Throughout the month of November the Charlotte City council announced a total of 27 members to serve on a new public transit board. Those members will serve four-year terms and may serve a maximum of two terms.
They’ll oversee the recently developed transit authority and the use of an approved one cent sales tax increase during their terms. Current and future members will work with the multi-billion dollar transportation plan over the next 30 years in a continuing effort to provide reliable, world class public transportation.
Cameron Pruette is a local activist known for his work with the Democratic party and the LGBTQ community, as well as his position as executive director of the Freedom Center for Social Justice.
Pruette was recently named among the final appointments of November to the transit board. He’s a confirmed public transit rider, and believes that combined with his background in human resources led to the appointment.
In an interview with Charlotte television station WCNC’s news department, he talked about what his priorities would be in the role.
“I think immediately we have to think about how do you structure 27 folks to represent and effectively make decisions.
“My priorities will be on that and a better bus plan. We won’t see new rail for many, many years but we can give you better bus service within three to four. We can build 2,000 bus shelters within 5 years. And so my focus is on making sure those projects are successful so we can gain trust in the system for those bigger projects.”
Pruette also confirmed what he hopes to see accomplished during his time on the board.
“I would like to see … trust in the system has increased dramatically. I want to make sure that everybody feels happy hopping on a bus, hopping on a light rail. I want to make sure that our bus drivers and operators feel safer. I want to see ridership increase wildly. I want there to be stories about how no one thought ridership would rebound the way it [did].”