Public Transportation Career Day: Meet the RTA's Kevin Stanciel

Today is National Public Transportation Career Day, a national workforce development initiative created by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) that introduces K-12 students to careers in public transit. We commend APTA for developing this program that informs and supports the next generation of transit riders and employees.

Along those lines, we thought it might be interesting to share the career paths that brought a few of us to our current positions at the RTA. We’d like to tell the story of three of those employees today.

Earlier today, we introduced you to Mobility Outreach Coordinators Kristen Salkas and Beth Daly. Now, we’d like you to meet Division Manager of Regional Coordination Kevin Stanciel.

Kevin has worked at the RTA for almost eight years. The RTA wasn’t his first stop in a career in public transportation. Kevin worked at CTA for 11 years and the knowledge and experience he gained there is a real asset to us at the RTA. In his current role, he works on several RTA programs, including Interagency Signage and Transit Signal Priority. The signage program helps ensure that riders can move easily around our region, going from Metra to CTA or Pace to Metra. Our regional system is complex and these signs greatly improve ease of travel for many riders. Transit Signal Priority is an innovative technology that reduces dwell time at traffic signals for transit vehicles by holding green lights longer or shortening red lights when buses are behind schedule. CTA and Pace are currently implementing TSP in several of the region’s corridors.

We asked Kevin if he has enjoyed his years working in public transportation and here’s what he told us:

“Yes. My years at CTA help me view things from the Service Board as well as the customer perspective. I travel a lot and compare our transit system to other US and European systems. We have a better system than most people think. Do you know we have the largest US system that provides real time information for all its services? Do you know we are one of a handful of worldwide cities with 24 hour rail service? These are few of the facts I’ve learned being in transit for 20 years.”

Kevin also worked in the City of Chicago’s Department of the Environment, a department whose functions have now been merged into the planning department.

“I worked in open space planning and cleaning up brownfields. Government is great work because you get to work for the public and have a positive effect on your neighbors, friends and family.”