Thank You, Jeff Tumlin

It’s a new year, and in our first episode of 2025, we take a look at the tenure of San Francisco Director of Transportation Jeff Tumlin. Director Tumlin announced in mid-December that he would step down from his position at the end of the month. We spend this episode speaking with him about his five years with the SFMTA and with other agency staffers about working with him. 

Transcript

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MELISSA CULROSS, HOST: For the last five years, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has been led by Director of Transportation Jeff Tumlin.

JEFF TUMLIN, (FORMER) DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION: Transportation is the best, fastest way to make good change in the world. 

MELISSA: Welcome to Taken with Transportation, the SFMTA’s official podcast. I’m your host Melissa Culross, and it is January 2025…so, we have just said goodbye to Director Tumlin. Jeff announced in mid-December that he would not renew his contract and instead would step down from the Director of Transportation position. In this episode, we talk with him and other staff about his time at the agency. All of these interviews were recorded within a week of that announcement that Jeff would be leaving.

We’re outside on South Van Ness Avenue near the SFMTA offices and steps away from the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit…or BRT…lanes that opened in 2022 and have made transit along the Van Ness corridor faster and more reliable. We first ask Jeff about what brought him to the SFMTA.

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: So, I was in consulting, doing really well. It was easy. It was lucrative. It was fun. It was occasionally glamorous. And then I made the terrible mistake of doing a ten-day meditation retreat. To all of your listeners, let me just recommend: Do not ever do an intense mediation retreat because it may have the side effect of giving you excessive clarity about what’s important and what’s not important. And so, one of the things that I realized is that it was time to serve. And they’d been trying to recruit me to the SFMTA job, and I’d said “No.” And then I did this retreat, and finally I said, “Yes.” And they didn’t believe me. You know, the MTA Board members at the time. And so, they made me promise out loud twice that if I took the job that I would stay for the full five years of my contract.

MELISSA: And almost immediately, the city and world around it changed.

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: I started this job on Dec. 15, 2019. Three months later, we were in lockdown. And leading up to that, you know, I was going to the emergency briefings with the mayor about, you know, what was happening in China and the first case that happened in Washington State. And it was like being in a science fiction movie. And because of the culture not just of the SFMTA but of every other agency in San Francisco, this idea that we are all in service, I was in awe watching the mayor, in particular, but all of the other department heads realize that we all had to step it up in a really big way. And so, it was amazing watching the, you know, the emergency operations center come together. But it was particularly amazing watching our people show up even as we were watching literally dozens of transit operators in New York City die of COVID. It was a really hard time, and we have not actually had the time and space to process what we went through. How scary those first three weeks, in particular, were.

MIKE CHEN: I’m Mike Chen, and I’m a member of the SFMTA Board of Directors. I’ve had a lot of respect for Jeff Tumlin since he came on to the agency. As people may remember, in 2018, 2019, Muni had a lot of troubles. Jeff Tumlin, you know, he came on during COVID. He came on during a lot of other really big challenging times. And being able to steer the agency to kind of like be very clear about trade-offs, and, and making sure that we can deliver on our core promises for riders. I’m really heartened to see, for example, like, the rider satisfaction surveys. And I think people have noticed on the street that Muni is more reliable, that the buses are moving faster, more frequently, more reliably. And I think people are able to feel and appreciate the difference. And so, being able to navigate the day-to-day while also having a vision of where transportation should be in the future, has been, I think, one of Jeff Tumlin’s, like, strong points. And I hope we keep that in future leadership.

SOPHIA SIMPLICIANO: This is Sophia Simpliciano. I am the executive secretary-slash-confidential secretary to our director of transportation. I’ve served a few, including Ed Reiskin. I’ve assisted with Deborah Johnson when she was acting. And I’ve helped out with Nat Ford. It has been such a pleasure working with Jeff, and I’m sorry to see him go. But I am excited for him. For Jeff to have come during a challenging time, in and of itself, and then have COVID come and sneak up on us and bring us a whole set of new challenges, was interesting. And he saw us through it, and he’s opened the door for us to look at things another way. And it feels like there’s still sunshine on our horizon. It doesn’t feel like a sunset. So, that’s always a plus. 

MELISSA: We mentioned that we are standing with Jeff near the Van Ness BRT lanes. This seems like the perfect setting to ask him if there are any accomplishments he feels particularly proud of.

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: There are so many things. There’s the whole suite of projects, and it’s an integrated suite of projects that have allowed Muni to be faster, more frequent and more reliable than it has been in decades. You know, we have, what now, 75 miles of transit-only lanes in a tiny, seven-by-seven-mile city. Watching Muni perform so well is so delightful as somebody who has been riding the bus every week for 30-odd years. There’s also, like, there’s another suite of projects that I think is led by the work that we did together with Rec-Park and the mayor on JFK Promenade. And watching the whole city come out and fill that space every day and to see so much joy, so many children, so many seniors out in Golden Gate Park, rain or shine, is just delightful.

BRION HILDEBRAND, MUNI OPERATOR: Hi, I’m Brion Hildebrand. I’ve been an operator for eight years, and I currently drive the M, the J and the L lines. I really feel like Mr. Tumlin did a good job with Muni. Like putting out more transit lanes so it’s easier for us to, um, take the people to their destinations in a more timely manner. And I like the, uh, respect, he shows to all of the workers. And I did, uh, meet him a few times. He was pretty, uh, nice. 

