Frederick L. Daniels Jr.
Treasurer and Immediate Past Chair, Board of Directors
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
Member, APTA Board of Directors; Chair, Transit Board Members Committee; Member, Finance Committee, Diversity Council; APTA Nominating Committee

How many people are at your agency?
MARTA has about 4,500 employees. About 1,500 are in administration and 3,000 in operations. We’re a multimodal agency—bus, rail, and paratransit—with about 130 million passenger trips a year.

How long have you been involved in the public transportation industry?
I’ve been affiliated with the MARTA board for about five years. I grew up in ­Cleveland riding the RTA. You took public transit regardless of your social or ­economic background. No one had the mind-set of driving. Taking transit was commonplace. When my family later moved to Atlanta, my high school buddies and I used to ride the MARTA East Line train back and forth when it first opened, just for fun. Atlanta is more of a car-centric city. One of our challenges is trying to get that single rider out of his or her car and onto our system.

How long have you been an APTA member?
My first APTA meeting was the Rail Conference in Vancouver in 2010. I attended to learn more about rail and about the financial aspects of transit—as a banker, that’s where my interest first drifted. We toured Vancouver’s rail yard and train control complex. That’s when I started to learn about what it takes to operate a rail system.

My second APTA meeting was the Transit Board Members Seminar in Eugene, Oregon that same year. Colleagues who had 10 or 15 years of board experience welcomed me—a neophyte—into the discussions. I established relationships that continue to this day.

The first BRT system I ever rode was in Eugene. I was able to bring some knowledge about its benefits back to Atlanta to help strengthen our arguments for more transit investment. BRT is light rail on different wheels, but they share the importance of a dedicated right of way. Passengers don’t care if they’re on a skateboard as long as they get where they want to go on-time and efficiently. The knowledge I gained along with the new relationships really helped me to articulate the benefits of both BRT and light rail. We were able to change some minds leading up to a regional transit referendum in 2012. Unfortunately, voters still didn’t approve it.

What drew you to your work in public transportation?
I was originally approached because of my financial expertise. My goal was to begin improving MARTA’s financial sustainability and increasing the business we do with minority- and women-owned small businesses. That was the initial ­impetus. Serving on the board stretched my intellectual capacity and provided greater insight into the lives we impact with our decisions. I really believe in that saying, “to whom much is given, much is expected.” I see it as an opportunity to bring about positive change, giving back through your time and talent to impact the lives of others for the better.

What have you found to be the most valuable APTA benefit or resource? Which one helps you do your job?
APTA membership has several benefits that I would meld into one: the ability to look at best practices across agencies. Part of my fiduciary responsibility as a board member is to analyze data. Because of APTA, I have access to independent data about peer systems with comparable indices. I also appreciate talking with board members from other systems to understand their challenges and hear how they are working to overcome them. You really can’t put a price tag on that kind of information. It’s priceless.

What do you like most about your job with the agency?
Of all our daily boardings, I might only know a few riders. Still, I really value doing work that has such a positive impact on people I’ll never meet. By serving on the board, I can do my best for individuals and for the agency—to help prepare it for greatness and better explain MARTA’s wide-ranging economic impact on the whole region.

What is unique about your agency? What would readers be surprised to learn?
It would be our commitment to the environment. MARTA was an original signatory on APTA’s Sustainability Commitment, and our efforts since then are widespread across the agency. For example, in one of our bus yards, we used a FTA grant to install solar panels. We generate so much power from those panels that we sell some of it back to Georgia Power, our electric utility. The vast majority of our bus fleet runs on cleaner burning compressed natural gas, and by 2018, we’re planning to retire our last diesel-powered bus. The board has also committed to going green. We don’t generate any paper—all of our board information is electronic. It saves us a lot of money—to say nothing of the environment.