Addendum · A City That Works

Who runs Latin America's metros

Richard Day found that the world's best transit systems are run by boards of transit experts, and the worst by boards of politicians. He measured sixteen agencies across Asia, Europe and the United States. He measured none in Latin America. This is that missing column: 42 board members, five agencies, five countries. Alongside them sits the board that prompted the question in Chicago: all 20 members of the new NITA, classified the same way and verified the same day.

Research by Claude (AI) Edited by Steffany Bahamon Rosters verified 27 Aug 2026

How this was made — read before citing

The board rosters and classifications on this page were researched and written by Claude (Anthropic's AI), from agency filings, official gazettes, and regulatory disclosures. The classifications are Claude's judgment applied to Richard Day's five categories — not an official designation by any agency.

The research was done in March 2026 and then independently re-verified and fully re-researched on 27 August 2026. That second pass found real errors in the first, including two biographies attributed to the wrong people. They are documented in the methodology section below rather than quietly removed.

The NITA board was researched separately on 27 August 2026 from the appointing authorities' own announcements. Richard Day graded these appointments on the same day, but he did not classify them into his five categories — so the NITA classifications here are Claude's, not his. Five of the twenty seats are the Governor's appointees and were still awaiting Illinois Senate confirmation when this was published; that status is recorded on each member's row.

Steffany Bahamon adjudicated the 17 classification calls that could reasonably have gone either way, and each is flagged on this page. Beyond those, this has not been verified line by line. Every member record carries a confidence rating and its source links, so any individual claim can be checked. Treat medium- and low-confidence rows as leads, not findings.

Board composition changes fast — four of the five Latin American boards replaced members within five months, and the entire Chicago regional system was reorganised in the same period. These rosters are current as of 27 August 2026 and will go stale.

Every seat on every board

One mark per board member, coloured by category. The whole dataset, before any averaging.

SantiagoChile7
São PauloBrazil11
MedellínColombia7/9
Mexico CityMexico11
Buenos AiresArgentina6
Transit opsOther mgmt / policyLaborCommunity advocateElected official
0 community advocates among all 42 Latin American board members. Not one seat, in any of the five agencies, in either the March or the August roster. In Day's US sample the same category runs as high as 50%, and Chicago's new NITA board has one — so this is a Latin American pattern, not a universal one.

A fourth region on Day's chart

The five Latin American agencies placed alongside Day's sixteen, same five categories, same measure — plus Chicago's new NITA board, the comparison that prompted the question. Hover any segment for the exact figure. Note the dates: the rows researched here are August 2026, Day's are March.

Transit opsOther mgmt / policyLaborCommunity advocateElected official

Asia5 agencies · Day · Mar 2026

Tokyo Metro
57%43%
Seoul Metro
40%53%
MTR (Hong Kong)
22%72%
SMRT (Singapore)
15%85%
LTA (Singapore)
12%76%

Europe4 agencies · Day · Mar 2026

RATP (Paris)
27%27%33%
BVG (Berlin)
25%19%50%
Metro de Madrid
20%50%30%
TfL (London)
13%56%13%13%

United States7 agencies · Day · Mar 2026

LA Metro
86%
MTA (New York)
60%15%20%
WMATA (Washington DC)
70%30%
RTA (Chicago)
21%50%14%14%
CTA (Chicago)
50%50%
Metra (Chicago)
55%18%
Pace (Chicago)
92%

Latin America5 agencies · this research · Aug 2026

SantiagoChile
29%71%
São PauloBrazil
18%73%
MedellínColombia
14%57%29%
Mexico CityMexico
64%18%
Buenos AiresArgentina
100%

Chicago1 agency · this research · Aug 2026

NITAUnited States
60%20%
NITAunder Day's applied practice
25%25%25%20%

Every row carries its own date, and they are not all the same date. The sixteen Asian, European and US rows are Richard Day's work, as of March 2026, computed from the member-level list he published alongside “Put real experts in charge of transit” (A City That Works, March 2026) — 222 board members — rather than read off his chart image. They have not been re-verified here.

His four Chicago rows describe a system that has since been reorganised. The RTA is being wound up and replaced by NITA, and the CTA, Metra and Pace boards were re-appointed in July and August 2026. Those four rows are kept here as Day published them, as the pre-reform baseline — not as a description of who governs Chicago transit today. New CTA, Metra and Pace rows are deliberately not published: more service-board appointments were still outstanding at the time of writing, and a board that cannot be confirmed to its full seat list does not get a row on this site.

The five Latin American rows and the NITA row are computed from the member records on this site and are current as of 27 August 2026. Two of Day's rows sum to 99% or 101% from rounding; one figure differs from his published chart, where LTA Singapore's other-management share is 76% in his data (13 of 17 seats) but labelled 77%. Chart rebuilt, not reproduced.

What the data shows

0community advocates in Latin America

Across 42 Latin American members, five agencies, five countries and two rounds of research five months apart, not one seat belongs to a rider advocate or community organisation. In Day's US sample the same category reaches 50%. Chicago's new NITA board, counted separately below, has one.

71%generalist managers

Finance people, lawyers, career civil servants and non-transit engineers. Higher than any single region in Day's dataset, and the profile held steady even as the boards themselves turned over.

14%transit operations experts

6 of 42 members. Three of those six rest on judgment calls that could have gone the other way — under the stricter reading this figure is 7%, which is why it is published with its workings.

2 of 20NITA directors with transit operations experience

Chicago's new regional board replaced the RTA in 2026. Under the classification rules used throughout this site, two of its twenty directors have transit operations experience, and only one of those is unambiguous. Under Richard Day's looser applied practice the figure is five. Both readings are published, because the difference is the whole argument.

4 of 5Latin American boards changed since March

Santiago replaced its entire board; Medellín, São Paulo and Buenos Aires each replaced or lost members. The aggregate composition barely moved, which suggests structure rather than appointments determines who governs transit.

The evidence for all of this is the member-by-member table, and the reasoning is in the full analysis.