TRANSIT STORIES

Nashville, Tennessee, Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee — So much of what makes me who I am is rooted in public transit and travel.

I’ve spent my whole life on the island of Oahu, Hawaii and I’ve used public transit to get around since I was a college student.

It’s long past time that Members of Congress stop investing in a car-dependent transportation system and start making significant investments in public transit that gets people where they need to go.

St. George, Utah – United Today, Stronger Tomorrow I grew up in small town, Grantsville, in Northern Utah. I’ve had a blessed life being able to live in several places around Utah from Logan to Provo to Cedar City. When I retired, my wife and I with our daughter decided to settle down in St. George. I worked as a clinical social worker and mostly worked in rural areas. Living and working in smaller towns like Cedar City, I’ve witnessed first-hand the struggles that many of our families face not having access to good public transportation.   In St. George, which is a growing city of about 80,000, we have a bus system called SunTran.  The unfortunate thing is that it only covers about half of the city. There are no busses serving areas of town south of the Virgin River. This results in a system that does not provide transit services for tens of thousands of residents. Needless to report, the system needs improvement!  Having a limited amount of public transit for our community truly impacts my family. I have a daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome. She has the skills of active daily living which allow her to live on

Transit Alliance of Middle Tennessee – Bellevue, TN I grew up in Pegram which is southwest of Nashville and has a population of about 2,000 people. Growing up on a dirt road in a town that had no public transit really galvanized me in terms of thinking about mobility. I learned early on that if you didn’t have the capacity to get from one place to the next, you’re stuck. Even though I grew up in the country, I like living near a big city like Nashville. When I was younger, there wasn’t much to do back then in Nashville. I have loved seeing the growth over the years. It’s now a bright place full of activity and people. Walking down Broadway you hear different languages. The energy is second to none. I’m really hoping to see how we can continue improving livability and affordability by figuring out the mobility piece through achieving dedicated funding for transit and investing in updated infrastructure, transit services, and access. My very first personal interaction with public transit didn’t begin until I was in my twenties. I was in Washington, DC and got to use the subway. At first, I found it confusing, but

Lexiington, KY I have lived all over this country and have enjoyed two careers, first serving for 24 years with the US Coast Guard, and then teaching high school in Prince William County, Virginia.  I am happy to say that I was able to rely on public transportation, primarily rail, for most of my adult life.   Early in life, the Coast Guard sent me to NYU for a masters. At the same time my wife was attending Hunter College and we could count on the NY subway.  When my job moved us the Philadelphia region, it took one experience with the Schuylkill expressway to determine I would be taking the train.  With transit you become comfortable with people from various walks of life.  The commuter train from Norristown to Philly was filled with businessmen in suits and ties and changing to the subway, I sat with passengers in t-shirts and baseball caps.   Later living in the DC area, I would often drive to a convenient parking location, and then use mass transit for as much of my trip as possible.  Sometimes I would cut through Ft. McNair and walk along the Potomac! Those short walks between transit stops gave me