and other factors? So, you know, the, we, we talk about, you know, sometimes the Buy America provisions being onerous, and I think in a lot of ways they are, but in some ways it might shield our industry somewhat in that we were not allowed, at least if you're using federal funds, to, you know, take advantage of some of those exported, you know, international products.

I think it's really a good point, you know, Michael, to monitor those, that tariffs discussion as it goes forward. The details on what sectors of the economy and industries are, you know, subject to tariffs is really unknown right now. But I do appreciate you bringing that up because it's something that obviously was a big focus of the Trump campaign, you know, especially in the final days. So we need to hear more.

You know, ideas on the proposals, and that's something that from SWATA will take a good hard look at. Other thoughts, comments?

I think much more likely, in this, my, my, my opinion, my perspective rather than any actual facts, Sean, is that, you may see, you know, a kind of hard hitting proposal to get rid of these, but in the end, it might turn into a reduction of a certain percentage in these programs.

And, so I would say it's not at all impossible that they'll propose eliminating them, just like those proposals have, have suggested getting rid of Amtrak for almost 25 years now, and Amtrak still keeps on chugging, sometimes, you know, you know, struggling in doing so. So, but, again, I, I, I don't know if the Congress will have the, you know, full initiative to really get rid of any of these programs altogether. before we wrap up, Doug from Denver.

One thing that we have heard from some of the legislators, members of Congress, is why should we be giving you more money if you aren't even collecting the money that you're due? And I think all of us agreed that that is a topic that we need to spend a little more time on and address. And we had WMATA was there and talked about, the problems that they've had, and they have a hardened system.

We have a, an open system at RTD in Denver, and so it's not quite the same, but I just wanted to bring that up as a topic that has, gathered some momentum from people who have a sense of what it's going to be like with the new administration. Thank you.

to have a reasonable discussion on the topic. And Doug, while I see you on camera there, congratulations on RTD's success on election day. It was great news. I've been continuing to build on the momentum you all have going there. And, Charmaine, I see,

For the first time, I took my in laws after trying to get them to go with us for years, and it made everything so seamless, and, and, you know, that is a golden tourism opportunity, and, and we're, we're coming to your state and spending our discretionary dollars, so for every, for every naysayer out there who's an elected official talking about where's the skin in the game, The skin in the game is me coming to a town for four or five days and spending my discretionary dollars.

So, you know, there's always a way to kind of attack that, that, kind of message, but, yes. And when we had something similar happen when we went fare free with our streetcar, years ago, but it absolutely skyrocketed ridership. And when you have numbers and results like that, it makes it really hard to argue with the, the sense in doing it. I mean, you know, before that, we only took cash on those street cars and who carries cash and, you know, this century.

So it was just a really good thing for us to do. And I think the backside of that is keeping, keeping reminding people of those success stories of what can happen when you take a chance like that. But okay, we'll go to Charmaine for her question.

But anything can happen, of course. It's a, you know, brand new government that, you know, at least perceives itself as having a pretty strong mandate to do a lot of work, so. We'll have to see, you know, where, where things, you know, end up, but my instinct is those programs are going to be fairly comfortable, but anything that has more of a discretionary, competitive elements, we talked about ,the capital investment programs. Some other ones that I didn't mention earlier are the RAISE grants.

Yes. And, oh, there's another big all capital letters funding program. There's RCE2. Yeah. You know, those programs. I think you could have a potential, for new, new grant awards to be really reduced or changed in focus from, you know, mostly more so transit to more so highways. That is something that could definitely play out in those very specialized programs, one of which used to be called, like, TIGER and, you know, kind of the evolution of those programs.

Yeah, I think those big, discretionary competitive programs, could be subject. I'm not sure that there's much of a risk is if you've already received an award, That they would go back on that commitment. I think that's generally been considered bad faith by the government to award projects on a multi year, full funding, a grant agreement, and then for those to be rescinded, once they're kind of in play.

again, that's not something that I have a ton of expertise or familiarity on, but I would say if you've already received a RAISE grant or something like that, That, the government will probably pay that out. The levels that are available for future iterations on that, could be, could be concerning. Thank you. Did that answer your question, Charmaine?

Hopefully that you're not sitting on too many of those dollars left, but yeah, Jose, I'd agree with that. There is some concern in that area. So thank, thanks for that question. Anyone else before we, wrap things up here today?

And, again, please feel free to reach out to myself, and any of the SWATA staff, along with our Board of Directors, or Becca in a role as a Legislative Committee Chair, and that there's, questions, concerns you have about things going on in Washington that you'd really like us to be paying attention to.

You, you know, If you heard about a potential, you know, challenge to one of our programs, let us know so that we can, A, focus our attention, and B, get your input on how to respond to those things. So, Becca, any final thoughts here?

So, keep that in mind because, you know, Rock Region Metro is in the Little Rock urbanized area. Little Rock is a blue dot and a red state, in, speaking in political terms, and we get along great with our delegation because we're all Arkansans at the end of the day. And we want what's best for our voting constituents, and the ones who don't vote, too. We want what's best for everyone who lives here. And so, your federal delegation is still beholden to votes, and anything can happen.

You know, Arkansas used to be a blue state, and it could be a blue state again someday. So it's in everybody's best interest to make sure that they're taking care of constituents, taking care of our veterans, our senior citizens, our students, people who need to get to jobs, that is just critical for, for having a healthy state that runs well, and I think that the federal government and your federal delegation is quite aware of that. So, so lean into those messages.

you know, they, you might be surprised at, at how much your delegation will help you out because, it's also true and it's also a cliche, but it's true. It's a cliche because it's true.

That all politics is local, and in a small state like Arkansas, we're very lucky and fortunate to know all of our delegation pretty intimately because of that, but you could have just as good of a relationship, even if you're from a bigger state, by putting in those time investments, like I said, look for easy wins, try to invite your team out to different things that you're doing, and And even if you don't get the top brass there, you'll get some friends in the administration,

which is, which is what it's all about. So thanks for joining us again today. This was a good way to kind of prep and get our mindset ready for the New Year.

Whatever you care most about, transit has a role in making that better in your community. So, thank you. Two really positives, for you to kind of, no matter where you stand, we have those things going forward. So, thanks again for joining us here today with SWTA and, we hope to see you soon in Tucson.

We have Eileen Collins Turvey talking about the things she's doing in Portland that will truly blow your mind. Like giving paratransit customers Instacart subscriptions. So they can have groceries come to them. Them. Instead of having to go and spend time in the grocery store shopping themselves and believe it or not, it saves a ton. Ton of money. Really need to listen to this and. And. Have a pad of paper ready? Because you're going to want to take notes.

Transit unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo. So. At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people. And at Transit Unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories. So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.