On May 22, SPUR Transportation Policy Director Ratna Amin received the Woman of the Year award from the Women in Transportation Seminar San Francisco Chapter. Her remarks at the event, reprinted below, focused on the need for gender balance in the transportation planning and policy profession.
“Thank you to WTS for this award and congratulations to my fellow honorees. I so value the message WTS sends women like me. And thank you for recognizing the vital role that civic groups like SPUR play in the region.
One of my roles at SPUR is to be a conduit for transportation ideas. Every day I hear from people asking me to look at a proposal or speak on a panel, telling me about their expertise or telling me why I’m wrong. About 9 out of 10 of these communications come from men. (You know who you are!) This is how we end up with “man-els” (panels with no female speakers) and “bro-deos” (conferences dominated by male presenters).
Thought leadership in transportation is troublingly gender imbalanced. Half the ideas are missing from the conversation. And we really need more good ideas. One tool transportation planners use to advance the thinking in our profession is to imagine our ideal transit system and then draw a map of it. I have never received a fantasy transit map from a woman. Not one. And I have probably received 50 or 100 from men — no exaggeration.
My message isn’t for men to stop creating. Rather, I want more women in transportation to think of themselves as the designers of our region — not just the people who get things done. Please tell the world what you really think should happen. I know you all have enough to do already. But you are experts, what you have to say is absolutely worthwhile, and your fantasy transit maps are, too.
Thank you again to WTS. I’m so appreciative that I get to work with all of you.”