TRANSIT STORIES

Portland, Oregon: OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon I was born in Ethiopia. I moved to the US in 2008 when I was 14 years old. I am blind and was adopted by a family that lives in Richfield, Washington, a very rural area. In Richfield, where I grew up, there is no way to get around without owning a private car. After graduating from high school, I moved to Vancouver to go to Washington State University. My apartment was an eighteen-minute drive from campus, but it took me two and a half hours to three hours each way to take the bus. For a 9 am class, I had to get up at 4 am and leave for the bus at 5 am to arrive on time. The commute was exhausting and took way too much of my time. Distracting from important aspects of life like building a social life. This experience made me a transit advocate for the Vancouver and Portland area. I currently live in Vancouver and travel by bus and train to work in Portland. I am a Bus Riders United organizer at OPAL, Environmental Justice Oregon. We work with transit-dependent individuals, including elderly people, youth, and disabled

Los Angeles, CA: Move LA I am a native Los Angelino and grew up in Compton. I was a lifeguard when I was in my teens in Watts. Spending time in the Watts neighborhood really had an impact on me in terms of my social justice learning and has guided my journey into community work. I’ve worked for several start-up nonprofits that are focused on issues that impact our community which led me to my role as the founding director of LA Commons. LA Commons is an arts and culture-based organization that also provides a civic space for families in the area to meet, learn, and grow together.   Like a lot of Angelenos, I’ve had a relationship with a car. I remember going to the DMV on my 16th birthday to get my license. Many consider that a rite of passage into adulthood in Los Angeles. My parents had the means to own a car, so I rarely interacted with public transportation when I was growing up. I’m environmentally conscious, so I decided to lease a plug-in hybrid for three years. However, the car had issues at the very beginning (so bad that the manufacturer compensated me $5,000) and again

Washington, D.C. – Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 689 I was born at DC General Hospital in 1983.  My mom worked for the federal government for forty-two years, and my dad was a teacher at John Tyler Elementary School. I grew up around my cousins, and there was always someone around to watch over me.  We lived one block away from the Potomac Avenue Metro station in Southeast DC. As kids, we either walked or took public transportation to school. You could say I’ve been a lifelong Metrobus rider. When I was 16, my father passed away. After that happened, I sort of went into a downward spiral. I started getting mixed up with what my mom would call “the wrong crowd”. To make a long story short, it led me down a path that ended up with me having a criminal record.  Four months after my eighteenth birthday, I gave birth to my oldest daughter, who is now 22. Soon after she was born, my first love and I broke up. I was heartbroken. I realized I had to survive on my own. The bus was my lifeline. The bus connected me to the babysitter and allowed me to get

Baltimore, MD: Central Maryland Transportation Alliance I’m a Baltimore native and was born and raised in East Baltimore. I’ve always defined myself as a servant-leader. I was a teacher, then a principal, and now I am the Vice President of Community Impact for the Baltimore Community Foundation. My core values are centered on giving and serving.  When I think of transit issues that our community faces, I often recall the challenges that students faced getting to school while I was Principal of Green Street Academy. Green Street Academy served students, grades 6th through 12th who primarily resided in West Baltimore. Green Street Academy is a public charter school. Many public school students in Baltimore rely on public transit to get to school, and students at Green Street Academy are no exception. I was very proud of my tenure there. When we started, we only had 130 students, but grew to 975 by the time I transitioned out. We were one of the first schools in Baltimore that offered classes in the trades, vertical farming, and hydroponics. We also focused on the green economy, especially green design and construction management. Given the school was located on the city and county line,

New Orleans, LA: Ride New Orleans My name is Timothy Cardner, and I am a musician, barista, and board member of Ride New Orleans. I moved to New Orleans to study music at the University of New Orleans in 2017, and graduated in 2022.  My first experience with transit was taking the 55 Elysian Fields bus from UNO to my job at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. My shifts ended between midnight and 1 am, meaning that sometimes I would have to wait until 3 am for a bus. Other times I just waved down a cab. I own a car now, but the cost of parking and gas make it too expensive to drive every day. I save my car for when I’m transporting music equipment or when I’m leaving town. For everything else, I rely on the RTA. I now work at Cafe Beignet on Canal Street, where parking my car for a single shift would cost me over two hours of work. To get to work I catch the crowded 9 Broad bus at 5:50 am and take it to Canal Street, where a handful of riders and I transfer to the streetcar. The buses