Russellville, Arkansas
I was born in North Carolina and was the oldest of five kids, but I ended up growing up in New Jersey. That’s where I first encountered public transit. I constantly took New Jersey Transit everywhere, and I loved how convenient it was. I raised four children, two boys and two girls, and taught them early on about the value of using public transit. This was important for my family especially since I don’t like to drive. It’s expensive and dangerous.
About seven years ago, I moved to Arkansas to continue to develop my practice as a behavioral analyst and a faith-based counselor. I now own a private practice, Let’s Talk Consulting. We are a one stop shop counseling service, and we focus on a holistic approach to healing. I’m also very active on policy issues in the state of Arkansas in my role as District delegate, which allows me to keep in touch with state Senate offices around key policy issues.
One of the big policy issues that I’ve been focused on involves the lack of public transportation, especially in small communities, like Russellville. My experience with public transit overall in Arkansas couldn’t be as different from what it was when my family lived in New Jersey. Our transit system here really stinks. The lack of public transportation in Arkansas has really opened my eyes to how crucial it is to have alternatives to driving.
In Russellville, if you don’t have a car, the only way to really get around town is to get a taxi or rely on family and friends to drive you around. Also, you might as well forget about walking and biking. There are some sidewalks here and there, but there really isn’t any dedicated biking or walking lanes, so you have to bike or walk on the shoulder of our local roads and simply hope that oncoming cars see you.
The lack of good and reliable public transportation is difficult for a lot of the people that live in my town. Many are elderly and have retired. They are basically home bound if they can’t drive themselves or convince someone to come by and pick them up.
Arkansas, as a state, really doesn’t invest much into our public transit system. The one limited service we have locally is called the Russ Bus. The Russ Bus is funded by local donations and is a non-profit. If you need access to emergency food, clothing, or shelter, you can contact them 24 hours in advance to set up a ride. But sometimes they can’t find drivers for the Russ Bus. When that happens, they just cancel the planned trip you were hoping to take. That same issue impacts our medical rideshare system. You can use that system if you have a medical appointment. It also needs to be scheduled 24 hours in advance. But, if the drivers don’t show, they’ll just cancel the planned trip.
What this means for so many people in my community is that you are living in isolation. As a mental health counselor, living in social isolation can be devastating to a person’s health and well-being. I also once had a client who was having issues at home and needed to find a safer place to live, but she doesn’t drive because she has limited mobility and was facing financial issues. She was unable to get a ride from a friend. I was able to figure out a way to get her someplace safe, but it was really scary to think that she pretty much could’ve been stuck in her situation simply because there was no transportation available.
Not having good public transportation in our area also harms formerly incarcerated people who don’t have the ability, in many instances, to get a driver’s license. This really impedes their ability to re-enter the workforce successfully in small towns like Russellville or in other parts of Arkansas.
I want to see buses and bus routes in our town that are well-funded and show up frequently. It’d also be good if they reopened the train station that we used to carry passengers from our town to larger cities like Little Rock and Fayetteville.
We need to fight for communities like mine and not give up. We really need to create a transit system that works for families, especially seniors. We must let our state and national elected leaders know that public transit is a necessity for our communities. I truly believe that if we raise our voices together on this issue, we’d be able to see some change. We just need to tell them, “Hey, we want it. It’s time.”