We spoke to Jay Flynn, officially “Bus Lead” but generally known as one of the TransitMatters gadflies. Jay worked in government for years before becoming a transportation advocate with TransitMatters. We’ve observed that TransitMatters seems to be good at holding feet to the fire. Flynn laughed and said, “Speaking truth to power.”

TransitMatters looks at big government projects in a way that a reasonable taxpayer might if they had more information and background on infrastructure planning and budgeting.

We asked Flynn to explain how the team looks at train scheduling to find ways to make improvements to service quickly and cheaply, with a focus on their work related to the East-West Rail Study in Massachusetts.

Train Time is hosted by Karen Christensen, founder of the Train Campaign and Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Publishing Group and a writer specializing in sustainability and community with a focus on China. She was senior editor of the Encyclopedia of Community (SAGE), and is a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania Press and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. She founded the Train Campaign in 2011 as a project of Barrington Institute, sister nonprofit to Berkshire Publishing Group.