Increasing the Usage of Public Transit in The Western United States, Now and in the Future

I recently attended a conference about development, culture, and change. A relevant topic that came up was the utilization of public transportation in new projects located in redeveloping neighborhoods. I have thought about the topic for two days and I have a concept. It would require great change and would not be popular. Regardless, a form of this modification is one method to provide greater urban mobility balance in auto-centric cities and culture.

The particular group conversation fluctuated between education and public transit. I continued to consider this topic during my train ride home. How do we get people to ride transit? That is a question that can be answered in many ways and there are boundless methods. How do we change the ridership culture? Like most civic problems, they begin with the education system. When thinking about the merge where education and mobility intersects, we arrive at the school bus system. How are we delivering our children to and from school? I will address these question after briefly providing context on how the thoughts were spawned.

I first reflected on my academic life experience to inspire a potential solution. I am a child of the 1980’s. My elementary, middle, and high schools ranged in distance from one mile in elementary to two miles in high school. I was a typical latch key kid. I walked, rode my bicycle, and in middle school and high school, took the city bus. Prior to that, I remember my first experience on the city bus in pre-school. We rode the bus to visit a local dairy farm to visit the cows. I believe that experience made the notion of riding the bus natural. I say that because, as I got older, I was sometimes ridiculed for riding the bus since it was seen as a substandard method of travel. Thus, to change the transit ridership culture, the choice must feel natural and be instilled at an early age.

In addition to my primary education experience, I recalled my many trips to Japan. My mother is Japanese and I am so fortunate to had the opportunity to travel there many times. I remember walking with my grandfather along the narrow “street” leading to the small rail station and supermarket. Along the way was an elementary school. When we arrived at the station in the morning, the place was bustling with school children of all ages. I remember thinking “wow a ton of kids ride the transit to school.”

If we combine these experiences, we see that the solution is to get more kids to ride public transit to school. Currently, many kids are driven to and from school by their parents. Some kids walk, ride bikes, and take public transit but not on the scale that I witness in another country. How can we achieve that scale? Greatly , modify, reduce or even eliminate the school bus system for urban kids with access to direct transit. It should be noted that rural kids and students without transit access will still require bussing.

Ten or twenty years ago, I would have thought that this idea would be absurd. With the capability of technology to produce data and metrics, we can easily map the locations of kids that could participate in a public transit program where they ride the transit for free during the times of day before, during, and after school. These children would be provided special school passes limited to certain bus and train routes. Maybe an incentive program can be provided for unlimited access to the public transportation system when the school kids and their parents utilize public transit as their primary mode of daily commute.

With this, we are boosting ridership numbers and creating riders by simply incentivizing the choice. This boost will provide the comfort to kids that ride the buses and trains. The kids will be acclimated to the process and schedule of riding transit. Essentially, the program can be considered a part of a child’s early education. The comfort is achieved when they fit into a sort of “category” of transit rider. There are riders that stare out the windows, others, talk to their friends, some read books or watch media. Arriving at this almost subconscious state of comfort, the rider begins to see riding transit in new ways. Basically, transit is not longer just a mobility option, it holds other forms of value. Public transit becomes a communication space, a place to study, and an adventure through the city to people watch of simply enjoy from the lens of the window. That is how we change the culture.

Now, the real challenge: If the school bus system is modified, what happens to the reduction in jobs. The school bus system employs many administrators and mechanics. We need to figure this puzzle out first. Enacting the initial program is easy. I will arrange it is a list. First, a solution is found for the reduction of school bus system jobs. Next, the school district marks a severe budget crisis where significant budget cuts recommended by an outside consultant slashes the school bus system and reduces the amount of busses available. Notices to parents are sent out well in advance to absorb any shock. Then, the public transit system steps in to save the day and creates a student access transit program and includes the parents as participants. A problem was created and a viable solution was created and executed. There will be a tremendous initial shock and opposition. Unfortunately, some leaders will be sacrificed, we must account for this as well. We must understand that those sacrifices may be justified as this is a strategy that will transform the way that we move sustainably through the city.

A critical aspect of this concept is to see how this major shift creates other opportunities for social change. Children riding transit will be more active and engaged which increases public health; physically and mentally. A new generation of young people will re-engage with the built environment and have a better understanding of how cities function. This aspect is something that we miss when we pass quickly in a vehicle. It is as if we lose a subconscious connection to the environment and the earth. A generation of people that are better connected to the intricacies of the built environment are seamlessly integrated to the earth in general and will be more prone to care for it.

An expanded transit voucher system, beyond what may already exist, could be an influence to the commercial real estate market where parents move to denser areas in these transit/education corridors to be a member of the “mobility” program. Additionally, experienced transit riders that are plugged into the built environment are capable of making more informed decisions as to what belongs in their communities. These residents do not fly by in a car; they know the streets intimately from their daily interactions.

Finally, to ensure that the program works, the public transit system will begin using the data provided by the voucher system to make adjustments to the bus routes. The goal would be utilizing existing pockets of housing density to make connections between housing and all levels of schools along one route. The premise would be that a child can live in the same place from grades K through 12 and ride the same bus or train. This also has positive social ramifications when strong relationships between riders and driver are formed.

Enacting a fierce strategy such as this will move people through the city, increase human connectivity, and reconnect people in an age that could be defined by a society disconnected by technology that was intended to unite us rather than destroy us completely.