Mass_Transit_September/-October_2019 - 50

Laura
Tolkoff

Regional Planning
Policy Director
San Francisco Bay
Area Planning and
Urban Research
Association (SPUR)

Dave
Walker

Director Revenue &
Marketing
Keolis Commuter
Services

50 |

LAURA TOLKOFF BELIEVES THAT
transportation stretches beyond mobility to include city-building, economic development and social cohesion. This is a
value that she brings into her work at San
Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban
Research Association (SPUR). She thinks
comprehensively about what it will take
to make transit succeed, from land use
changes, location and access to funding
streams, user experience and governance.
She is credited with helping to shape
the remaking of San Jose's Diridon Station, the station area and downtown San
Jose, Calif. The project includes $10 billion
in rail investments plus 240 acres of developable land around the station and is
described as the largest transportation and
city-building opportunity in the Bay Area.
Diridon represents a chance to integrate more transit modes more seamlessly than any other place in the region,
while giving shape to a greater downtown San Jose. However, fragmented
decision-making, a lack of shared vision, limited public sector resources
and staffing, and a lack of experience
in urban megaproject planning and de-

DAVE WALKER'S TRANSIT INDUSTRY
experience spans multiple modes and
departments, including operations, finance, stakeholder management and
commercial affairs. This breadth of
knowledge and the results he has delivered in his various roles have contributed
to the success of those companies.
In his current position, Walker is applying his skillset towards the groundup development and implementation
of a revenue and ridership marketing
initiative for the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority's (MBTA)
commuter rail network. He leads a
team of nine individuals recruited for
their talents rather than their previous
transportation experience. Walker and
his team have developed brand guidelines in partnership with the public
transit agency and performed the initial
market research and analysis without
preexisting templates or examples for
the industry in the greater Boston region. Successfully building this multidimensional program in a year was a
huge challenge Walker executed with
precision. The commuter rail network
is now advertised regularly and market-

Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019

FACT:
Tolkoff has
worked at two of
the three urban
policy think tanks
in the country.
MassTransitmag.
com/21093097

livery hampered the project's progress.
Tolkoff designed and facilitated a
multi-day European educational and advocacy trip to help show stakeholders what
was possible to realize a bigger vision for
Diridon. As a result, key decision-makers
authored a new vision statement for the
station and station area and embarked on
a new integrated station area plan.
She helped establish and elevate regional attention and civic support for the
project and played a key role in analyzing
the potential to increase building heights
and development potential in the station
area without impacting the airport, the
airlines and their passengers.
Tolkoff is currently working on rail integration efforts and governance reform
at the regional scale and on SPUR's first
regional strategy, an aspirational civic vision for the Bay Area for the next half-century and policy roadmap to achieve it.

"There

are a lot of policies and rules that hold back
public transit - part of what SPUR does is surface these policies
and rules to show that our problems are not inevitable."

FACT:
Walker's
achievements
working on
transit in London,
UK, earned
him personal
recognition from
the Secretary
of State for
Transportation.
MassTransitmag.
com/21094174

"What

ing efforts, such as a $10 all-weekend/
unlimited travel fare, were not only
well-received but made permanent by
MBTA's governing board. Forms of
variable-pricing have been introduced
and all conductors on the network are
now equipped with handheld devices
that accept credit/debit cards onboard
- a first for the network.
Walker's immediate goals are to
maximize fare recovery, enhance
perception of the commuter rail as a
network and increase ridership, but
it should be noted that Boston's commuter rail network is one of the few in
the country bucking national trends
through increased ridership. Walker's hope is to extend those goals to all
railroads and public transit systems by
applying lessons learned in different
disciplines (e.g. operational planning,
compliance, marketing) and applying
that knowledge in comprehensive ways.

I've found fascinating is that whether it
is Europe, Japan or the U.S., the challenges in terms of
performance or providing more capacity are very similar."

http://www.MassTransitmag.com/21093097 http://www.MassTransitmag.com/21094174 http://www.MassTransitmag.com

Mass_Transit_September/-October_2019

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