“One of the greatest things about transit is that it is the intersection of all things in life”, says Sally Librera, Senior Vice President and Transit Market Sector Leader for AECOM’s Americas region.

A critical pillar of modern society, transit faces challenges like rising costs, changing political landscapes, and the challenge of delivering our net zero ambitions.

We sat down with Sally Librera to explore the changing transit landscape, managing cost, and the ability of transit investment to improve social and environmental community outcomes.

Q. What should governments and the industry do better to guarantee pipelines of projects?

A. In transit, we will always work in a politicised environment, particularly when we’re talking about projects that require political backing and projects that are decades in the making.

Naturally, they are going to move through different administrations, so a big priority is capturing the benefits of transit and these investments. One of the silver linings of the COVID ridership change, which has seen hybrid working arrangements alter the commuting landscape, is a real focus on widening the traditional metrics used to define the benefits of transit.

It’s not just the number of riders that systems can be measured by; we are thinking more holistically about what they do for communities to drive economic growth and sustainability and create healthier environments. We all have a role to play in making those arguments more tangible and coherent. So, it becomes less about transit versus car, transit versus highway, or transit versus hospital spending and more about community spending. It’s about economic development, which is critical for any municipality and politician on any side of the aisle.

Q. Globally, what are the common drivers causing cost escalation, and how is the industry responding to control cost escalation on mega projects?

A. Cost escalation is certainly top of mind for all of us in the industry right now.

Many factors are affecting growth and cost escalation across projects. We’ve seen supply chain impacts from the pandemic – some extreme versions that we’ve seen before, some brand new. We’ve seen workforce shortages impacting cost and supply chains in different ways and geopolitical conflict, which can drive costs unpredictably. The volume of work in the industry can add pressure on different points of the supply chain, and broader trends also create supply pressures for public sector investment in critical services.

But with each challenge, there are opportunities and new ways of doing business. We often hear from clients that they’re trying to focus on the aspects they closely controlled, particularly when they’re looking back on why project costs escalated. The big one is the decision-making authority within a project team. I don’t think that you can ever spend too much time talking with your team and clarifying where that decision-making authority sits. What does the governance structure look like, and who can make which decisions?

It’s also about a philosophy of designing to cost and budget. Collaborative models bring the contractors and the design teams in as early as possible to work together with the owner, giving you much greater ability to modify the scope of the job to fit the cost profile of your budget versus designing out your entire project and handing it over to be costed by a contractor and having to reconcile that the project is thirty percent over.

Finally, it’s about good data on the actual costs of building systems, which is not easy to come by. At AECOM, we have the benefit of a global business across a multitude of different projects. We can create more intelligent and informed models by harnessing this data intelligence on the actual cost of projects.

Q. Where do you see jurisdictions around the globe that are leading the way in terms of ESG?

A. Transit has always had a dominant position in the ESG space because of the inherent nature of what we do – move people via a more sustainable transit mode. We are doing our part to create dense, vibrant communities that don’t rely on single-occupancy vehicles. We are certainly looking to our partners in Europe who have a more significant history with green lending and thinking through the social impacts of infrastructure. We’ve been learning from practices in Australia and New Zealand regarding social impact sensitivity and reparations for First Nations communities. I think that’s all part of taking ESG to the next level with infrastructure, not just to be the most sustainable mode, but how investing in transit systems and making decisions about where and how people move is an incredible force for equity, opportunity, and mobility in our communities.

In the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world, there is an appetite to deliver transformative projects – some of which have been on the shelf as ideas for decades.

The US has just passed a historic infrastructure bill, which will create opportunities to move the needle for mobility and access. In this latest round of infrastructure funding, forty percent of the funds must go to communities historically disadvantaged by infrastructure spending. So, there’s an explicit focus on improving opportunities for those communities with smart investments in infrastructure.

There is also a massive move toward more resilient infrastructure and ensuring that is part of the picture. For example, in terms of flooding, thinking not just about hardening structures but also about how water moves and how nature-based solutions can be part of that picture. This is an area in which we in North America have certainly looked to partners worldwide for best practices.

 

About Sally
Sally Librera has extensive experience in successfully leading large, complex rail and transit operations through system modernisation, with a focus on engaging and informing stakeholders, improving system performance and customer service, growing transit ridership, identifying and implementing efficiencies, and maximising the value of operating and capital investments.

As the former Senior Vice President for Subways at MTA New York City Transit, Sally oversaw North America’s largest urban rail transit operation, leading a team of 30,000 employees, serving nearly six million daily riders, and leading operations through intensive multi-billion system modernisation efforts. Sally led the NYC Subways team through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, overseeing continuous train service while prioritising workforce and customer safety. Sally also led MTA’s Staten Island Railway, overseeing all aspects of a 24/7 heavy rail operation and has served in executive transit posts focusing on safety management, transportation policy, workforce development, operations efficiencies, and reliability-based maintenance.

Sally is an active member of the transit industry. She is on the Board of Directors and Business Members Board of Governors for the American Public Transportation Association. She is also on the International Board of Advisors for Young Professionals in Transportation and serves as an Executive-in-Residence for the NYC Transit Tech Partnership – an organisation focused on growing and supporting emerging technology companies as they help transit agencies solve their most pressing problems.