At a great, great session already this morning, 7 30 a. M. Who was in there eating breakfast . All right. Welcome to aptas 40th annual legislative conference and our Nations Capital. Yesterday was some great sessions, werent they with the mayor of washington d. C. And some great speakers and thank you all for being here. The conference comes at a momentous time in the industry. We have a lot of things to do this week. We are gearing up for a new surface transportation bill out there. This opening session really set the stage for our discussions over the next few days. In this session, oh well we will hear from the ceo and janet kovanecki with the u. S. Chamber of commerce and pete bruahmn. Our sponsor this morning is ralk fmatch. Help me welcome joseph hills Vice President for Business Development who will share some comments on stage. [applause] thank you, phil. Thank you apta. My name is joe hughes, Vice President for three parts of route map software, product management, Customer Relations and Business Development. As a brief overview, we provide software for Public Transit in the rural and urban, small urban areas. We figure we have worked with many people in this room and many other agencies here in the office. You are our partners. Every year, we come to this event because to me, its the epitome of the pure partnership. Its the most important part of the year for transportation. It represents a group of people that go off into their own business separately but here, they are partners for the greater good of the overall. We are very excited to be a part of this. We would like to think that we can help in any way but we hope to get to work with all you guys for the next two days and learn a little bit about where things are going and hopefully make some impact for the greater good of the whole industry. With that in mind, i have a couple of things dont forget while you are your that the purpose of this event is to direct the industrys advocacy efforts and legislative strategy. The keywords i saw there were the advocacy. Everyone here is an advocate. Second is that you are doing it for the industry. Please look out for your cohorts and friends and the other guys who could not be here. Dont forget the rural folks that dont get to come to these things as often. Make sure your member that. As a partnership we leave thats how it works. Finally, please participate if you have not signed up for the stand up for transportation day on april 9 which will be a great thing in terms of momentum. Thank you, apta and everyone for being here. I believe this is the most important event of the year thats why we sponsor it and look over to seeing you guys for the next two days. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, joe, we appreciate your sponsorship of this opening session. Before i get too far in the program, i want to recognize the apta executive committee and the board of directors and passed apta chairs. If you are in that group, please stand up so we can give you a round of applause. [applause] thank you for all your work and all your service. Many of the leaders in this room let me say, i was honored to chair the apta Strategic Planning effort about a year ago or so. We got approved by the full board of directors. This plan sharpens our focus and guides or operation for the next five years. This is the cover of that document. The marketing folks did a great job in putting this together. Five significant challenges that we put forth and we were calling these megatrends the environment we believe we will be working in for the next 510 years. Very quickly and you will not see this this is just the cover of the plan itself. Safety and security was the first one. Resource advocacy or funding we have been talking about that all week. Workforce development. Demographic shift and technological innovations. Those five things we identified in our Strategic Plan as megatrends that we will be facing over the next five years. I have to say that we have been having conversations about funding for quite a while. We have been talking about safety and security. We had a great session yesterday that i sat in on on positive training control. These five megatrends i just laid out are so significant. You will see these off and on for the next year or so as we work on these issues and look to address these issues. You can go to the apta website. You can read the document their and support its objectives and help us address them. Let me talk a little bit about funding. I have been talking about this for the last six month or so. You have heard me talk about rebuilding our countrys infrastructure. This is one of the big reasons why we are here in washington at the legislative conference, to appliqcate for a longterm infrastructure bill. This is about building our own country, nation building right here. This is about Infrastructure Investment and rebuilding our infrastructure in this country. I have called for this national day of advocacy, stand up for transportation that you have heard about. This is the logo we have put together. This april 9 day this is the last conference we will have before that april 9 day or is there another one . There may be another conference coming up. This is it. We are gearing up for this. The strategy is collective power as we bring attention to our infrastructure and talk to congress. On this day, april 9, we are looking to conduct media events press events in as Many American cities as possible. I am happy to say that i believe we have about 140 events or so. That is a lot of events all over this country. Its time for us to Work Together, republicans, democrats , at the white house its time to Work Together to make sure that we address what i called this embarrassingly massive infrastructure deficit for the last time i looked, this infrastructure deficit was about 90 billion. That is just to maintain our current infrastructure. Its time to fund that state of good repair and time to do all of those things. As we move forward i always talk about the whole car analogy. Its like buying a car and not changing your oil for 10 years and expecting that car to continue to run. Its really ridiculous. I was at the board of directors meeting talking about how ludicrous it is for us to have to beg for funding to maintain infrastructure. 