Spotlight Series

Could you please tell me a little bit about your background and how you got to DART?  

Nadine: So, my background and education is in civil engineering and I started my career in about 1992 when I graduated from college. So, I'm a lot older than you probably think I am. But I started out as an engineer by training and began working in the consulting world doing highway design and roadway design, mostly working for the DOT in Kansas. I spent a few years doing that and then got an opportunity to move to Denver and work in transit as a consultant. So, I spent around 14 years there in the consulting world in the private sector and then moved over to the public sector after the FasTracks ballot initiative passed in Denver in 2004. So, I went to Denver RTD in 2006, and I spent 10 years working for RTD leading projects in the capital program. Then I got an opportunity to move to Los Angeles and work in the Office of Extraordinary Innovation for LA Metro. And so, I took that job just as a total risk and I didn't know if that would work out, but it was great because from there I spent three years in OEI and then I got promoted to be the Chief of Staff for Phil Washington while he was still the CEO there.  

I always tell people that had I not made that move I never would have ended up as the CEO in Dallas. But as Phil was planning to leave LA Metro in 2021, I had an opportunity to interview for this position at DART and I just got the position. So, I ended up moving here to take the CEO role at DART. So here I am.  

You have experienced it in two great cities and it's great to hear that you're bringing that experience to us in our city. And so now that you're at DART what current initiatives do you think are happening right now that have the greatest impact, not only in our city but in our region?  

Nadine: I think there's a lot of stuff that we're doing right now at DART that I think are really impactful seem kind of invisible. You know we, like everybody else, went through the pandemic and DART actually suffered a lot of big changes that I think in hindsight were a little ahead of some of the other similar agencies in the country. And what I mean by that is, we had the same experience with people not coming to work anymore the way they did before, which really impacted our ridership. And then on top of that, DART had 350 people take a voluntary retirement incentive program. So, we lost 350 people literally overnight. It was hard enough with the pandemic to get people to work, and we were already down 500 staff, and then we had another 350 leave.  

So, we in the industry have talked for such a long time about knowledge transfer and how you are going to deal with the silver tsunami and all the people who are at retirement age might leave the industry and everybody has talked about it for the last 10 years and nobody's really done anything about it. So, what ended up happening here at DART was we had a mass exodus and then we were like, now, what do we do?  

I came into the organization three years ago and I was like, Oh my God, we have to just hire people. And so, that meant hiring operators, people on the administrative side, and we're still down a couple hundred people, I think. But the main thing that we have going now is that we've started to build back up our subject matter experts, which has taken some time to do.  

So, I think at DART one of the things related to our organization is just building back up the workforce to be the next generation of leaders in the industry. And I think that's something that most people didn't experience the way we did. And so, they haven't quite hit that mark where they're going to lose a whole bunch of people but we were forced into it by default. As a result of that, we've had to innovate. We've had to bring in a lot of new faces. We've had to put people in positions that maybe they didn't have the background for, but we knew that they had leadership potential. And so, we've really tried to boost them and support them and make sure that they're successful so that we ultimately have a strong organization and a deeper bench for the future. So, that's that piece which I think is important. 

And then, along with that, we were hiring like crazy on the bus operator side. I think we're one of very few transit agencies in the country that has a full slate of bus operators. We have about 250 bus operators and we have zero vacancies, which is unheard of right now. But we worked really hard to streamline our hiring process so that we could fill those positions as quickly as possible. And it's an ongoing maintenance issue because there's a lot of turnover in those ranks. So, we're trying to make sure that we keep those positions filled so that we don't cancel any services as a result of not having staff.  

Now, what that means is that we've spent a lot of time in the last three years addressing security, cleanliness, and reliability on our system. On the reliability front, that's where the workforce comes in. Two years ago, we were canceling or missing about 15% of our scheduled trips and now with our full slate of bus drivers we're actually missing less than 1% of our trips, which is an incredible effort and an incredible accomplishment. So, we're really proud of that. Now, maintaining that again is going to be super hard to do, but we're really vigilant about it and we're trying to do everything we can to ensure that we are taking care of the workforce and that we're keeping them supported so that we can actually continue to succeed.  

On the cleanliness side of things, we've done some new initiatives. I mean, they're not new anymore and they're part of our regular regimen. We implemented our Clean Teams which is something that we thought was really important to show that we're out there day-to-day cleaning up on the light rail trains, cleaning up at our stations, and making sure people see that visible presence of our cleaning crew. They're uniformed and it's actually a partnership with The United Community of Faith. It's a partnership with a community organization that helps us find workers who ultimately can get employed by the cleaning companies. So, it's a pathway to get jobs for them. So that's something that's really great.  

And one of the greatest findings that we had as a result of implementing the Clean Teams was that our customers just seeing someone in a uniform, even if it's not an armed security officer, just seeing somebody in uniform made them feel more secure. And that's amazing to us because we were like, Wow, we don't have to hire 100 more security officers!  We realized that having a presence on the system just made people feel better. We also implemented our Elevator Attendant program to monitor the elevators throughout the day and really avoid people squatting in the elevators because that creates a lot of unpleasant experiences. So, we've had those folks out there to increase the security on the system.  

