THE JOB
Photos : Senny Mau
DRIVING THE NEW ECONOMY
Lyft ’ s Director of Transportation Policy , Emily Castor , Revelle ’ 05 , aims to change more than how we ride .
BY BRANDON YU , MUIR ’ 16
EMILY CASTOR , REVELLE ’ 05 , has a vision for the future , and it involves you — the way you live , the way you work , the way you get from point A to B . This vision may begin with her role as director of transportation policy at Lyft , a powerhouse ridesharing company using technology to reshape transit , but Castor foresees cascades of change , making for a radical shift that could benefit the economy , the climate and even the quality of life in our communities .
Castor has always had a desire to affect sweeping change , yet early on focused that drive into a more traditional channel : politics . An avid student politician at UC San Diego , Castor applied her double‐major in critical gender studies and political science to internships with Congresswoman Susan Davis and Senator Barbara Boxer , ultimately landing her a full‐time job with Davis ’ office in D . C . “ That ’ s where I really got an opportunity to start working on policy ,” Castor says . “ I definitely had exposure to transportation policy and environmental policy issues .” The experience served her well thereafter , through graduate school and upon returning to
California for a new career in public finance , working behind the scenes of state and local projects in San Francisco .
“ Between that and my prior federal experience , I had a really good look at what traditional infrastructure finance looked like ,” Castor says . “ And yet I felt like it was so removed from all of these new technologies that were starting to come online that allowed people to make use of existing technology in smarter ways .”
This was in 2011 , when something was truly brewing in San Francisco . A new sort of marketplace was taking shape , and Castor found herself on the cusp of it all . Dubbed the “ sharing economy ,” this burgeoning form of commerce was facilitated through online communities and allowed for peer‐to‐peer collaboration and mutually beneficial exchanges of resources — from living space and labor to sharing travel and transportation .
CASTOR ENTERED THIS WORLD as a user , but quickly fashioned herself an advocate . Using her self‐described “ workhorse initiative ,” she created and moderated
52 TRITON | SPRING 2016