10. 8 alien trips 10. 8 billion trips we are begging to maintain our infrastructure in this country and its a shame. I was talking about this at the board of directors meeting. Usually i get work up and get passionate about this infrastructure thing. I was talking at an event and getting pretty passionate. I told myself to slow down or my taxes would be audited if i kept talking. [laughter] if i kept talking bad about our great leaders. This stand up for transportation day is very important. If you have not signed up, please do. I think we have a board out front and we will continue to do that. A couple of things i want to show i was at the transit ceo meeting. I talked to the transit ceos about signing up. At that transit ceo meeting in phoenix, we had mayor stanton there. Thats mayor stanton actually signing to have phoenix is a part as a part of the stand of transportation day. Everyone has a vital role in this. As i mentioned, 147 agencies and businesses from coast to coast have signed up. Look at that map. If you are not on that map who was not on the map . Youre not going to raise your hand. [laughter] weve got to fill up this map 1407 agencies and businesses and now is your chance of gravity and and sign up. A few things that i would mention in order to sign up for this. The first is act now. The second is identify your partners. Apta has a resource toolkit on the website where you can look and figure out who your partners are. We want to recruit all types of groups, bicyclist groups, environmentalists, seniors veterans students people with disabilities. In your areas come in your local areas, we want to engage everyone in this stand up for transportation day. The third piece is planning your event. A ribbon cutting, a rally, an employee roundtable, turning your buses into billboards sharing stats. The fourth piece is looking for active support. Apta has a resource toolkit on the website dividing messages resources and you can customize it to your area, talking points, suggested talking points, these kind of things. Please do that. Let me and my comments end my comments with another priority of mine. We talk about the funding. I was talking about this yesterday in another meeting. We talk a lot about the funding but i like to talk about the Career Pathways and growing our own qualified workforce. I was talking the other day if the money begins to flow i think we will get a longterm transportation bill this year. I really believe that because i dont think infrastructure apathy can last forever. I dont think dysfunction at the highest levels can last forever in terms of infrastructure. I do believe we will get a longterm bill. What i have talked about is if we get that longterm bill and if money and manna falls from heaven tomorrow and we have a longterm transportation bill, will we have the qualified workforce to build and rebuild this infrastructure in this country . Im not sure. Im not sure that we have the track maintainers or the signal folks are even the run cutters. Im not sure we have the qualified workforce in this country to maintain our infrastructure. This idea of holding Career Pathways for the hardest to fill positions in this interesting in this industry are very important because we have to grow our own and that includes in this Career Pathway community colleges, that includes trade schools, building this type of Career Pathway where we can grow our own. So when the money does flow, we will have a great pool of folks were already trained to do this work is much needed in this country, rebuilding ridges and highways and legacy systems and all of those things. So get on board. Lets get started and i hope to have 200 events by april 9 or on april 9 and i think we can do it. With that, please help me welcome aptas president and ceo michael mulanafy. Please give him a hand. [applause] good morning, everybody, how are we doing . Give fill a big hand. [applause] each year at this time, we gather in washington, d. C. To share the message of Public Transportation with our elected officials in congress to help them understand the important impact we have on the vitality of this nation. I am so thrilled to have all of you join us here today. Your commitment to come here to the Nations Capital and share our story is so important. Thank you for making an effort. Opportunity as we come together is to meet with our colleagues and share i he is and share concepts and influence decisionmakers. This year is more significant. This year is more pressing. Map 21 expires in a short 83 days. The president ial election is only 610 days away, not that far at all. The good news is we have a great message to bring to the administration and congress. It is americans want more Public Transportation. The numbers tell at all. Look at the figures for 2014 hot off the press last year, there were 10. 8 billion trips taken on Public Transportation. Say it with me 10. 8 billion. [applause] its outstanding. That is 101 million more trips that were taken more than last year. This is the highest Public Transportation ridership figure in 58 years. The last time ridership was this high, gasoline was . 