Dempsey and Zimbalist review how a group of concerned citizens drove the Olympics from Boston, and offer other cities reasons and strategies for doing the same.
Chris Dempsey
Chris Dempsey’s career has spanned the public, private, and non-profit sectors. He served as Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, where he co-founded the MassDOT open-data program, which made the MBTA the first transit agency on the East Coast to make available smartphone applications that tell riders when their bus or train will arrive. Chris has worked as a Consultant with Bain & Co., and led North American business development for Masabi, a mobile-ticketing company whose customers include the MBTA, New York MTA, Los Angeles Metrolink, and other large transit agencies. He was named “Bostonian of the Year” by the Boston Globe Magazine in 2015 for his volunteer work leading the grassroots campaign No Boston Olympics. From 2017 to 2021 he led the state’s largest transportation advocacy coalition. Chris has represented his hometown, Brookline, as an elected Town Meeting Member since 2012. He also served as Chair of the Transportation Board, which oversees the municipality’s transportation policy. Chris appears regularly on WBUR’s Radio Boston and WGBH’s Boston Public Radio, and he has been quoted in dozens of national and local news outlets, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, for his expertise on transportation, infrastructure, and politics. He lives with his wife Anna and daughter Sarina and has never owned a car.
