Building Coalitions to Support Public Transit
5/21/2025
At APTA’s 2025 Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) praised public transportation executives for their resiliency, which has allowed transit to return almost to normal in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, and urged them to think beyond urban and suburban communities as they continue to provide safe, affordable, accessible transportation for businesses and passengers.
“It is so encouraging to see that public transit ridership has rebounded to about 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels across all modes,” Sen. Smith said. “This is happening even though traditional office work has not yet returned to normal—not yet. And I think that this is just a sign of how resilient you are, and also how essential transit is to our economy.”
The senator, who is the Ranking Member of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development, played a key role in advocating for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Earlier this year, she was one of a handful of senators who reintroduced a bipartisan bill to cut red tape and increase domestic bus manufacturing by allowing more flexibility for local transit systems making bus purchases.
Smith stressed the importance of reauthorizing federal legislation to support the transportation sector, but said that it is important not to limit efforts to fund transit in urban and suburban centers. “I do a lot of work on rural transit, and I’m hoping to accomplish some good things for rural transit in this reorganization,” she said.
“I know that most of you represent larger communities, more urban communities or suburban communities, but I hope that you can find common cause with rural transit as well, because I think that this is a way to help build out a bigger, broader coalition, which is what we need to do to get the reauthorization done—a coalition that’s built out over geographic and political differences.”