23 per gallon. These are not extraordinary. The public revolution for Public Transportation is happening now and its happening all across the country. This phenomenon is not just in our largest cities. Its happening across the nation in cities large and small. Its not just on the coast. Some of the highest ridership happened in cities under 100,000. When you hear people ask, im in a small town, why does this matter to me . The ridership increases in cities under 100,000 was double the National Growth rate last year. This is it ordinary. There are great things happening. From san diego to nashville from harrisburg, illinois to bowling green, from washington to new york city people opted for Public Transportation in record numbers. Riders were telling us they want more Public Transportation. Now you need to let Congress Know that we need to make the investment in Public Transportation to meet this growing need. It is incumbent upon all of us to educate our legislators. They need to know that this nation must have a robust, multi modal surface transportation bill. We cannot continue to have shortterm extensions. For the last 10 years, we have had 23 shortterm extensions of the surface transportation bill. This is not how you build the greatest country in the world area this is not how you lead a national economy. This is shortterm thinking, this is not our country works. We need a big, longterm surface transportation bill, are you with me . Absolutely. When do we need it . Now, absolutely right. The other reason we need now is there is a president ial election coming and that will suck up the oxygen in the room and we need to focus now and make it happen now. You need to get up on the hell to make rings happen. How do we achieve our goals . Advocacy and local education. We could show the messages in washington, d. C. And hire us to be the experts but you need to share that local message in your town and community. It is so important. When you go up on that hill in the next couple of days, take this package with you. It is loaded with information to help you educate our members of congress and help them see that 10. 8 billion 10. 8 billion trips we have got going on in this country. You need to show them how this investment is paying off in growing demand and how we needed to continue to provide safe, reliable, Dependable Service each and every day. Congress does not need to go far to see troubling crumbling infrastructure. Look at the capitol dome. It happens where they work every day. Its time for you to help share the message how we need to make construction investment in our infrastructure. When you are up on the hill, some of them might ask you how can we pay for this robust Public Transportation bill . Certainly, its our job to explain surface transportation and why it is so vital to our nations infrastructure and our nations future. Congress, thats their job to find the resources. You may hear that policymakers are asking or will tell you that you should be grateful for the status quo. Its ok to get what you get and you should be thankful. What you need to say to them is good enough is not good enough. A short term bill is not doing it. We need a longterm transportation bill to operate a strong and secure Public Transportation system across this nation. You all in this room are the subject matter experts. If we are not up, we may need to make these investments, who will . Dont be shy or hold back. Let them know we need to make these investments. Some people will suggest that the money going to transit our diversion of those highway dollars and we need to get transit out and stop this diversion and then we could solve the nations i would problems. Dont you fall into that trap. Let them know that story is not correct. Reminder legislators that in 1983, president Ronald Reagan put forth a program to raise the federal gas tax. He called it a nickel for america. Four cents per bridges, roads, and highways and one cent for transit. That is the origin of the 80 20 split. The dollars that go to transit and the Highway Trust Fund and the mass transit account have always been there for transit. They have never been a diversion. Set the record straight its about a system working together. We are here to defend the system to make sure the system works well together. We have had a very long partnership. Partnerships are what makes the program work between passengers,s date, local, and federal governments. That is what makes our nation so great and makes our Transportation Systems work so well. Let us not forget it is an interdependent system. Our buses and trains take cars off the roadway so we can have the free flow of goods and products and services to run our roadway network. It all works together as a system. Removing us from the Highway Trust Fund is a bit like removing the steering will from a bus. It does not make any sense. It all has to Work Together. Dot has their own bill, a robust year bill called the grow america act. We may not agree with every single part of it. This bill does a great job of telling congress that we need to move in the right direction and that this stuff matters. We cannot do it alone. We have to Work Together. We are pleased that joining us at the Conference Today will be fta acting administrator Terese Mcmillan and joining her will be sarah feinberg. They will share the administrations positions and proposals and take your questions from the audience. Where also thrilled that joining us up or a human is on the stage will be two great leaders in the transportation field that work tirelessly in washington d. C. When you see me testify on capitol hill, if there is very often to people standing next to me. Janet kavinoki and dr. Pete tremayne who will help tell the story about how we have to Work Together to move the ball forward. The package of a surface transformation will transportation bill is a lengthy process. We gather the information in 2013. We put the data together. We brought it to the hill and we brought it to our partners so we could see together what those needs