After earning his MBA, Joe Calabrese began his public transit career at the Central New York RTA (Centro) by intentionally learning from the bottom up. This allowed him to gain valuable experience in all facets of the industry. Throughout his career, Calabrese has strongly believed in improving the image of public transit by providing first-class service to customers.

Fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit, and with the realization that the industry lacked the ability to provide good customer information, Calabrese left Centro in 1986 to become co-founder of MetroVision, an organization that provides a real-time information platform for a number of the largest public transit agencies in the U.S. He returned to Centro in 1993 as Executive Director and President, with a focus on improving the image of the agency and enhancing customer service.

In 2000, Calabrese took the helm of the Greater Cleveland RTA, with an early task of leading the $200 million HealthLine BRT, the first nonrail project to receive FTA New Starts funding. This $9 billion economic driver has been credited with having the highest ROI of any public transit project of any mode in North America.

Calabrese was the first to champion the sale of naming rights sponsorships for public transit assets, and to offer a “ride happy or ride free” customer service guarantee, earning RTA the Lexus Customer Service Award. He felt strongly that leveraging best practices of the nation’s most successful companies was critical, leading to the adoption of programs such as “Transit-Stat,” and earning both ISO and Malcolm Baldrige certifications.

While at Cleveland, RTA was named by APTA in 2007 as the Outstanding Public Transportation System and Calabrese was named the APTA Outstanding Public Transportation Manager in 2008.

Calabrese was a key member of FTA’s BRT Taskforce, implemented several high-profile BRT projects, and soon became the industry spokesman for this mode. He urged APTA to help support BRT, leading to the establishment of the APTA BRT Committee, which he chaired for many years.

For APTA, Calabrese has chaired several other committees and has been an active participant on many more. He has also been a member of the APTA Board of Directors and chaired the Metropolitan Rail Discussion Group (MRDG).

Calabrese has served as President of both the New York State and Ohio Public Transit Associations and was an integral member of Board Leadership of the Transportation Learning Center. An extremely effective spokesperson for public transportation, he has testified numerous times before Congress and other legislative bodies on transit issues. Today, he continues to help others by sharing his transit system and BRT experiences as an employee of AECOM.