Chapter 4 - A Day Traveling By Transit

A DAY TRAVELING ON TRANSIT

Topics: Transit, Ridership, Historical Context of US Transportation Investments

March 24, 2024

If you have the privilege in your life to travel out of the country, once you touch down, take transit the rest of your trip. Skip the car unless it’s whole heartedly necessary. Even if you’re moving to that country!

I will never forget the day I moved to Holland for graduate school. I flew out of Philadelphia, where my father’s family is originally from, and I sat in my Aunt’s living room unpacking and re-packing my things. She watched from the couch as I tried to sit on my bags and stuff everything I could into my luggage set. I was no stranger to moving to a different place with just a few pieces of luggage. She started laughing as she saw me pull out my shampoo and conditioner and said “you can get that there! Let me look at what you have.”

It was only fitting I took off from their home for my new adventure. My uncle was a Fulbright scholar from Egypt that attended MIT to get his Materials degree. He studied the composition of the pyramids, and worked at Drexel and would travel regularly across the globe to teach. My Aunt would travel with him and their kids regularly and hopped around the globe with them. He had received accolades from the King of Sweden for his research, but still knew how to have a good time. Wine, hookah, and cigars are his love language. He was my kind of guy!

As I finally got my bags situated, my Aunt warned me that elevators may not be working where I am going, and that I might have to get creative as I took the train from Schipol Airport in Amsterdam to Rotterdam. After a 16-hour travel day with a connection in London, I got off the plane, went to baggage claim, and got into the airport terminal to find my way.

The trains were integrated into the terminal. To say it was effortless would be an understatement. I got my OV chipcaart, the universal NS train pass you can use country-wide, and got on the next train to Amsterdam. Surprisingly, despite traveling alone with three bags, it was as if the process was made for travelers traveling like this. No steps on to my train, wider scanners to get on and off the train with your pass, food located within the station in case you needed a snack to get you through your travels…it was heavenly. I hopped off my train at Rotterdam Centraal and took the tram to my AirBnB I had until I moved into my flat later that week. On the tram, people were definitely confused by the bags, but no one really seemed to care. I got to the AirBnB and was finally met with my narrow staircase; the first of the trip. My long travel day was over and I could finally rest.

Over the course of my time there, I took all of the transportation investments in. Wrote notes where I could. Studied in class, used my Duolingo to practice my Dutch, traveled as much as I could to understand the infrastructure, and met with people from the Transportation Ministry. While on transit, I would typically listen to music, catch up with friends via text or WhatsApp, or work on projects for school on my laptop. I was the queen of multitasking. I typically kept to myself, as most Dutch people do when riding the bus or train unless they were with friends or family, and if I was with people, I typically tried to be more reserved and respectful.

One day on the train to Utrecht to see my favorite Icelandic singer, Asgier, I kept one headphone in and one out. I could pick an American out of the train car with their accent and English. I sat and listened to their conversation, and eventually they stepped off the train. Once they had left, the Dutch couple next to me started talking about how the Americans were so loud on the car. I started laughing to myself silently. Maybe they thought I was Dutch or that I didn’t understand what they were saying! I had assimilated, and was proud.

Our cultures on the train and bus were so different. I started to think back to my time in South Louisiana riding the CATS bus around Baton Rouge. The drivers knew everyone on the bus as regulars,. I started to find people riding at the same time as me to downtown, and would try and strike up conversations with them. But when I was in Holland it was the exact opposite. A language barrier was part of my puzzle I was solving, sure, but I started to think about what buses and trains would be like elsewhere in our world. There is so much that can be learned about the different cultures, so much more you can see…and I to immerse myself in whatever culture that was as I rode.

Fast forward to present day in Raleigh, I spend my days on bus or train commuting back and forth between my office and my home. If you are in the transportation industry, I highly recommend doing this, as there is so much you can learn from taking the services we are planning and designing. My days commuting back and forth by bus, train, and by bike usually look like this one. My bus ride to work started with a 10-minute bike ride on my e-bike at 6 AM. I stand and dance to my music for 15 minutes while I wait for my bus to arrive. I grab my bike, put it on the bike rack on the front of the bus, and hop on the bus for 20 minutes until I get to the office.

This day was different. I saw Christy, a woman I had met on the bus previously, had also ridden her cruiser bike. She stopped as she saw me and said,

“Nice bike! I think I remember you. But I don’t remember how I know you.”

This was not unusual for Christy. Many years prior, Christy had gotten into an accident that completely upended her world. Before the accident, she was a lawyer in Raleigh, had a successful boyfriend, a nice apartment in a hip sky rise building, and had it all. After her accident, she couldn’t work or drive, and had a hard time remembering things; she became disabled, and would get around using the bus and her bike. She volunteers at UNC Rex Hospital every week, and over the course of her time volunteering, had logged over 3,500 hours. If you ever meet her, you’ll know because she typically is carrying around a joke book, or brain games. The last time I had ridden the bus, she started talking to me and told me her life story, and said,

“Well Joan if I see you again, I may not remember you. And in that case, I’m sorry, but the accident makes it harder for me to remember.”