MELISSA: Above and beyond specific projects, Jeff says the most important things to him during his tenure were the people who work at the SFMTA and the culture of the agency, which has shifted over the last five years. 

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: I don’t want to take too much credit for changing the culture. I feel like what we did was uncover something really beautiful that was already here but had a bit hidden. And we needed to reveal hat. We needed to help people find the joy in fixing broken things. And that joy was already here. We needed to remove the fear and let people tap their natural ingenuity and risk-taking and collegiality in order to make things work better. And give people the right amount of space to make mistakes so long as they were really transparent about those mistakes and told others and communicated to the public so that we’d learned from those mistakes. But the aspect of the MTA culture that I love the most is the fact that everyone here understands that we are in service and how lucky we are that our work is so deeply meaningful. That we provide direct service to the public and every member of the public every single day. And we make a profound difference in the lives of people who have the fewest choices, who are the most vulnerable. And really building those qualities at the center of the SFMTA culture is by far the greatest accomplishment of the last five years. And I think we wouldn’t have been able to do it, except for the worst of COVID. That people showed up for work every day because they knew their work was meaningful has changed everyone’s view about who we are and why.

MAIA SMALL: Hi, I’m Maia Small. I’m the planning director at SFMTA, and I’ve been at the agency for about two years. There are a couple things that I’ve really appreciated about Director Tumlin. One of them is maybe a little bit unusual, which is that he and I both have worked in the consulting world for a long time. So, we have the experience of being in the outside world, and then we now have the experience of being inside of government, and we’ve done that both in a couple different ways. But there are moments where I feel like he maybe understands better than almost anyone else the very specific challenges and other ways of doing things and how hard it is in government to do things. And I would say the other thing is something that he says a lot. And when I really took him up on it, he really came through. And that was that Director Tumlin has really said, “I want you to push back. I want you to tell me what you really think. And I want you to really, like, you know, challenge me sometimes in what I’m saying to you.” And we took him up on that in the Biking and Rolling Plan. And, you know, there are times where your director feels like they are telling you exactly what they want. And then this was an instance where he really listened, and he really opened up the conversation. It became very creative. It became much more back-and-forth. And we really feel the project got a lot better for it.

MELISSA: So, what will Jeff miss now that his time at the agency is done.

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: Overwhelmingly, the thing that I will miss most is the people and watching the people develop. I mean, I was able to work 60 to 80-hour weeks every week for five years largely because of the way the people kept me inspired every single day and watching them grow. I mean, the leadership development that we have seen across every single team is so beautiful to me and is one of the reasons why I am confident that now is exactly the right time for me to make my departure. You know, this agency is 115 years old. Like, we are simply stewards, and a big part of any manager and especially any executive’s job is training up the next generations to rise up and to do a better job than we did. I will miss that.

AMMEE ALVIOR: My name is Ammee Alvior. I have been with the agency for well over 26 years, and I’m currently the Customer Experience project manager. Jeff, in the many years I’ve been here, he’s my 11th Director. And Jeff exemplified the kind of leadership that I would follow and work hard for and wanna accomplish his visions because they become my vision, as well. Because he provided hope. He provided inclusivity. He provided me, personally, a journey and the kind of professional development through mentorship that I’ve not received from that level of an organization this large, right? So, he’s super down to earth, very grounded. And I am going to terribly miss him, but of course I’m happy for him because he deserves this break. I’m sure it’s, it was a lot. But the biggest impact is that he changed our culture, and that’s hard to do in a public agency. And so, I am super grateful for him being here, and just the large impact that he’s left with myself and the agency. 

VIKTORIYA WISE: I’m Viktoriya Wise. I’m currently the director of Streets at SFMTA, but in one of my stints at the agency, I was also Jeff’s chief of staff for the majority of his tenure. I think that we all know that Jeff is very passionate about San Francisco streets and San Francisco transit. But what I also know about Jeff is that he is just as passionate, if not more, about staff development and mentorship. And he has been instrumental in working with many of the people in our organization across all kinds of divisions and teams to really grow our workforce and to share some of his skills with our managers and others, particularly around communication, around strategic thinking about how to solve very difficult problems and how to innovate and how to be brave in the face of trying something new and not being afraid to fail. So, his mentorship of many, many staff in our organization leaves us and in turn, San Franciscans in a really good place. And I have, personally, just tremendous, deep gratitude for how much of himself he has given to this organization and to me, personally. 

MELISSA: Even though he has left the SFMTA, Jeff continues to be passionate about San Francisco transportation and the work we do.

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: There is no better place to make a difference than in municipal government. Particularly right now, where things are so divisive at the national level, municipal government anywhere is where it’s at. And if you wanna make a difference in climate or in safety or equity or economic recovery, there’s no better place than municipal transportation. Transportation is the best, fastest way to make good change in the world. 

MELISSA: And finally, what will Jeff do now that he is San Francisco’s former director of transportation?

DIRECTOR TUMLIN: One of the things about working so many hours every week for five years is that it is clear that the only thing that is next for me is a very long break. I plan to take at least six months off in order to recover and figure out what’s next. And in the meantime, don’t know, don’t care what is next. We’ll figure that out later.

MELISSA: Thank you for joining us on Taken with Transportation. We’re a production of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and you can find the latest episodes at SFMTA.com-slash-Podcast, as well as Apple, Spotify, our YouTube channel or wherever you listen. I’m Melissa Culross. Be well and travel well.