EFFECTIVE POLICY MAKING IN TRANSIT: THE ROLE OF THE BOARD

This report points out that transit board members are the public bodies of public transit agencies throughout the nation and yet, no publicly available continuous mechanism exists for acquainting and preparing new or existing board members for their important transit roles. This project was taken to partially fill this gap. The project involved design, production and pilot testing of an educational development program for board members of public transit systems. In large part, this project arose from a two-session series of workshops for public transit board members held in 1983 at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville under sponsorship of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA). The Transit Board Development Program described in this report is an expansion of those workshop sessions. It is the intent of UMTA and the University of North Florida that this project provide a resource so that transit agencies, government bodies and education institutions can greatly broaden the education and training opportunities for public transit board members.