2025 Power Players in Transportation

As the CEO of JFK Millennium Partners (JMP), Steve Thody is responsible for the $4.2 billion JFK Terminal 6 redevelopment, overseeing project delivery, operational performance and community relations, from construction phases through operations commencement in 2026. Mr. Thody also oversees JMP’s current management of JFK Terminal 7 and leads all shareholder and stakeholder relations. He previously served as JMP’s COO until January 2024 and has over 20 years’ worth of experience in the aviation industry.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
Policymakers should ensure access to different modes of transportation in every New York community. By creating a well-connected network, New Yorkers can move seamlessly through their spaces, bridging gaps between neighborhoods, creating more inclusive communities, and unlocking new opportunities. This is especially critical for connections to the airport, allowing those who live and work here and those who visit to connect more easily.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025?
The JFK redevelopment is a historic $19 billion investment led by Governor Hochul and PANYNJ Executive Director Rick Cotton. It is a multi-year, multi-developer effort, and I look forward to the completion of our part with the phase one opening of Terminal 6 in early 2026. When complete in 2028, T6 will be a boutique, 10-gate, premium terminal offering seamless connections to JetBlue’s Terminal 5. It will create an entirely new guest experience at JFK.

What is the best advice you have received from a mentor?
Make yourself replaceable. At first, it seems counter-intuitive, but I’m a fan of continuous improvement and making things better than they were before. To make yourself truly replaceable, you’re not just leading your team well but encouraging them to grow into their next role. In turn, the team collectively improves – freeing up your time to think about the next challenge. It can be a positive cycle for everyone involved and can flow throughout the organization.

In his 16th year at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) Airports, Bradley Tollefson leads URW’s commercial developments at JFK New Terminal One, JFK Terminal 8, LAX and Chicago O’Hare. With 25 years of experience in development, design, construction, and real estate finance, Tollefson oversees development and operations at airport commercial programs across the country. He holds an undergraduate degree in construction management from the University of Florida and a master’s in real estate finance from NYU.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
To help the United States compete globally, policymakers should enact policies that require U.S. airports to meet or exceed benchmark customer satisfaction ratings to keep pace with our international peers. That customer-centric focus combined with steady public and private transportation investment channeled into U.S. airports will greatly serve domestic passengers as well as our international guests thereby driving strong job growth, tourism and tax revenue.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025? 
In 2025, I’m looking forward to the continued transformation of JFK Airport, particularly Terminal 8 and the iconic 2.4M sq. ft. New Terminal One. The entirety of the JFK Terminal 8 commercial program is being reimagined and opening in phases set to be completed in 2025. I’m honored to be involved in raising the bar for JFK’s millions of domestic and international customers and doing it in a way that benefits the surrounding Queens community.

What is the best advice you have received from a mentor? 
Be bold. Do difficult things. Have fun while you are doing it and take care of people along the way.

Jamie Torres-Springer has served as president of MTA’s Construction & Development agency since 2021. He is responsible for better, faster, and cheaper delivery of the MTA’s capital program for subways, buses, commuter railroads, bridges, and tunnels. Jamie oversees the full capital delivery process from project planning and packaging through procurement, delivery and close-out. Under his leadership, the agency has helped make the system more resilient and accessible for millions of daily riders.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
Running the MTA’s complex system requires regular investment. Our elected partners have continually shown their support for more reliable and safe transit and they have the opportunity to further that support through fully funding our 2025-2029 Capital Plan.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025?
The MTA is completing accessibility projects across the region at an unprecedented pace and we will do even more in 2025. I look forward to bringing accessibility features like new elevators, ramps, and other passenger experience improvements to even more subway and railroad stations.

Matt Walsh leads Waymo’s policy efforts for the Eastern U.S. as state policy manager. In his role at Waymo, Matt engages with state and local stakeholders on AV regulatory and policy matters. Before Waymo, Matt was vice president at CMW Strategies, where he was responsible for leading legislative and regulatory lobbying efforts for the firm’s transportation clients. Before joining the private sector, Matt held several senior positions within New York state and city government.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
Policymakers play an important facilitating role in transportation issues. Strengthening transportation systems often requires complicated trade-offs that solicit a lot of feedback from a wide array of stakeholders. Lawmakers can ensure we put progress over process by facilitating comprehensive discussions that evenly weigh the feedback from all stakeholders, and put the benefits of a better transportation system for New Yorkers first.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025?
Right now New York State is falling behind half the country when it comes to having the regulations in place that enable the safe deployment of autonomous vehicles. I have high hopes that policymakers in Albany will come together this year to pass comprehensive AV deployment regulations that will bring the technology’s unprecedented safety benefits to New York’s roads.

What is the best advice you have received from a mentor?
Speed kills

Michael Woloz is a longtime lobbyist and transportation advocacy leader who has worked for 25 years to advance sustainability, accessibility and innovation in the sector including taxi technology, micromobility, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicle charging and trucking. Michael operates CMW Strategies, a top-ten lobbying firm based in New York City that is well-known for technology, real estate, nonprofits, arts and culture and minority small business advocacy.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
Allow for innovation. Remove barriers to entry. Make the streets friendlier for truck loading and safer for cyclists.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025?
The expansion of the successful e-scooter program into other parts of the city.

What is the best advice you have received from a mentor?
Always make a decision.

Tom Wright is president and CEO of Regional Plan Association (RPA), the nation’s oldest independent metropolitan research, planning and advocacy organization. As president, Tom spearheaded RPA’s landmark Fourth Regional Plan (2017), which proposed 61 recommendations to reform public institutions; modernize transportation systems; address climate change; and provide affordable, livable communities for the region’s residents. Tom now oversees the implementation of the plan’s major ideas, including the transformative congestion pricing program, Gateway and Penn Station, and more.

How can policymakers support the transportation industry?
When you consider the major transit projects that have been completed in the last decade –#7 to Hudson Yards, Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway, Moynihan Train Hall, the World Trade Center PATH terminal, East Side Access – you realize we are living through a transit renaissance. Policymakers need to recognize and embrace this tectonic shift and support these efforts so that we can build the regional infrastructure we need for the next century.

Is there a transportation improvement or project that you hope to see completed in 2025?
Congestion pricing has the potential to generate billions for mass transit and reduce traffic congestion in the region’s core. Even now that it has gone into effect, we need to monitor and calibrate the system to produce the desired results. Congestion pricing is a powerful tool to improve communities and invest in infrastructure, but it is only as effective as we make it.

What is the best advice you have received from a mentor?
A week before I graduated from college, I had no job and no clue what I was going to do. I had studied architecture and public policy, but couldn’t see myself in either field. I had a chance to meet an architect and urban designer who was leading an emerging movement called New Urbanism. She asked me if I had ever considered city planning as a profession. “What’s that?” was my reply.