Welcome Passengers!

About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders live in New York City (or its suburbs). As a dedicated user of mass transit in NYC, it is impossible to deny the influence that transit has on my daily life. My childhood in San Francisco, however, is where my life as a Straphanger began – my family only had one car for two working adults and thus, I was dependent on SFMUNI and BART to get to and from school. While SF gets credit for being more progressive than other cities, mass transit options remain somewhat limited and auto use is indirectly encouraged as there is poor coordination between land use planning and transit. Regardless, my experiences using public transportation cultivated an on-going interest in exploring how transit can move people from place to place, as well as the larger effect transit has on the livability of cities.

In any given day, New Yorkers switch from one mode of transit to another but some users are not always aware of the choices available. Conversely, users in ‘transit-poor’ areas face the challenge of choosing between only a few (or no) options.  As funding for transportation is continuously threatened by budget cuts, users as well as transit systems are negatively impacted. One method of retaining ridership  can be achieved through the power of marketing. There are several different approaches to developing a marketing campaign, but an effective message that transit agencies should promote to attract and keep ridership numbers up is to encourage users to see transit as an active experience of our built environment. Mass transit (among other things) takes less cars off the road, reduces the number of accidents and fatalities, decreases pollution, and allows us to interact with the spaces around us. This will be a blog that celebrates campaigns which promote these values, and criticizes those that miss the mark.

Sometimes, it IS about how (and why) you get there –  not just the destination.