Women, leadership, and the transportation industry

Barbara Gray (BG): A key point to note about the City of Toronto is that working here is all about building and having a caring city. There are a number of projects the City is working on including:

a. Affordable Housing

BG: Building affordable housing is key and something the City is trying to ramp up quite considerably. In Seattle, people were living unhoused because the city and the private sector were unable to ramp up housing development quickly at all levels of affordability. What I learned early in my government career is that access to affordable housing is such a key piece of building and sustaining great cities.  People should be able to afford to live in a city and not have to over-expend their monthly income for housing or feel like they must live outside of the city and commute.

b. Building a reliable, accessible, and safe transportation network

BG: The City of Toronto is working with other levels of government to have a transit system that is reliable, accessible, well maintained, and safe. People want choices and options for daily travel, and currently many feel the need to have a car because many areas of the city are not set up for people to make all their trips via transit, walking or cycling. We are working aggressively to provide people with safe and reliable travel options, launching programs like the Vision Zero Road Safety Program in 2016 to make our streets safer for all—especially our most vulnerable road users like seniors, young people, and people with disabilities. It’s also important to support the over 50% of the downtown population that don’t own a car and use transit, walking and cycling for most of their trips.  Additionally, by 2030 we want to have connected cycling infrastructure that will support 100% of the population.

A reliable transportation network must include goods movement which has downstream impacts on pricing. Goods movement is a huge issue, so having more creative options for trying to get goods into and around the city is part of the agenda. Our freight and goods movement strategy that we launched in 2019 really focused on the quick wins and longer-term fixes to get freight to market and make our growing and increasingly congestion city more easily to navigate for freight operators.

The City is also making investments related to walking, cycling and transit. Anytime we invest in these types of projects, we are also helping with Canada’s climate action goals. The Transportation Services division is focused on advancing the City’s sustainability goals and the larger goal of having a healthier city, while making sure we get the best value for each dollar with our infrastructure projects.

BG: The United States and Canada have very different systems of governance. In the U.S., most cities are mayor-strong governments, meaning the division heads have a lot of authority.  The City of Toronto is a little different as all decisions go to City Council and the Mayor. These are just two different ways of doing things with good aspects of both processes.

One similarity between the City of Toronto and the City of Seattle is their commitment to collaboration with communities to ensure their work is aligned with community needs. I frequently get asked “how can we do projects faster?” While I understand we do need to work with pace, it is also important to ensure we work diligently with neighbourhoods to ensure the work we are doing is understood and accepted by the communities we serve.

As a woman in a male dominated field, it is key to ensure women have a seat at the table and that our voices get heard. Overall, we need to examine whether there is enough representation to help women envision themselves in a leadership position, and ask if we are building the right city for all the people who live there, regardless of gender, race, etc.

In addition to representation and leadership, more cities are looking to the experiences of women related to safety, access, affordability, recreation and developed policies and practices to improve the experience for women and families.

A great example globally is the City of Vienna in Austria. They want to be seen as being friendly to women and are changing and restructuring all their policies to achieve this. Women in leadership positions are at the forefront of collaboration for these policies. For example, they have more lighting at night to make women feel safer. They are also making sure people don’t have to wait too long for transit. These are good models we need to emulate, and we are moving towards this direction, even in Toronto.

BG: Representation is key. When I speak at various events, I am often the only woman on the stage. That representation is motivational to people. It is also imperative that we bring more young women into the profession and it is starting to happen.

I think women are uniquely suited to dealing with complicated issues that span across multiple areas. Women tend to be excellent multitaskers and that’s the benefit from having a strong representation of women at the senior leadership level. At the City of Toronto, we’ve had mostly women in our senior leadership team for a sustained period of time, even though a number of retirements have moved the balance back to male leadership.

It’s important to note that leadership is hard, draining, and stressful. There are times in your life and your career when you are well suited to take it on but sometimes it isn’t the right moment. Not everyone has the level of support to balance family and work. But there are more and more women who are looking at alternate models of support to successfully take on leadership positions.

We are also seeing a lot of influx of women coming into elected office. Unfortunately, we often see women being criticized on a personal level compared to their male counterparts. If we look at politics overall, there have been a number of instances in the last five years, where women leaders and city counselors have felt mounting pressure and threats from the community, draining their ability to stay in the role for too long. It is a volatile time to be in leadership right now but that makes it even more important to have strong voices at the table.  I’m so inspired by our current Mayor and the women on City Council. They seem to fit so much into every hour of the day—work, family, volunteering and really showing up for communities across the city.

Finally, your team is your best resource. They are the people who support you as a leader and I believe that I have a responsibility to help them do their best work.  No one wants to work for an awful boss, so don’t be one. You can be tough, technically competent, make tough decisions, and be a solid decision maker while still supporting people. Those two things do not have to be distinct.