Nomination for Tegin Teich Bennett, Transportation Planner, City of Cambridge for Chair of the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee, 2016-2017

For the past year I have served as Chair for the Regional Transportation Advisory Council. I focused on building my relationship with the MPO members, MPO staff, MassDOT, and other key stakeholders in the region’s transportation planning to better be able to communicate and represent the views of the Advisory Council. I worked with the Advisory Council’s Vice Chair, Mark Sanborn, to become more knowledgeable about the MPO’s processes and procedures as well as better understand the needs and interests of the Advisory Council members. I attended all but one MPO meeting during a year when MassDOT embarked on a new process to develop a five-year Capital Investment Plan, which had significant implications for the MPO and the 3C process, as well as when difficult decisions were being made about the Green Line Extension. I participated in many discussions about the role of the MPO and the Advisory Council in these issues, representing the broader views of the Advisory Council.

I would like to build on the work I have done over the last year to continue to increase the meaningfulness and relevancy of the Advisory Council’s participation in the 3C process to both the members themselves as well as the MPO. I have enjoyed our robust conversations over the last year at Advisory Council meetings and would like to challenge the Advisory Council members to engage even more in productive and constructive discussions about relevant and at times contentious topics. I will welcome any input from members on additional ways to advance this goal in the coming year.

I have lived in the Boston area (including Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Belmont, Weymouth, and Natick) for 19 years. I have Masters degrees in both Urban Planning and Transportation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I have worked for the last eight years as a transportation planner, first in the private sector, and now for the City of Cambridge. I have held leadership positions on various boards and committees in the past: I helped build a local chapter of a networking organization for young transportation professionals (YPT), serving on its board for four years; I have been member and Vice Chair of local municipal transportation committees in Cambridge and Somerville as a resident; and now, as staff for the City of Cambridge, I manage a transit committee that advises the City on investments related to public transit.

I look forward to continuing to participate in all of the Advisory Council’s activities in the coming year, and hope to be elected to represent the Advisory Council again as its Chair.

Nomination for Mike Gowing , Town of Acton, for Vice Chair of the Regional Transportation Advisory Committee, 2016-2017

I was raised in the city of Boston (from Roxbury to Readville) and grew up going to school on public transportation. My father was a motorman on the Orange line until he passed. After a stint in the Marines, I got my degree, a job, a wife, and moved to the suburbs. I moved to Acton 15 years ago and was elected to local government as a selectman in 2009. RTAC was assigned to me as a liaison position.

Living in the suburbs for the last 38 years has taught me that there’s very little transportation available in the suburbs. After a Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA) training session in 2009, I was hooked on transportation. In the last 10 years, we have developed a Transportation Management Association (TMA) that provides transportation for eight communities and five businesses in our region utilizing a combination of COA vans and other rolling stock. We also negotiated successfully with the MBTA to improve the station located in South Acton (second busiest stop on the Fitchburg line) to include security cameras and elevators for access as part of their federally funded double tracking effort. We have two rail trails (the Bruce Freeman and the Assabet River rail trail) being developed in our town. The ARRT terminates at the train station making it truly multimodal.

I look forward to the opportunity to advance the cause of RTAC in the upcoming years.