MICHAEL G FORD
RTA Board Member Summary Statement:
Michael and team have accomplished more progress on regional transit than others have over the past 40 years. Many stakeholders have contributed to this progress, but every successful effort requires strong leadership. We are fortunate to have Michael and his outstanding staff leading RTA during this critically important year. Michael has the ability to reach out, listen and incorporate the needs, ideas, concerns, and aspirations of diverse stakeholders.
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Lead successful initiative to increase mileage to support expanded service with a 71% approval by the voters
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Lead governance change expanding from city of Ann Arbor to multi-city provider with the addition of Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township launching “urban core” regional service.
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Increased ridership with national recognition as fourth in nation for ridership growth in 2012
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Initiated and lead successful adoption of 30-Year Transit Master Plan, and established and lead launch of Five-Year Transit Improvement Program resulting in highest ridership in agency’s history, a 50% increase from 2010-2014
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Launch of private-public partnership airport shuttle, “AirRide”, providing first public transportation shuttle with 13 daily round trips between Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport; This popular service and the remarkable growth allowed us to reduce the cost of the contracted service from $671,000 in the first year to $264,000 at the second-year renewal and $170,000 on April 1, 2014, at third-year renewal.
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Increased and extended service – late night route (50% growth), increased service on major community thoroughfare (30% growth), and expansion of two existing routes with ridership increases of 29% and 14.2% respectively. Launched vanpool services
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Completed LEED-certified transit center with state of the art 21st-century design.
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Initiated and delivered a Regional Transit Master Plan identifying a 20-year vision with short-term achievable objectives unanimously adopted by the nine-member Board of Directors, representing the four-county region and the City of Detroit
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Established the groundwork and collaboration to deliver REFLEX, a joint regional service between the two providers serving Detroit and surrounding areas. REFLEX increased direct service on weekdays from six to twenty hours and added eighteen hours on Saturday and sixteen hours on Sunday where no direct service was previously provided.
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Bridging the gap between systems and the reduction of jurisdictional and geographical barriers to continuity for transit customers traversing between the city of Detroit and surrounding suburbs. Improved connections at termination points of each of the systems.
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Created public support for regional transit through extensive community engagement, establishing the basis and awareness for a ballot initiative to fund regional transit, which achieved record support at the ballot box in November 2016. Although the measure lost by a close 1% margin, after more than 20 attempts, this was the strongest support for public transit in decades for Southeast Michigan and provided the path forward to success.
AAATA Board Chair Charles Griffith
“I am confident our next CEO will be someone who can keep our momentum going and be a forceful advocate for AAATA with the same dedication and excellence as Michael Ford,” Griffith said. “His leadership, work ethic and ability to motivate staff to work at a high level of public service built a strong foundation for future success that will improve our community’s quality of life.”
REVIEWS
Expert in large multimodal public and private transit systems across the US. Leading teams of 200 to 2,400 and allocating budgets approaching $600,000,000 for light rail, commuter rail, fixed-route bus, ADA para-transit, vanpool, streetcar, and commuter transit service. Exceptional ability to establish public-private partnerships and garner community support to fund and expand transit initiatives.
VISION STRATEGY EXECUTION COMMUNITY MOBILITY
PRESS
The expanded service follows the recently released and adopted regional master transit plan that outlines a coordinated regional network for transit in southeast Michigan. “This service is a great start to this new era of coordinated, regional transit and works to solving one of the greatest challenges that our region faces: getting people across the city lines to jobs,” said RTA CEO Michael Ford. “I am proud to see this become a reality and thankful for our partner providers SMART and DDOT for their hard work and dedicated planning over the past several months. This will be a valuable opportunity for riders in our community.”
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REFLEX
Regional Transit Authority launches expanded service along Woodward and Gratiot
AirRide
More people using AirRide shuttle service between Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport
The AirRide shuttle buses between Ann Arbor and Detroit Metropolitan Airport will continue for a third year, with ridership up more than 20 percent — amounting to tens of thousands of trips being taken each year.
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The Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority's governing board voted unanimously Thursday night to renew its contract with Michigan Flyer to continue providing the service that was first launched in the spring of 2012.
The AirRide shuttles are averaging 200 passengers per weekday or about 8 passengers per service hour, and passengers are paying more than two-thirds of the cost of the service, while state operating assistance covers much of the rest. No local property taxes are used to fund AirRide.
Public transit systems nationwide are breaking records for ridership in the first three months of 2012 and Ann Arbor's ranks No. 4 nationally for the gains it has seen.
That's according to a USA Today report, which shows the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority saw a 9 percent increase in the first quarter of this year compared with last year....
...The report comes as AATA officials continue to build the case for expanding transit services throughout Washtenaw County. Also ongoing are talks about a regional transit authority linking Ann Arbor with Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
AATA Ridership Increase
Ranks 4th highest in the nation
ABOUT
PROJECTS
2014-2017 Chief Executive Officer
REGIONAL TRANSIT AUTHORITY OF SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN
​Chief Executive Officer responsible for securing funding and integrating transit systems serving the four-county region of Southeast Michigan, including Wayne, Macomb, Oakland, and Washtenaw. The Regional Transit Authority “RTA” of Southeast Michigan established by the Michigan legislature in December of 2012, sought to bring coordinated and expanded mobility between five separate agencies serving the region whose combined population of 4.2 million and covers 2600 square miles.
2016 CEO Performance Summary
Paul Hillegonds, RTA Board Chair
A football analogy comes to mind. Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, is viewed as one of the best players ever at his position. Prior to every game, Mr. Brady develops a solid game plan, communicates the plan to his teammates, takes the field and often implements the plan flawlessly. Needless to say, his team does not win every game nor wins the Super Bowl every year. His value is measured by his ability to understand what needs to be done, develop a strategy and rally the troops to enthusiastically move toward a common goal. This results in more successes than failures but not always the big prize.
In my opinion, Mr. Ford has demonstrated some of the same traits and should be evaluated in a similar manner. A coordinated transit system is still within reach due to Mr. Ford’s efforts, we just have not won that game yet.
AAATA Board of Directors Resolution
The AAATA Board on May 21 praised Ford in a performance review and a public resolution that highlighted his accomplishments, including his direction of a grassroots campaign that spurred approximately 70 percent of voters in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township to approve a 0.7-mill property tax to help fund the AAATA for the first time in the organization’s history. TheRide will use the additional millage funds to phase-in a 44 percent service increase, which equates to about 57,000 more hours of service for Ann Arbor, nearly 8,500 more in Ypsilanti, and at least 9,400 hours of new service in Ypsilanti Township.
The board resolution also recognized Ford’s fiscal stewardship in reducing service costs and balancing budgets, as well as citing AAATA’s record-setting growth in overall ridership and the creation of other innovative transit programs.
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2009-2014 Chief Executive Officer
ANN ARBOR TRANSIT TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
Chief Executive Officer for transit authority serving the business community, residents and the University of Michigan system in the Ann Arbor area and Washtenaw County. Operating budget of $34 million providing over 6.97 million boarding rides, providing a fixed route, on-demand, Para-Transit services and commuter express.