TRANSIT STORIES

San Francisco, CA In the Bay Area, any loss of transit service threatens to upend my life, and my family’s life. I commute on Caltrain and my two teenage children ride San Francisco (SFMTA) buses to school. Without a stable source of guaranteed funding, I know both services are always at risk, and will never be used to their maximum potential. My last job was with a company in Milpitas – a nearly two hour one-way trip using Caltrain and my bicycle from San Francisco to Silicon Valley. After a corporate lay-off, my ability to re-enter the labor force was threatened—first by the pandemic, now by Caltrain service. If Caltrain were to ever reduce operations, I would be unable to accept a job in Silicon Valley without buying a car. I’m unwilling to take that step, both because of the personal expense and the cost to our environment in carbon emissions.  With two kids in high school who participate in afterschool activities across the city, the city’s bus system has become a lifeline for our family. SFMTA has been absolutely vital to avoiding the expense of a car, and for my kids to participate in activities that are important to

Cincinnati, OH I’m a 73-year-old disabled veteran with PTSD. After spending some time in different places around the country, I came back to Cincinnati. I use the Metro, our bus system, to get to my VA appointments, the grocery store, and the bank. I move around with a cane.  Even with the pandemic, I’ve never stopped riding the bus. I’ll be riding one today. That’s the only way I can get around. I don’t drive. If it’s raining or snowing, or if there’s a storm, I take the bus even though I might have to stand in the rain. It’s a lifeline for where I need to go.  We need public transit to be affordable for everyone. In Cincinnati last year we voted for taxes to run the Metro, and they’re still raising the fares. The fares are going from $1.75 to $2.00, saying it’s easier for people to pull $2.00 out of their pocket than $1.75, which is ridiculous. The cost of a fare card for an elderly person is going up $5.00 a month. Rather than raising costs, we should keep fares down so everyone can take public transit as they need. When I got out of the

(She/Her) | Atlanta, Georgia I’m originally from DC. When I moved to Georgia, I had a car. I soon gave up the car because driving in the city was a bit much. Public transit was my other option, but the transit system took some getting used to. I’ve had good experiences and not-so-good ones. The train system here in Atlanta is different than in DC. I will say that I do like how I only had to pay a flat rate to board the bus versus how I paid DC rates depending on peak times and zones. I don’t like how some of the systems connect, don’t connect, how difficult it is to transfer, and overall how that works. The organization MARTA Army has its way of helping people get acclimated with transit and it made my transition into using public transit down here a lot smoother. But, it takes a while to understand the system and I wish there was something done by the transit agency.  I moved to the city because I needed to have accessibility. Transit provided me that. I enjoy it. I prefer to take the bus to certain places versus waiting on an Uber. I

Boston, Massachusetts I grew up in Boston but went to college in Ohio, and when I went to Cleveland or Columbus I could see how broken their transit was. Anything I said about MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority), it was like, I take it all back.  But there’s still plenty to improve here. I’d majored in environmental studies and thought maybe I could get a job with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) or an environmental non-profit. But this was 2009, and the job market was absolute shit. So, I took a job as a dog grooming assistant at a Petco in Dedham. My family had a car but they used it for their own needs. I didn’t make a lot of money and used transit. A lot of what I earned went to transportation, just refilling the cards. And, because I was taking a bus, a train, and another bus, I spent a lot of time traveling.  Sometimes I’d have to close out the grooming section and, depending on when I was getting out, I’d be getting one of the last buses. I had a 15- to 20-minute walk to the bus stop, and if I didn’t time it just

Cleveland, OH I love taking the bus. I love not having to worry about parking or pay for the upkeep of a car. I love putting on my headphones and using the time that I would spend driving to text my friends and family. But I also rely on the bus for transportation because I have brain injuries that make it very difficult for me to drive.  I got a concussion in June 2018 and after that my doctor suggested that I give up driving. If it wasn’t for the RTA, I would not have been able to get to my classes and my clinical rotations on time so that I could become a nurse. I would not be able to get to work or see my family on the other side of town. Catching a transfer is the most difficult part of using transit; I’ve been stuck in Public Square for more than half an hour before, sometimes late at night coming home to the west side from evening classes at Tri-C. As a student, that was really worrying because I’d have my laptop with me and I was nervous that I’d forget it or someone might try to

Aurora, CO I started going to RTD (Regional Transportation District) board meetings back in 2017. I wanted to know why bus service had gotten so unreliable, and I wanted them to fix it. At the time, I was trying very hard to get my life back on track. I’d gone through a period of mental and emotional disorders and substance abuse. I was on probation and got a job at a grocery store. I’d get off work at 10 pm, 11 pm at night and take the last bus back home. The trip took an hour on a good day. But the schedules they gave out didn’t line up with the actual service. Often the bus would come 10 or 20 minutes late, which meant missing a transfer. Sometimes the bus just wouldn’t show up at all. So, the two hours round-trip turned into four.  The explanation I kept hearing from RTD and in the news was: bus operator shortage. I was picking up my life then, making an hourly wage, with funds really tight. And, in that situation, you’re trying to build your reputation, show you’re putting your life together, start building a career. I wondered, “Will I ever