“We may see some short-term pain, but in the long run, I think it's going to stabilize itself…and public transportation is going to be a big piece of that. On our first BRT, we saw almost 100-150 million dollars in economic development as a result of us putting a BRT line on our major corridor." As COVID-19 affects public transit dramatically, we're proud to present a special edition of Transit Unplugged led by transit evangelist and Trapeze VP Paul Comfort. In today's episode, we hear from Shawn Donaghy, CEO of C-Tran, a new Mike's Minute on the power of kindness and mentorship, and a message from Elea Carey on strategic communication planning. Shawn Donaghy joins Comfort's Corner to provide an inside look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted C-Tran, and what the agency plans to do to move forward. Before the pandemic, C-Tran was experiencing a year-over-year increase in ridership. When the pandemic hit, they experienced a 40% decrease in local service ridership. Now, this has started to improve, as they are seeing a 25-30% decrease in local service ridership, which speaks to the dependability on transit ridership in the local region. Moving forward, they're looking at the first six months of 2021, and the projects that were in place to improve quality of life for the community at large.