How do policies that make transit more equitable get implemented? That’s a question that Laurel Paget-Seekins, Leadership in Government Fellow at Open Society Foundations, is looking into. Laurel draws from her experiences as a transit advocate in Atlanta and former Assistant General Manager of Policy at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

In this episode, Laurel reflects on her time working with advocates in Boston to implement a low-fare youth pass, and her experience in Atlanta advocating alongside agency leadership to win more funding for bus service. Those collaborations led Laurel to think deeply about how the power to enact change is built from both the inside and the outside of government.

“How do we make sure that we're holding the government accountable while also trying to build trust in the institution of government? Part of that is understanding that our government institutions are essentially a collection of people who are managing a bunch of business processes, fiscal assets, and technology systems that are patched together through years of underinvestment. And so we have to get at those root problems, as well as the big policy questions to make government work.” - Laurel Paget-Seekins