Stereotyping Bus Riders
BusChick wrote a post the other day on what it’s like to ride the bus while biracial.
Quoting The Bus Bench:
The downside to being car free is that as a person of color is that you are not viewed as eco or green when you don’t have a car. … Being black and not having a car means you are poor. And being viewed as poor can limit your opportunities.
Update after the jump.
BusChick also notes:
I absolutely agree and would only add that the stigma and prejudice are magnified a gazillionfold if you are a car-free person of color with children.
In Las Vegas, you are likely to see everyone of every race everywhere. That’s what I love about this city. But people, brown and white alike, stigmatize bus riding as “ghetto” and for the “poor” rather than a choice that helps the environment.
I’ve done it. When I ride the free bus, Sierra Spirit, in downtown Reno I see a lot of homeless-looking people (sans front teeth) and brown folks. Is it that all the brown people in Reno are poor or do most them just live or work downtown?
I think brown people are largely ignored in Reno, with the idea that the city is 90% white. My personal experience is different. They just live on the edges of Reno society and are really never marketed to or included.
I’m hoping this doesn’t happen when I start my graduate project on public transit. Public transit should serve everyone and not create barriers – financial or racial.
Maybe this is a two part series?
Update: Thank you to Free Public Transit for this chart from Jan 29 Streetsblog post:
It’s been a bit of a thorn in my side for awhile that the media and perhaps general public don’t realize that the majority of poor people are white.
The stronger message is that cutting bus services and raising fares is effectively disenfranchising a large part of the American population. How can so many of these people get to work on time? Pick up their children from school? See a physician? See their friends? See their family?
One a side note – I think we should start rewarding bus riders by letting them know that their choice to ride the bus is not just an economic choice, but a choice to better the environment. Why not doughnuts and coffee?
Related posts:
- Alternate Solutions: Public transit fees for students
- Lost: Bike Wheels
- Taking the bus in Vegas = huge sacrifice
- Would you take the bus if it were free?
- Reno Transportation Cuts Routes
About The Author
EcoStreets
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Great post. I have long thought about Reno’s problem which is that transit users are actually considered the “Transit Using Underclass”. In Reno to ride transit is to be a lesser citizen. And to a certain extent people have a point. The bus service is infrequent and slow enough, and Reno small enough, that a bike or a scooter will do you pretty well, and you’ll get wherever you’re going on time and on your terms. I think that’s a broken perspective that doesn’t look at overall mobility needs very critically, and a good public transit system is part of any functional place.
I try to argue that a bus system worth using will attract more riders. I think figuring out how to make one of those in Reno is the primary challenge.
If we rewarded those who chose to use the bus, would that stigma change?
I think bus cuts are a step in the very wrong direction (http://studentdev.jour.unr.edu/ecostreets/?p=253), but if we associated positive messages with taking the bus, I think more people would a) ride the bus and b) lobby the RTC for better routes.
Hard question to answer. How do you envision rewarding people who choose the bus?
I agree that service cuts are the wrong wrong way to go. It’s sad RTC 2 didn’t pass.
I think it would relatively simple – just as Portland gave coffee and doughnuts to bike riders going over the bridge, RTC can do the same on its lines with the most passengers at peak times. They could hold a brief presentation on how their riders are helping the environment and what that means to Reno. Then, give riders a chance to give feedback with surveys. It doesn’t have to be a big ordeal with credits and points and blahblahblah. Just a simple, “Thank you for helping the environment. Here’s a bearclaw.”
Sounds like a good marketing ploy. I still have concerns that the transit service worth advertising (and having such perks for and advertising those as a customer loyalty generator) is the transit service that is a reward to use in and of itself. The problem is, that riding transit is not so easy as to make it something a person just arbitrarily does, nor is it so rewarding (even with coffee and donuts I’m sad to say) as to be something people will want to do just to, say, have a positive environmental impact.
Transit needs to be especially useful not necessarily on an equivalent basis with its competition the automobile (or other personal mobility device) but especially useful on the basis of a few characteristics that mostly impact a person’s ability to function in the world. ie, not losing jobs, being able to keep appointments, being able to do other things that are tertiary – without being a terrible fatiguing factor.
In Reno especially, this is true. Coming from Las Vegas you must know that Reno’s traffic does not compare to the traffic in a big city. So the benefits of transit must be more satisfying and yet less tangible even than “you won’t be stuck in traffic!” Coffee and donuts + you won’t be stuck in traffic will work in a big city with lots of evil traffic and not enough time in the day.
The problem that I think has been the hardest for my thinking is the cost of the system. Getting a system that’s a pleasure to use paid for is not a simple task.
Here is a link to a chart of who rides the bus.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/01/29/obama-stimulus-leaves-bus-riders-by-the-side-of-the-road/
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While I agree that the motivation behind taking bus should be as you described, the focus on the environmental aspects is deliberate. The transit system is malfunctioning in Las Vegas so drivers don’t see it as a way to stay out of traffic. It takes longer to get from point a to point b on the bus than in a car, even with horrible traffic. What will motivate them is to see that busing is good for the environment first then good for building community second. People are more open now to doing “green things”. Once they start making the connection between cars= pollution, buses = 10x less pollution, then they’ll voice their opinion to RTC that they need buses to get around. This blog is to facilitate that conversation. It’s in the beginning stages, but over the next few years, with effective journalism, people will start to seriously think about bettering their public transit system.
I’m with you on getting people engaged and interested in making their transit systems better. I think getting green minded folks involved and giving them little perks as a way of saying thank you could be a great way to move the needle.
Yes! Reward the bus riders! Or, at least stop punishing them. They are generating profits for your 401k, keeping the cost of energy down, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Why do we make them pay a fare to do this for us?
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from APTA: “Each year, public transportation use in the U.S. saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline. This represents almost 4 million gallons of gasoline per day.”
http://www.apta.com/media/facts.cfm#hw06