Let’s grade some NITA picks

September 2nd | A Conversation with Matt Brewer: Matt Brewer is an attorney and former CEO of the Chicago Housing Authority. He’s also running for Mayor. Join us for a conversation with him about his career, the CHA, and how he’d run the city. We’ll be at Jefferson Tap and Grille from 5:30-7pm. Register here.

Some major changes are taking place to transit across northern Illinois this fall. Thanks to major reforms passed by the State Legislature last year, the newly created Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) will have more power to force the CTA, Metra, and Pace to deliver reliable, high-quality, and integrated service.1

But new reporting lines and rules won’t have much of an impact unless the new system is overseen by leaders who are both willing to push the respective service boards hard for better performance and experienced enough to make informed decisions about the challenges the system faces.

Assessing that first criteria is challenging, though I would start by being suspicious of individuals who were long-time board members under the previous regime, rarely use the system, or who fought to defend the status quo prior to the NITA reforms. But we do have some pretty high-quality criteria to assess the question of experience. As I’ve previously written, the actual world-class transit systems in Europe and Asia have real subject matter experts on the boards – with far more board members with engineering degrees, experience running transit systems, and other complementary skills.

Historically, U.S. transit agencies (including the CTA, Metra, and Pace), have not done this. Instead, transit boards have been heavy on community advocates (which can play a useful role), and local politicians (which do not).2 In short, transit appointments are often treated as a political sinecure rather than a serious responsibility. The results are predictable.

As of this month, we finally know who is being appointed to the new NITA board, as well as the CTA, Metra and Pace boards. One feature of the system is that many of these are dual appointments: 17 of the NITA board appointees will also serve on at least one of the service boards, in an effort to improve coordination and alignment across the system. Governor JB Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and the county board presidents of the five collar counties have all announced their picks for both the NITA board and additional appointments to the service boards.

Appointments and overlap of NITA Board Members. (Source: RTA)

So let’s see how they did. If you’re keeping track at home, a full list of the appointees made by each elected official is available at the end of this article.

Governor JB Pritzker: B. Pritzker’s appointees have many of the complementary skills NITA and the service boards will need. Two of them (Bashir Qaasim and Neema Jha) have strong technology backgrounds, which will be helpful for fare integration and stronger public safety tools, and another (Nirali Shah) is a procurement expert. I’d also put in a special plug for Nedra Sims Fears, whose combination of community development, finance, and past experience on the Metropolitan Planning Council board makes her a uniquely strong pick. The downside of the Governor’s picks, however, is that there’s relatively little transit experience here – none of the members of the group have experience in transit agency operations or major capital projects.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle: A-. These picks are (almost) uniformly great. Not only did Preckwinkle pick several former engineers with strong transit backgrounds, one of them (former Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo) has real expertise from outside the Chicagoland region. Tom Kotarac was a driving force behind the NITA reforms, and Luis Montgomery is an engineer with 20 years of experience working on major public projects.3 There are also some creative picks to provide complementary experience in areas like workforce development (Diane Williams), and construction (Ann Kayalil). The only weak spots here are the selection of two suburban mayors (Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins for NITA and Pace, and Phoenix Mayor Perry Wells just for Pace), but at least Hoskins was an active part of the NITA negotiations and represents a constituency served by CTA, Metra and Pace.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson: D+. Mayor Johnson is fond of school analogies, so let’s put it this way: if Preckwinkle is the student who turned in her homework early and crushed the extra credit questions, Brandon Johnson is the student who turned in the same homework he submitted last year when he flunked the class.

Six of the Mayor’s eight appointments previously served on one of the transit boards, which means this is mostly a copy-paste job from the poorly managed prior regime. That includes Lester Barclay, the CTA board chair for the last five years who rarely uses the system and opposed key parts of the NITA reforms.4

These picks are also light on relevant experience. There are a few folks with relevant legal, mental health, and social services experience, but none of the Mayor’s appointees have any experience in rail operations or construction. There isn’t a single engineer among the group.

Collar Counties: D. The collar county board members either didn’t understand the assignment, or don’t yet see the value of a truly regional approach to transit. Three of the five appointees are local mayors, who will face strong incentives to serve as advocates for their respective jurisdictions, rather than as stewards of a regional system. Two of them, Romeoville Mayor John Noak and Roselle Mayor David Pileski, publicly opposed the NITA reforms. There are a couple of bright spots: Gary Gordon’s financial expertise as CFO of the Shedd Aquarium will be valuable, and it’s possible Brian Dahl could provide a helpful perspective as the head of the Fox Valley Building Trades.

Where does that leave us?

If you’re keeping score, we’re just scraping by with a passing GPA here. That’s not exactly inspiring. But it’s worth noting that these appointees do represent a significant improvement over the set of folks who previously served on these boards. The share of seats held by members with actual transit operations experience has more than doubled (from 8% to 18%), with particularly encouraging gains for Metra and Pace. Notably, CTA (where the Mayor mostly repeated his prior picks) is the service board that made the least progress. There will also be fewer local politicians with control over a regional system.

