Nuria Fernandez (Center) received this year's Latinos In Transit Founders Award honoree for her dedication, vision, and unwavering commitment to transportation equity.
Photo: Latinos In Transit
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Federal Transit Administrator Nuria I. Fernandez is retiring, effective February 24, the FTA announced.
Fernandez was named deputy administrator in January 2021, upon the inauguration of President Joe Biden, and was later nominated to be Administrator.
During her three-year tenure at the helm of FTA, she led the agency in making transformative investments and created policies that made public transportation stronger and safer nationwide.
Championing Transit Funding
Fernandez championed FTA’s successful implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s (BIL) public transportation funding and programs, which included managing an annual mass transit budget that increased from $13 billion in fiscal year 2021 to $21 billion in fiscal year 2022 and establishing four new BIL competitive grant programs totaling $2.7 billion over the three years.
During her tenure, more than $4.8 billion was invested in American-made, zero-emission transit buses to support a more environmentally sustainable transportation system. She also established the Transit Workforce Center to provide America’s frontline transit workers with resources to increase safety in their operations, while growing their skills to be ready to operate and maintain the transit of the future.
A leader in the advancement of BIL provisions that would result in safer transit operations across the country, Fernandez instituted FTA’s wide-ranging and productive measures to improve safety in public transit, particularly focusing on both short- and long-term policies to protect America’s transit workers from assault on buses and trains and improve passenger and worker safety on transit rail systems.
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Since 2021, Fernandez signed 11 Capital Investment Grant program Small Starts agreements, for projects under $400 million dollars, in:
Vancouver, Wash.
San Bernardino, Calif.
Pittsburgh; Pa.
Austin; Texas.
Indianapolis; Ind.
Albany; N.Y.
Raleigh; N.C.
Portland, Ore.
Three projects in the Seattle metro area.
Additionally, she advanced funding for four multi-year grant agreements in the New Starts program, including projects in Phoenix; Minneapolis; Madison, and the largest CIG grant ever signed, for the Second Avenue Subway Phase II project in New York City.
In October, FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez was on hand to open C-Tran's new Mill Plain Transit Center.
Photo: C-Tran
Additional Milestones
Shortly after rejoining FTA in 2021, Fernandez took over leadership of the federal transit response to the impacts of the COVID-19 public health emergency on transit. This included a focus on maintaining safe travel for the transit workforce that moved frontline workers to and from their jobs; implementing transit practices that reduced COVID-19-related illness and fatalities; and coordinating the award of more than $70 billion in federal COVID emergency recovery funds.
Fernandez was also responsible for overseeing the strengthening of the FTA workforce, leading the growth and reorganization on the agency through resources in the BIL that helped FTA deliver on its mission of improving America’s communities through public transportation, including investments in safety, research, oversight, and technical assistance.
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Fernandez’ inclusive and results-based approach won praise from FTA stakeholders and the agency’s workforce.
“Public service is an honor and a privilege, and I am eternally grateful to President Biden and Secretary Buttigieg for granting me the opportunity to guide the dedicated and professional public servants at FTA,” said Fernandez. “Public transportation has been a significant part of my professional life for more than three decades. I have had the distinction to have built a career serving in various roles in this industry and across this country. But, as I often say, our jobs are what we do, not who we are. As I leave what I do, I look forward to spending more time with my family and friends, who have truly created so much of who I am.”
Upon Administrator Fernandez’s departure from FTA on February 24, FTA Deputy Administrator Veronica Vanterpool will serve as acting administrator.
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