2014 Awards

Meet the 2014 MTC Award Winners

October 22, 2014
The recent passing of former state Senator John F. Foran at the age of 84 weighed heavily on our hearts and minds as we prepared for this year’s Transportation Awards ceremony. An early champion of regionalism, Foran was the author of the 1970 bill that created MTC and is thought of as the “father” of MTC. His contributions to Bay Area transportation are commemorated with the Foran Legislative Award, begun in 1986 upon his retirement from public service. This year’s recipient is U.S. Congressman George Miller, retiring at the end of 2014 after 40 years on Capitol Hill. You can read about Miller’s lasting impacts on the Bay Area transportation network in the column to the right, and see a tribute to Senator Foran at mtc.ca.gov/foran.

Our four Special Awards deserve some special attention. Each award is named after a talented and dedicated MTC staffer, adviser or commissioner who put his or her mark on the agency. Charles Davis, the singing bus driver, brightens passengers’ days as he tunefully identifies Muni stops. We’ve recognized him with this year’s David Tannehill Special Employee Award. Naomi Armenta, whose experiences as a wheelchair and transit user are invaluable as she advocates for accessibility on behalf of senior and disabled travelers, won the Doris W. Kahn Accessible Transportation Award. Cory LaVigne, winner of the Greta Ericson Distinguished Service Award, started out as a bus driver and climbed the transit ladder all the way up to a director role at AC Transit before his untimely passing in 2012 at age 42. Rounding out the Special Award categories is the Miriam Gholikely Public Service Award, which goes to Bruce Beyaert and his Trails for Richmond Action Committee, which spearheaded the longest single segment of the San Francisco Bay Trail.

Award of Merit honorees include Good Karma Bikes, providing free bike repair services and training to underprivileged community members; Gary Richards, aka “Mr. Roadshow,” longtime author of a Q-and-A transportation column; and SolTrans, created in 2010 by combining two transit agencies into one to better serve Solano County. Among the winners is a trio of tunnels — the Caldecott Fourth Bore and the Devil’s Slide Tunnel Project, which features twin bores as well as a trail with stunning vistas. A triptych of visual projects showcasing the Bay and the Bay Bridge are sharing a Merit Award — the Bay Lights, illuminating the Bay Bridge West Span; the Oakland Museum of California’s “Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay” exhibit; and Joseph A. Blum’s action-packed photographs of East Span construction workers.

The bridge also was the inspiration for this year’s Grand Award winner, Mary King, chair of the Bay Bridge Design Task Force. In all, 17 people, projects and organizations earned the coveted and unique Excellence in Motion trophy that features an actual ball bearing with moving parts.

– Georgia Lambert