One year after a contracting scandal led to a governing shakeup at the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority’s governing body, the public transit agency once again finally has a full governing board.
Local transgender rights activist Mariah Moore, who was appointed by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, was sworn in to the board at the beginning of the monthly commissioners meeting for February on Tuesday (Feb. 25).
Moore, who is transgender, is executive director of House of Tulip, a New Orleans nonprofit that provides housing and other forms of support for transgender and gender-nonconforming community members. During her unsuccessful 2021 campaign for a seat on the New Orleans City Council, she ran on a platform of improving the quality of life of working-class New Orleanians, she noted in an interview after the board meeting.
Moore said she sees her appointment as a continuation of that work as an RTA commissioner, where she’ll oversee an agency responsible for providing a service that’s especially important to low-income residents.
“I also ran on a platform for public transportation and accessibility for low income folks and folks that live paycheck to paycheck so this is an extension of that,” Moore said. “This is a quality-of-life issue for me.”
Opening the meeting, board chair Fed Neal praised Moore for her work in the New Orleans community.
“This is gonna be an amazing and valuable addition to this organization and the board,” Neal said.
Moore is also the policy director at the Transgender Law Center, a national civil rights nonprofit, and the first transgender commissioner on the RTA’s board. She said her appointment to the board of a public agency, like the RTA, increases trans-visibility.
“During this time where we’re seeing the attempted erasure of our identities and our existence, it just further affirms that New Orleans is such a beautiful and sacred place,” Moore said, referring to legislation that has targeted trans people and other marginalized groups. “I do not take this role lightly. I take it with great responsibility knowing that this could open up the doors for so many other diverse folks to come behind me.”
Moore’s appointment marks the first time that all board seats have been filled with permanent members since recent changes were made to its composition.
Prior to August, the RTA board of commissioners was supposed to consist of eight members – five from Orleans Parish and three from Jefferson Parish, which was a member of the RTA.
The changes followed a scandal that left the agency’s board short of members and unable to conduct business for much of 2024. Early last year, The Times-Picayune reported on an internal RTA investigation that found a top staffer had approved about $1 million in payments to a contractor without the required board approval. Shortly after the report was published, all three members representing Jefferson Parish resigned from the board. Former New Orleans City Attorney Sunni LeBeouf, one of the city’s representatives, also resigned. The resignations left the board short of a quorum – the legally required number of members to conduct business – for nearly two months.
Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee made plans to leave the agency, but state law did not provide for an RTA member’s withdrawal at the time. Then in the spring, the Louisiana State Legislature approved bills allowing the parish to leave the agency and shrinking the board from eight members to seven.
During the board meeting, agency executives also updated commissioners on service changes due to parades related to Mardi Gras. As most of the parades on Sunday (Feb. 23) were rescheduled to Tuesday, the service adjustments for that day have been moved to reflect the change.
“The team is learning to be nimble,” RTA CEO Lona Edwards Hankins said.
Hankins said the agency has boosted ferry service and extended hours of operations on nights when parades roll.
In public comments, Courtney Jackson, executive director of transit advocacy organization Ride New Orleans provided the RTA board and top staff members with a packet outlining problems that public transportation users have identified with the agency’s communication and possible solutions for those problems.
“The barriers in accessing reliable and timely information about service changes, emergencies [and] detours are still impacting them negatively on a daily basis.” Jackson said. “Transit is not just a convenience for them, it is an absolute lifeline.”
Jackson said the RTA had lost riders’ trust and said transit users are challenging agency executives and commissioners to ride the buses and streetcars regularly.
Moore, who had been silent during the meeting said she would accept the challenge.
“I did once catch the bus every day to the French Quarter to get to work and so I know the historical barriers,” Moore said.
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