“Don’t worry, Christy, I’ll remember you.”

I was determined that I would see her again on the bus, and today was that day. I told her on our second meeting that we had, in fact, met before and we talked the whole 20 minute ride to the bus. Most of the time was spent laughing about the jokes told, and brain games played. The time went fast.

“Joan, I hope I see you again,” Christy said as I hopped off the bus.

“You’ll see me soon Christy! Have fun today at the hospital!”

My morning was made and brightened. I rode my bike the two blocks left into the office and got back to work. On my ride there, I thought about how those that drive to work every day will never get this same experience I just had. They will never meet the amazing human beings like Christy who unlike them, cannot drive and are not afforded the same privileges.

According to a study conducted by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics in 2018, 25.5 million Americans age five (5) and older have self-reported travel-limiting disabilities like Christy that are reliant upon public transportation and paratransit services. 3.6 million of those that have travel-limiting disabilities do not leave their homes because they are disabled or housebound.

They will never experience the genuine human connection that can be formed by bus because our transportation investments are heavily centered around roadway infrastructure, and as a result, isolates disabled individuals, and further limits them from opportunities until funding structures change, and perceptions of transit changes throughout the US.

As I finished work for the day, and started my journey back home, I rode my bike to a further away stop because it had been a good, productive day. Long bike rides in good weather are my way to celebrate. I made it to my stop. I did my normal dancing at the station for 15 minutes as I watched the cars pass me by. I looked around the corner of my eye, and saw a Hispanic mother with five kids standing next to me now.

A bus route other than my own started racing by. The woman was waving softly at the bus and the kids started talking to her as the driver passed them by. I took out my headphones and started to try to help them with my broken Spanish figure out when the next bus would be at the station. It was 80 degrees out. There was no bus shelter and no bench for them to sit for another 30 minutes-the current frequency of the bus. The station sat next to a local park and school. Two of the children had backpacks and looked as though they had finished school nearby. I thought to myself as I looked at the situation, “whoever designed this station didn’t think about families and kids riding the bus” as I continued to wait for mine. The kids sat on the side of a fence for the school while their mother sat upset.

In United States, we tend to frame the argument that those taking transit are a specific demographic, a specific socioeconomic status, race, and when they take transit, they are the problem if they are late to work or school. However, there are multiple demographics that want to be afforded transportation choice: the ability to take multiple modes of transportation for commuting and for leisure.

Transit Center’s latest publication “Who’s On Board 2019: How to Win Back America’s Transit Riders”, which analyzes data on ridership trends across transit agencies nationwide, in 2019, nearly two-thirds of transit riders are between the ages of 25 and 55 years old. Use of transit drops for individuals 55 years and older. This publication parallels analysis conducted by the National Household Survey that people ages 16-24 are take almost twice as many transit trips than individuals 55 and older.

While our younger generations are craving transportation choice, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s March 2022 publication on “Federal Financial Support for Public Transportation”, approximately 80% of revenue funds in the US are allocated to highway programs and 20% is allocated to mass transit.

Unfortunately, the structural systems in our nation makes it inherently difficult to be on time, makes people sweaty at the stop so they may not smell very well, and people will fault them for that and furthers stigmas. Once I hopped on the bus, I called Go Raleigh’s customer service and told them about the experience, and emailed the transit provider about how to improve.

This situation I had seen was not the woman or her children’s fault. They should not be in this position. But we live in a car-centric society fragmented by the institutionalization of the American Dream and individualism.

That you must own a car to be successful, and car brand matters even more. When in reality, our nation was founded on cobblestone lined streets for walking, filled with public space, trains to get you to where you needed.

The advent of the motor vehicle, coupled with lobbying from the automobile and oil and gas industries, and instrumental funding in the 1970’s led to the geography to nowhere: Wide highways to rural areas, and in cities where people sit in their cars in traffic alone and prefer not to drive to work in most cases to avoid accidents or stress.

Planners, engineers, and policy makers alike in my industry have failed the American people over the years. Particularly families, the disabled, environmentalists, underserved populations, young professionals, and those that seek to find human connection.

And now it’s our job to fix it.

End of chapter activity:

Take the Bus: Find a destination you enjoy going to and take the bus there. Turn off your phone, and travel without headphones. Look around you as you get to that destination. Strike up a conversation with a stranger if you feel comfortable. Write down the things about this experience you are having and identify things that would make this experience better. Take the things you write down to your local bus operator’s public engagement website or office to make the experience better for those that ride the service most. They’ll thank you for it.
Ride the Train: Conduct the same exercise I outline for taking the bus. If you have done both exercises, compare and contrast the two experiences together. Who is riding the train vs. the bus? What is the price point of the two modes? Take the things you write down to your train operator's public engagement website or office to make the experience better for those that ride the service most. They’ll thank you for it.
Journal: Think about who you think the typical bus or train rider is where you live in the world. What do they look like? What jobs do they have? What do their families look like? As you ponder, think about your own biases. Do you want to take transit? Why or why not? If you do, what prevents you from taking it more?