Today’s installment of Transit on Thursday focuses on the soon-to-be-reality Riders Advisory Council, whose application process ends Monday afternoon. The council — which will include six seats for people from each of the three jurisdictions served by Metro, two at-large seats, and a seat held by the head of Metro’s Elderly and Disabled Transportation Advisory Committee — will afford ordinary Metro riders the opportunity to offer insights and opinions on the transit agency’s operations.

To better understand where the Riders Advisory Council came from and what it might achieve, we caught up with Dennis Jaffe, a volunteer with the Sierra Club who has worked tirelessly to promote transparency and accountability in WMATA. His work was recently recognized by the organization, which gave him an Environmental Leadership Award.