Mount Pleasant, SC- East Cooper CARTA Rider's effort to improve public transit in our part of Charleston County (SC) continues Saturday, September 24 with "The Bus is Up to Us" a transit awareness effort linked to the 176 country global event Moving Planet. We'll gather for a dutch treat breakfast featuring some locally sourced ingredients and then move out to hang bags of transit information on 600 door knobs along our endangered 401 East Cooper Connector Route and a lot of people to people contact. This week's Porches to Sidewalks column links transit to economic recovery for struggling families, discusses the fantastic Olympia, Washington transit system just visited and talks about our Saturday effort. The full text and links are set out in the body of this post. I've also embedded a great video by the University School of the Lowcountry, which has been contributing a lot of support to our effort. They went out with home made cookies to talk about transit. We won't have cookies Saturday, but we'll be talking to more potential riders.
Here is there video. Full details on the entire effort in the body of the post.
A Family Needs a Ride
On a hot June evening a baby, mother and father rested nervously in the humidity on the faded wooden bench next to BI-Lo on Hungryneck Boulevard. They had already been through a lot. Unemployment, bounced checks, eviction, repossession and travel had brought them blow by blow to the bench where cigarette butts mingled with sand in the worn grass at their feet.
Up to this place and this moment, events had pushed them. Misfortune had driven them to here, with no place else to go but a friend’s spare room and nearly no way to get there.
I was on board the CARTA 401 East Cooper Connector Bus taking a survey ride for the East Cooper CARTA Riders, the community group working to preserve and improve public transit here. The Green and Ivory neighborhood sized bus rolled towards the stop where the family waited. Doors opened. The cool atmosphere of the bus poured down on the three as they boarded, lifting sweat from their skin. They slipped their bus passes into the farebox and were flopped half involuntarily into their seats as the bus took off, trying to make up lost time as the driver watched me checking my watch and taking notes.
I reminded the driver transit’s holy grail is on route and schedule. The family smiled as dad prepared to begin work at his new job downtown. This family really needed a ride.
Dad’s new boss really needed an employee. Mom needed the paycheck. Baby just liked watching the view as we crossed Shem Creek. A community which leaves people behind, loses the energy and potential of every person who can’t get where they need to go. Pay is unearned. Goods and services languish unpurchased. Land devalues. Taxes go unpaid. Each disconnected round of the cycle pushes us all downward, from the wealthy investor with unrented apartments sweating his next monster mortgage payment to the clerk scoping ice cream at Town Center fretting over unsold vanilla.
Community Journey
East Cooper has been on a journey to extend our areas transit system with three new routes since January. Students from the University School or the Lowcountry and Wando have gone to hundreds of homes and businesses with transit information. Thousands of schedules and fliers have been handed out at the Blessing of the Fleet and other events. Our four CARTA directors have sat through long, sometimes difficult meetings, and afterwards gone to businesses and leaders in their communities with information. An effort to improve our bus stops has begun. Pressure has been applied to increase the probability that our new highway projects will include safe, convenient bus stops.
Ridership on the #40 route was up 16% in May and has recovered after a dip in the summer. The East Cooper Connector Route has made it to 40% of its ridership and farebox revenue goals in the slow month of August. The Island Flex bus struggles with low ridership and the possibility of being cancelled in October. Overall CARTA has higher ridership now that at any time in its history and the increases East of the Cooper are clearly the result of the community effort. Progress is hard, even when it is needed.
Olympia, WA a Model of Success
I’m visiting Olympia, Washington this week to help settle my son Jackson into Evrgreen State College. The community has the finest bus based transit system in the United States. Every stop has a shelter. Dozens of routes cover the community, all linked to an impressive central transit center. Google maps allows anyone to automatically obtain full, real time options for any trip they might like to make. A full day pass is two dollars. The buses are busy, full and social.
It’s humbling to see what bus transit can do. Yesterday Jackson went to Tacoma, a round trip of over sixty miles using his new bus pass. I’ve talked to business leaders, riders and drivers. Nearly everyone here sees transit as a necessity, a responsible response to the needs of the community and environment. They regard it as a core service the community should provide.
We’re a long way from anything like that here, however we’re traveling in the right direction now.
The Bus is Up to Us, Moving Planet
On Saturday, Sept. 24th, as part of the global Moving Planet effort, East Cooper CARTA Riders will continue that work by gathering for breakfast and discussion at Page’s Okra Grill at 8 am before heading out at 9 am for door to door transit awareness work in the Old Village and along Whipple Road. Full information on Moving Planet worldwide can be found on their website at http://moving-planet.org/
It is the sort of low tech talking to people and hanging bags of literature on people’s doorknobs which we know works. This begins a fall awareness raising campaign which includes relaunch of the CARTA at Night Bus service which will allow service workers a safe and comfortable trip home after regular bus service ends at 9 pm. CARTA at night was cancelled last year due to recession driven budget cuts here.
The effort culminates in “Black Friday on the Bus” the day after Thanksgiving. We’re calling Saturday morning’s effort “The Bus is Up to Us.”
It isn’t as sexy as the solar powered Rock Concert in Ho Chi Min City or the big silent march in Berlin that are also part of Moving Planet, but it’s our community’s response to the hope for a world with is fairer, cleaner and more sustainable. Everyone’s welcome. Bring a bag or a backpack and water. Wear comfortable shoes. Remember your smile. Sign up at www.eastccrider.com.
That family’s first trip to the new job was a small journey. Olympia, Washington is way ahead of us. The Moving Planet effort links millions of people in a global effort to reduce carbon emissions facing tough opposition.
All of these journeys have a three things in common. We need to move
in the right direction. We are making progress. It’s a journey we
have to make together.