AS A PROJECT MANAGER IN METRO
Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit/Small Starts
Project Offi ce, Katie Roth is now leading
eff orts to better serve existing customers
and attract new riders by bringing
faster, more frequent bus service to a
dozen of the Twin Cities’ busiest transit
corridors. Under Roth’s leadership, the
region’s fi rst rapid bus line opened in
2016, leading to an immediate increase
in bus ridership in the corridor.
Roth’s career began in 2006 as in intern
in Metro Transit’s Service Development
Department where she studied the
eff ects of the state’s fi rst light-rail line.
Th e internship confi rmed her desire to
work in transportation and to a role as a
senior transit planner at SRF Consulting
Group Inc. At SRF, Roth helped lead a
year-long study of service and facility
improvements in corridors with the
highest bus ridership in the Twin Cities.
Travel times in these corridors will
be improved by up to 25 percent through
a combination of transit signal priority,
wider stop spacing, enhanced buses with
front and rear entries and off -board fare
Katie Roth
Project Manager,
Bus Rapid Transit
Metro Transit
48 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
Fact:
She baked bagels
to pay the bills
while working in
her first unpaid
internship at
Metro Transit.
MassTransitmag.
com/12356188
payment and ticket vending machines.
Her work on this study brought Roth
back to Metro Transit where she led
the planning, engineering and implementation
of the region’s fi rst rapid bus
line, the A Line. As a project lead, Roth
brought multiple departments together
to develop policies for training, scheduling
and operations prior to the A Line’s
June 2016 opening.
In 2017, the A Line was recognized
by WTS Minnesota with an Innovation
Transportation Solutions Award, recognizing
the A Line’s success and the
leadership roles played by nearly three
dozen women at Metro Transit and its
consultant Kimley-Horn.
“I think the most challenging part of my job is a fun
challenge: to make the case to people who maybe don’t
ride transit every day or don’t understand the impact,
to make the case to why investing in bus service really
matters. And in a time of constrained resources and
everybody fighting for the same public dollars, trying to
make it clear what the investment in transit is. It’s a big
challenge, but one that is an increasingly fun thing to do.”
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