Justin Stuehrenberg GM of Madison Metro and his team used COVID as the impetus to finally put a long-planned system redesign into motion and completed it in June 2023. Since then they've seen a 15% increase in ridership. Justin and Paul talked about how his new network works, how geography figured into it, and the new bus rapid transit (BRT) lines coming soon that will use battery electric buses charged en route with overhead pantographs.

Also in this episode:

• Being part of city government--the good and bad
• Working with multiple city councils for approvals and funding
• Justin's path from designing airplane engines to transit engineering and planning.

Coming up next week...

It's episode 300! Yes, we're celebrating 300 episodes with the ThinkTransit CEO Roundtable, covering the most pressing issues in transit today with four of the industry’s most influential CEOs.

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• Paul Comfort, host and producer
• Julie Gates, executive producer
• Tris Hussey, editor and writer
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00:00 Welcome to Transit Unplugged

00:15 Introducing Justin Stuenberg and Madison Metro Transit

01:38 Madison's Unique Transit Challenges and Solutions

05:13 Funding and Operational Structure of Madison Metro

07:03 Revolutionizing Transit: Bus Network Redesign and BRT Implementation

18:15 Looking Ahead: Future Projects and Personal Insights

21:43 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged