California has no shortage of ambitious goals for transforming transit, but progress has been achingly slow. Large capital projects often take decades to build, and service among the state’s over 300 operators is poorly connected – the transit experience in California falls far short of world-class. In order for California to achieve its vision for a world-class rail network and seamless regional transit, with the ability to grow ridership by 10–15% annually, we'll need major governance and funding reforms.

At this webinar, we will take a look at the lessons California and the United States can learn from countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.

Panelists

• Dr. Jason Chang is a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering and director of Advanced Public Transport Research Center at National Taiwan University (NTU). Dedicated to sustainable transport development for more than 25 years, Dr. Chang continues leading his research team and international partners working to change our cities toward sustainable mobility in Taiwan, India, Indonesia, China and other countries around the world. His research areas include transit oriented development, active mobility, public transit, and more.

• Seung Lee is the author of S(ubstack)-Bahn, a blog focusing on the political economy and history of mass transit networks around the world. He has written extensively on the history of modern Japanese mass transit, along with focuses on South Korea, France, Ukraine, and other countries. Seung works in the public sector in the Bay Area and worked at BART for 5 years. Seung grew up taking public transit in Seoul and Los Angeles.

• Ian Griffiths is a Principal Consultant with CPCS, a transportation planning, strategy and management consulting firm, and is a co-founder and current board member of Seamless Bay Area. He was Seamless Bay Area’s Co-Executive director from 2019-2024, and previously he worked at BART and Metrolinx in Toronto, Canada as a transit station area planner. In 2024, Ian was the recipient of the Wendy Tao Smart Cities Scholarship, which allowed him to travel to South Korea and Taiwan to learn about what lessons California can learn from Asian transit systems - his findings are on Seamless Bay Area’s blog at www.seamlessbayarea.org/blog.