But even if these appointments reflect measured progress, we’re going to need to keep up the pressure. In particular, Mayor Johnson’s picks are a clear signal that he thinks the way the CTA has been run over the last few years is fine, and doesn’t regard making major improvements to transit as a priority. The candidates running against him should call this out, and be clear about what their standards for transit board members would be.

It’s also going to be critically important that the new NITA be led by an Executive Director with deep transit expertise. That means picking a transit expert who has not spent the last decade defending the status quo, and ideally has a real understanding of transit systems around the world. The best transit managers run the best transit agencies, which unfortunately are almost uniformly not in America. We should be leaning on - or at least learning from - transit professionals from other countries with high-quality transit systems to help build the executive team for the new Authority.

This is our last, best chance to build a high-quality transit system in the region for the next generation of Chicagoans. Ridership was already falling before the pandemic. If we end up facing another fiscal cliff scenario in the future, the agencies will have less farebox revenue and fewer political supporters. They’ll also have to face a public that is already revolting against tax increases. We cannot afford to get this wrong.

Note that in addition to the NITA and cross listed board members noted above, the Governor, Cook County President and Mayor all have additional appointments to make to the service boards. The full set of overlapping positions is listed below, along with their bios.

Source: Star:Line Chicago

State of Illinois

• Bashir Qaasim (NITA, Metra): Vice President of the Whole Group, which advises organizations on complex technology transformations. Previously worked at Aforza and Accenture.

• Nedra Sims Fears (NITA, CTA): Executive Director of the Greater Chatham Initiative. Prior roles included community development and finance at Fannie Mae and the City of Chicago, and previously served on the board of the Metropolitan Planning Council.

• Nirali Shah (NITA): Senior Director of Procurement at the Obama Presidential Center. Previously served as Director of Procurement at McDermott Will & Schulte and prior procurement roles at the CTA.

• Rosa Ortiz (NITA, Pace): Urban planner and the principal and founder of 3e. Studio. She previously served as Managing Deputy Commissioner for the City of Chicago Department of Housing, with prior roles at CMAP and other housing non-profits.

• Vanessa Uribe (NITA): is Associate Vice President for People and Operations at The Chicago Community Trust. Prior roles in the Secretary of State’s Office, and Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO).

• Neema Jha (CTA): Director at Charles River Associates (CRA) focused on technology implementation, with prior roles at Amason Web Services and the Tribune Media Company.

Cook County

• Tom Kotarac (NITA, CTA): Executive VP for Transportation at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, prior roles at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning and working for Senator Dick Durbin.

• Diane Williams (NITA, Metra): Former CEO of the Safer Foundation, which provides job training to people with criminal records, and prior leader of the Southland Development Authority.

• Romayne Brown (NITA, Metra): Metra board chair from 2020-2024, and previously served as CTA’s Vice President of Rail Operations.

• Luis Montgomery (NITA, Pace): Transport & Municipal Market Sector Lead for MacKay (an infrastructure consultancy).

• Rory Hoskins (NITA, Pace): Forest Park Mayor.

• Ann Kalayil (CTA): Associate vice president of facilities and construction at Columbia College and former bureau chief of asset management for the county.

• Joe Szabo (Metra): Former administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration.

• Perry Wells (Pace): Phoenix Mayor.

City of Chicago

• Oswaldo Alvarez (NITA, CTA): Executive Director of the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation, served as Illinois’ Statewide Census Director for the 2020 Census.

• Natasha Jenkins (NITA, Pace): Senior Attorney at Clark Hill PLC, with prior legal roles at Littler Mendelson, United Airlines, Teamsters Local 700, CTA, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

• Dennis Mondero (NITA, Metra): General Counsel for AKIRA, a Chicago-based retailer, previously Executive Director of the Chinese Mutual Aid Association and as Chief Administrative Officer and Senior Vice President at CTA.

• Dee Atkins (NITA): Chief of Community Engagement and Equity at Thresholds, a major mental health and substance use treatment provider.

• Lester Barclay (NITA and CTA): Family law attorney.

• Dr. Michael Eaddy (CTA): Senior pastor of People’s Church of the Harvest Church of God in Christ, president of the People’s Community Development Association of Chicago.

• Christian Mariano Díaz López (Metra): Affordable housing developer with the Latin United Community Housing Association (LUCHA) and Co-Chair of the System Change Working Group for Elevated Chicago.

• Karen Tamley (Pace): President and CEO of Access Living, previously served as Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities.

The Collar Counties

• John Noak (NITA, Pace): Romeoville Mayor and CMAP Board Member. Will County appointee.

• Gary Gordon, (NITA, Metra): CFO of the Shedd Aquarium. Lake County Appointee.

• Brian Sager (NITA, Metra): Former Woodstock Village Mayor. McHenry County Appointee.

• Brian Dahl (NITA, Pace), former Kane County Board Member, and president of the Fox Valley Building and Construction Trades Council. Kane County Appointee.

• David Pileski (NITA, Pace), mayor of Roselle, and senior supply chain manager at Grainger. DuPage County appointee.