Abibat Rahman-Davies has joined TransForm as a Transportation Policy Advocate. She’ll be working on the regional transportation measure and other transportation issues. Rahman-Davies, who goes by Abi, brings a deep commitment to economic equity and broad experience advocating for a range of issues to her work at TransForm.
National experience
After getting a Master’s in Global Studies from UC Berkeley, Rahman-Davies left her home state of California for Washington, D.C., where she worked for a nonprofit legislative advocacy organization with an economic justice portfolio. She worked on issues including the child tax credit, increasing the corporate tax rate, reparations for slavery, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“I was interfacing with Congress a lot and decided I wanted to see how Congress really worked,” Rahman-Davies said. So she applied for an advanced fellowship with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and was chosen to be the transportation and tech fellow. That work, including on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act, sparked her interest in the nexus between economic justice and transportation issues.
Rahman-Davies is excited to join TransForm because racial and economic equity are at the forefront of our work rather than an afterthought. “I’m excited to fix things,” she said. “And I’m excited to work on the local and state level because things can get done more quickly than at the national level.”
Transportation can be a door to opportunity or a barrier
“I grew up in Southern California, where transportation is very poor,” Rahman-Davies said. She had a Metrolink card to get around and personally experienced the barrier to opportunity that inadequate transit options present. “I’ve always been politically aware since I was very, very young,” she said. “My environment forced me to reckon with stuff really young.”
She’s looking forward to connecting with local partners and helping enact policies that make transportation more accessible for people in the Bay Area, including SB 1031, the regional transportation funding measure.
Rahman-Davies is happy to be back in California and in the Bay Area, which, she said, “compared to Washington, D.C., is very chill.” Plus, she noted, “People in D.C. pay attention to what California is doing.” It’s called the “California Effect:” policies pioneered here often spread to other parts of the U.S.
When she’s not working on transportation and economic justice issues, Rahman-Davies likes to exercise, play bass, and do music production. And cook: “Anything that revolves around eating, I’m a big fan,” she said.
We’re thrilled to have Abi Rahman-Davies as part of the TransForm team.