Community Transportation Development Center

Founded in April 2001, the Community Transportation Development Center or Transportation Center develops and supports training and career ladder programs in public transit and other key transportation sectors with support from the US Department of Transportation. The Center is developing labor-management initiatives to upgrade the skills of current transit employees and of community members newly entering the transit workforce to meet the changing needs of this critical and growing industry. The goal is to expand transit skill training opportunities and upgrade existing career ladders into effective skill escalators - helping incumbent workers and new hires to have access to real career development opportunities.

The Transit Technology/Skills Program worked initially with five transit systems and their unions to assess needs, develop curricula, and pilot-test such curricula with incumbent workers, and also to develop strategies to expand these educational and partnership activities in the community as a whole. The Center has chosen San Francisco Municipal Railway as a partner for such a pilot.

The Transit Career Ladder Partnership brought the resources of the Center together with labor, management, community organizations and educational providers. The Center's resources, together with those of the SF Municipal Railway Improvement Fund, were used to begin these projects. But additional funding is needed to bring them into fruition.