How Transportation Can Transform Lives

In the fall of 2015, when concerns over the Rockford Housing Authority east side housing development referred to as “the New Towne project” were still dominating conversations in Rockford, Ron Clewer, CEO of the Rockford Housing Authority, visited my Auburn High School AP English classroom to talk about this new housing site. Mr. Clewer explained his philosophy that all people deserve to live in a nice home in safe surroundings. Because most of my students lived on the west side of Rockford, many of them in neighborhoods that aren’t the ideal in terms of upkeep and in which violent crime is the norm, they heartily agreed that it is not fair to segregate public housing tenants just because they are poor. What surprised the kids – at least for a moment – was to hear Mr. Clewer mention the “greater job opportunities” that would be available to tenants if they were to relocate to the east side. Having lived on the west side of town all of their lives, the students hadn’t realized that even as adults, transportation issues can significantly limit people’s opportunities.

The students had been tasked with helping to transform Rockford by recommending an initiative that would help our community to thrive, an assignment that required primary research in the form of an experiment and/or direct observations. This was my opportunity to model the process of gathering observational data and analyzing it in order to draw a logical conclusion. Thus began my bus riding experiment.

My intention was to ride the city bus for thirty days, traveling from my east side home via bus to the west side high school at which I taught every day. This would mimic the travel requirements of west side residents who worked on the east side (where the State Street corridor is lined with businesses and, as a result, job opportunities). It would also entail my traveling by bus to pick up my son at after-school care, as well as my daughter accompanying me whenever she stayed after school for activities instead of taking the school bus home. (She was a freshman at the same school at which I taught.)

What I discovered immediately is how much planning and adjustment is required to ride the bus. Most routes run only once per hour, and while there are two routes that pass by my neighborhood, one of which actually runs every half hour, the bus that provided the best timing for me to arrive at school early enough to tutor students and prepare for the day arrived at the nearest bus stop at 6:28 a.m. This meant that my daughter had to get her brother up and ready for school on her own.

Normally my drive to school would have taken me less than fifteen minutes.  Riding the bus to the transfer center (where all east side riders must transfer to a west side route and vice versa) and waiting a few minutes for a connecting bus resulted in a forty-minute commute instead.  While this was an inconvenient increase in time, it was minor compared to the time commitment required when picking up my son.  That necessitated taking a first bus to the transfer center, another to his school, waiting forty minutes for a return bus to the transfer center, and finally taking a fourth bus to a location four blocks from my home.  Door to door, this trip comprised one hundred minutes; normally it took only thirty-five when driving myself.

Financially, riding the bus was more expensive.  As a hybrid driver, I typically put less than $50.00 worth of gas in my car each month; a thirty-day bus pass cost $55.00.  Each of my children also had to pay, though – $.75 for my son each way and $1.50 for my daughter ($3.00 when she accompanied me to pick up her brother, as the bus stop at his school was not a transfer point).

Safety was also a concern.  Never mind the interesting characters one may encounter on the bus, nor even the person who gave my son a dollar, pulled out of a thick roll of cash I worried may have been obtained disreputably – my safety was jeopardized while walking to and from the bus.  Once, I bruised both knees when I tripped and fell over an uneven sidewalk, upended by a tree root.  I did not ride the bus during the winter, and so did not face slick, icy walkways, but I did encounter some rather treacherous mud when the sidewalk ran out before I reached the bus stop on one route.  And the day that I rode the bus to a community conversation about the very housing development that inspired my experiment, I ended up snow-covered, wet, and in tears because 8 ½ inches of snow was still pelting Rockford as I made my way to a bus stop I had not used before, uncertain how long it would take me to arrive there or how late the bus may be running.

I arrived at the bus stop six minutes early that day, where I stood gathering snow, particularly on my face and at the top of my boots, which began to soak my jeans.  I started to worry that the bus wasn’t coming.  Or that I had read the schedule wrong and thus missed it. It also didn’t help that I was standing on a busy corner by a stoplight, and almost immediately after I had arrived, a man I didn’t know offered me a ride.  I had graciously declined, of course, asserting that the bus would be along any minute.  But now it was a good ten minutes later, and there was no sign of the bus.  My phone was almost dead (who forgets to charge her phone when she’s planning to venture away from home for several hours on the bus?!?) but I did have my route guidebook in my bag; however, I did not relish the idea of letting snow into the section of my bag that also contained student papers to grade, nor did I want to have to take my gloves off!

Finally I gave in to the desperate need to know, and I fished out the schedule to find that the time I had thought the bus was to arrive was actually its departure time from the transfer center.  My stop was ten minutes later.  UGH.

On the bright side, I hadn’t missed the bus.

I realize in looking back that there are numerous challenges that regular bus riders face which I was able to avoid by simply not riding the bus when I didn’t want to. For one, I never took the bus to the grocery store, or any other store, for that matter.  I chose to walk the forty-five minutes home the day I rode the bus to an appointment when the weather was nice, but that became rather scary when I realized at one intersection that I had no easy way to cross a particular street with poor visibility for oncoming traffic that was not required to stop. There are quite a few streets in my neighborhood alone that are less than friendly to pedestrians, and knowing how people tear down my own avenue, I was not particularly confident that I was entirely safe walking home.  Let me clarify: I did not fear criminals; I feared simply being hit by a car, even on neighborhood streets.  Many, if not most, other bus riders do have to fear being mugged or otherwise harmed as they walk through less savory neighborhoods at all times of night.

I could never do my current job if I had to ride the bus regularly.  Being a single mom made it impossible to fulfill both my parental and my professional duties effectively while also committing so much time to planning for and being on the bus.  But even without kids, it would be impractical to rely on public transit.  Even if I could get work done during my rides – which I really couldn’t – I would have been exhausted, messy, dirty, and most likely regularly injured.  And how would I regularly replenish my snacks for the students? The lotion, mints, Germ-X, Band-Aids that I supply myself?  If I stopped at the stores most convenient via bus, I would be spending more than I usually do on such products – or I just wouldn’t provide them in the classroom anymore.

In order to not allow it to have a significantly negative impact on my family, I had to cheat while doing this experiment.  My babysitter picked up my son most of the time; I got rides home from various coworkers and parents of students; I got in the car as soon as I returned home in order to drive to whatever store I needed to patronize.  The bottom line is that the bus is more than merely inconvenient; it forces people into a wholly different lifestyle than those who drive.  And it really only works for those whose schedules are entirely flexible – and who don’t have regular professional and family obligations.  Ideally with a few tweaks, we could have an effective public transportation system in Rockford, but the fact is that budgetary restrictions have caused the bus system to become more limited in recent decades rather than being expanded.  Expecting residents to rely on the bus system for transportation from the housing projects on the west side of town to viable employment on the east side is unrealistic.

When former residents of Fairgrounds Valley move into what is now called The Grove at Keith Creek on New Towne Drive, in the heart of Rockford’s business corridor, they will more easily access grocery and other retail stores.  They will be within a few minutes of Rockford University and the opportunity to pursue higher education.  And they will face fewer challenges when interviewing for and travelling to jobs, the significant element everyone agrees is their key to success.  If we want to support people living in poverty in their quest to raise themselves out of poverty, we cannot expect them to spend excessive amounts of time wrestling with the extreme challenges of using public transportation; they must live in close proximity to these conveniences that those of us with cars take for granted.

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