News

Build Transit Human Capital and Career Pathways for Urban Youth

Posted October 2012

The Transportation Learning Center presented a call for expanded transit investment in human capital and youth career pathways in a September 26th Congressional briefing on transportation career opportunities for urban youth.  TWU Administrative Vice President Jeffrey Brooks and Center Executive Director Brian Turner emphasized that greater investment in transit human capital needs to be combined with expanded youth career pathways and industry career ladder training programs to meet the industry’s urgent need for qualified technical workers in the decade ahead.

The Economic Policy Institute organized the briefing, bringing together an expert panel.  EPI’s Algernon Austin, Linda Harris of the Center for Law and Social Policy, and Michelle Holder of the Community Service Society of New York laid out the factual background:  transportation is a large and growing industry that has offered economic mobility to African-Americans and other minorities.  Anita Hairston of PolicyLink highlighted the need to reauthorize the interim surface transportation act, MAP-21, by 2014. 

Speaking for the Center, Brooks and Turner highlighted transit’s shortfall in human capital investment, with federal support for human capital skills at only 0.1 percent of its investment in physical capital - trains, buses, track and stations.  Brooks, Director of TWU’s Transit Division and a Center Board member, told the story of Philadelphia’s successful partnership he helped build between inner city schools, SEPTA and TWU Local 234 when he was Local president.  Both Turner and Brooks called for upgraded federal policies for human capital investment and career pathways programs to link urban youth to transit career ladder career opportunities.

For more details, download The Center’s presentation.  EPI has an overview of the full session.