We have our Transit Security Officers that are contracted who are armed, but they patrol the system to help people feel safer. Also, we have our Multidisciplinary RES Response Teams that combine a mental health professional, a paramedic and a law enforcement officer together as a team to do interventions with people who are in cognitive crisis who might need some assistance. So, they’re also out there helping people feel more safe and secure.  

So again, cleanliness, security and reliability are three major areas of focus that we've been working on to really take back the system and make people feel like the system is going to be safe for them to ride. It's not perfect but it's definitely a step in the right direction and I think we've heard a lot of positive feedback from folks.  

Is there a specific project that you would like to highlight that's currently being undertaken or in the works?  

Nadine: Yeah, of course. It's hard not to talk about the Silver Line Commuter Rail project that's underway right now. I think we're about a year or maybe a little over a year out from opening. We're going to be finishing, I think 80% construction or hitting the 80% milestone soon. So next year we'll be mostly finishing up the detailed construction pieces and then starting revenue service or starting testing in advance of revenue service. So, I know we're testing trains right now, and so if you need to go out in the corridor, you can see the trains running back and forth. So, that construction project has been several years in the making.  

When I arrived, the project was a little bit stagnant, but we got things going and they've just been going gangbusters for the last year. We're excited about that and it's a bit of an inconvenience for the residents nearby because of all the construction detours. But I'm hoping that we can get out of their way pretty soon, and actually have a really big opening hopefully next year. So, we're looking forward to the Silver Line. If you don't already know it's a 26-mile commuter rail line.  

We're running diesel multiple units on it which we have in stock now because we received all the vehicles. It hits seven cities with ten stations, and it goes from Terminal B at DFW all the way to Shiloh Road in Plano and it hits all those cities along the way, Addison Carrollton, Richardson, Plano, Farmers Branch, Coppell, even though Coppell is not part of our service area, and then a little bit of Dallas as well. So, we're excited about that project. 

I mean, it's over $2 billion of investment into our region, and I think people will really enjoy using it to get to the airport. And it's actually triggering all kinds of development along the corridor at Cypress Waters and Richardson at the University Texas, Dallas. Addison Circle is a big development that's going to be going in. I mean, there's just tons of really interested people trying to capitalize on the presence of the Silver Line. The other thing that I didn't mention is the adjacent hike and bike trail. Although that won't be completely finished with the Silver Line. The Silver Line project has put in a number of bridges that are needed for the trail, so we've actually started the process of getting that trail built and I know NCTCOG is going to come in and do some more work. So we're going to be putting down some pavement so that people can access that trail, and then of course get to our stations as well.  

As you know, the interview is about past, present and future. Are any specific projects that you would like to discuss that have not started that you would like to see DART undertake in the future?  

Nadine: So, the most exciting thing I think for the future is our Point B Strategic Plan, and if you haven't already heard about the plan, it's our 10-year strategic plan. We thought it was really important to set forth a really ambitious vision for public transportation in our service area and it is a 10-year plan. Our whole goal behind the new strategic plan is to establish DART as a regional and strategic economic and mobility asset. And what I mean by that is that DART has a ton of capacity that we could be leveraging for better mobility in the region and given the fact that we have 4 million more people coming to the region we need to figure out a way to move them around. Right now, those folks are projected through the model to go to areas outside of transit service areas but if we do our job right, we will attract them to our service area where there's more density, more development, more activity, and more availability of transit so that we can solve the mobility problem through the capacity that DART has and leverage that capacity so that we can keep growing economically while maintaining a very sustainable quality of life. So that's really important to us, and that's why we put this strategic plan out there.  

Now, the strategic plan is organized around six goals arranged under three different categories for three different audiences. The first two revolve around having an empowered workforce and a culture of contribution. Those two goals are really about our internal organization and trying to help our workforce achieve their greatest potential and have them rise to the occasion to contribute more to the outcomes we're trying to achieve. So that's really our due diligence in making sure our staff is ready to go.  

The second category is really for our customers, which is quality service and seamless journeys, which is the quality and connectivity of our services, whatever the mode may be, to make sure that people can complete a full journey or a complete trip all on DART. The idea behind that is to make sure that we improve the quality so that people feel like they really want to ride DART, and make sure that DART is the first thing that comes to mind when they need to go somewhere. That means we need to really improve the availability of the services, meaning more frequency. Then, connectivity is important because right now it's kind of hard to get from point A to point B with the existing services. If we provide a lot more services, then it'll be easier for people to think about using DART.  

The third bucket that we have is about fantastic spaces and strategic relationships, and that's really more on the development side of things. We will focus on what we are doing with the resources that we have and the land assets that we could leverage to create better spaces and more active spaces for our community because DART doesn't need to just be a land baron. We should leverage the land assets that we own and try to do something with them so that we can benefit the community. The example I often give is if you have a station on the DART Rail Lines that's surrounded by a sea of surface parking that creates this huge barrier between the adjacent neighborhood and the platform. In my mind a fantastic space would be creating some sort of development or amenity that would start to bring the community in the neighborhood closer to the platform so that there's activity along the whole way, which creates security. It also creates economic potential, and it helps people feel more like DART is part of the community instead of separate from the community. Fantastic spaces of course, then require strategic relationships with all of our cities, our regional stakeholders, and whole host of partners to make things happen, but the whole idea there is to leverage DART. I talked at the outset about leveraging DART as an asset for the region and those are other ways that we can become an asset.