Boston Mayor Wu’s top aide has ties to private company eyed as city public transit operator

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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s top aide has a personal stake in the company the city could hire as a public transit operator, as part of a federal grant that seeks to advance its plans to reduce congestion by getting people out of their cars.

Tiffany Chu, the mayor’s chief of staff, is the former CEO and co-founder of Remix, a past San Francisco transit planning platform that was acquired for $100 million in 2021 by Via Transportation, Inc. — a private operator that is poised to benefit from a roughly $14 million budget to operate five new fixed-route van shuttles and two “microtransit” service areas to supplement and connect to MBTA service.

The contract to Via —  where Chu worked until joining the Wu administration in 2022 — would be largely paid through a $21.6 million congestion relief grant the City of Boston was awarded, in part, by the Federal Highway Administration last month, per a prior announcement from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, which made the grant application.

The mayor’s office confirmed the connection, first reported by Streetsblog Massachusetts, to the Herald on Monday, stating that while Chu still owns shares in the company, she was not aware of Via’s involvement in the grant application.

“Chu founded her company Remix in 2014, a technology company that supports city transportation planning,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “She sold the company to Via in 2021 and worked there until joining the City in 2022.

“From the sale of Remix, Chu owns a limited number of shares in Via, totaling far below 1%,” the city’s statement continued. “Chu had no involvement in the grant application and was not aware that Via consulted on the application until after the grant was awarded by the federal government.”

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