Writing about politics, you get to meet some really incredible people. One of my favorites is a guy named Cam Hardy, a local blogger and founder of Cincinnati’s Better Bus Coalition. Cam is everywhere on social media in Cincinnati, where he gets the word out about issues bus riders and bus drivers face. He’s made improving Cincinnati’s bus service a personal mission. I asked him if he’d answer a few questions, talk about his work with the Better Bus Coalition and what it takes to make change happen.
1. Tell us about the Better Bus Coalition and its goal.
We are a grassroots organization founded for better bus service in Hamilton County. There are over 100,000 jobs unreachable by transit in the county today. And the bottom line is that the group that operates our Metro bus service, SORTA, hasn’t had sufficient investment since its beginning. We’ve had bus service since the early ‘70s and we’ve never retooled the system. Most of the bus routes that we’ve had since the ‘70s are still in place today.
I’m a bus rider. I ride the bus every day. And I just got fed up. This is where the Better Bus Coalition came from.
Our goal is that we want to see improvement in public transportation in this region. It should be a regional approach. We want to see investment and that the investment is led by the people who are affected by bus service the most.
We have to start by fixing the meat and potatoes of our transportation system and that is with buses.
2. How did you first get involved in the community and how did it lead to fighting for better bus service?
Before I started at my current job, I was doing security. I was working odd hours—weekends, nights, etc.—and going to school during the day. It was a pretty long day.
One day I was headed home from work. It was a Saturday where I got off at 11 PM. I was riding one of the oldest buses in the fleet. I want to say it was 17 years old. I had snapped a picture because the bus was so crowded. Literally three minutes after I took the picture, the bus breaks down. We’re on Main Street downtown and it’s crazy because it’s Saturday during springtime. Everybody’s out.
It’s standing room only and none of us can get home. So I jump on Facebook live and have some words about it. I was very frustrated and fed up with the lack of conversation about our bus service. I was wondering, do the politicians ride the bus? I just wasn’t hearing anything.
It went viral. Or as I like to call it, Cincinnati viral. It didn’t go national or anything. But the right people saw it.
Next thing you know, I got a phone call from the CEO of Metro. He said he and the chairman of the SORTA board would like to ride the bus with me.
So these guys came down one day. It was raining, by the way. I gained some respect for them because I thought they were gonna cancel. But they met me downtown and we rode all the way out to Northgate.
On the way, I told them about my experiences and what I think needed to be improved. They helped me understand that this takes the will of the politicians. So after I talked with them, I started going to events, I started writing, I started going to city hall to talk to our elected officials.
I ask them why they’re not riding the bus, why they’re not talking about bus service, why this is not a priority.
We hammered them last election and really raised the profile. Now we’ve got the mayor riding the bus a few times a week and we have allies on city council.
3. What are the challenges bus riders face?
Sometimes the buses are hit or miss. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t.
The good news is that Metro just unveiled a service where you can sign up for text alerts. It’s a step but sometimes even this service doesn’t work.
At some of our busiest bus stops, there’s no shelter. There’s no protection from the rain. Or there’s no place for some of the older folks to sit down with their groceries. People use the bus for all aspects of life.
We have a very old fleet. According to the FTA, the life expectancy of a bus is 12 years old. The average age of a bus in our fleet is 11 years old. There are more than 100 buses that are past their useful lifespan in the system today.
It seems like I ride some of the old buses often.
Another big issue is not enough routes to where people want to go. We have only 3 crosstown routes in the entire city. That’s unacceptable. These routes run once an hour. So you have to ride downtown and then transfer. Sometimes it becomes an all day expedition.
I have a longer list, but these are some of the top issues.
4. What’s something you’ve personally learned in this fight?
I’ve learned that Cincinnati has very strange politics. I’m not one that bites my tongue or holds back on my words. And that sometimes makes people uncomfortable. I don’t mind making people feel uncomfortable.
The powers that be don’t want to hear you speak out. But you’ve got to speak out. You’ve got to let them know that you’re watching, you’re listening, and you want investment for your transportation system. Everybody has to speak out. As this heated up, more and more people did speak out.
5. What’s the best story you’ve heard from a bus rider?
There’s a lady who I ride the bus with every morning. She has to be in her 70s. She rides the bus every day. She’s been riding it forever.
And she just talks about how it’s changed. It seems like now the bus system is so severely starved that it’s designed to turn people away from riding it.
She was saying it’s hard for her to get to appointments. Either the buses are showing up an hour and a half early or they’re an hour and a half late. There is no on time anymore. So it’s extremely hard for her to get around.
There was one morning where it was pouring down rain. I had my umbrella and she didn’t have an umbrella. So I gave her mine. She fought me for it. She said, “No, you know. It’s my fault. I forgot my umbrella.”
I wasn’t going to let her stand out there in the pouring rain. So I insisted she take it. She’s kind of like my bus stop grandma. She’s really nice. And she wants to see the bus service get better too.
Better Bus Coalition provides a voice for people like her.
6. What advice would you give people who want to fight for better? Whether it’s better bus service or something else?
The thing about activism is that it doesn’t happen overnight. Confronting the right people doesn’t happen overnight. But you just have to keep at it. I think that what helped us through this was that I just stayed on them. I was going to house parties. I was going to debates. I was meeting them where they were eating dinner and saying, “Go Metro!”
You have to make them feel uncomfortable. But there’s a way to do this and still be respectful. I’ve always kept it respectful, but I have no problem making a politician feel uncomfortable. And that’s what you have to do. You have to take them out of their comfort zone in order to make change happen.
7. What progress have you seen and what can people do to help?
We’ve seen some early successes. We’ve gotten benches and shelters installed. We also just got the majority of council to start a pilot program for a bus only lane between government square and the court house. I spend a lot of time downtown during rush hour. It takes 12-16 minutes just to get out of downtown during those peak times. It would benefit both bus riders and drivers. And also people in cars because buses will be out of the way.
This was big because there has not been legislation passed around improving bus service since Metro Moves failed in 2002. There has not been anything this big passed by council since 2002. So I’m hopeful. There’s some things we can do on the current budget and I’m really hoping we can put a levy on the ballot to drive more real investment in bus service.
So get involved. We’re always accepting donations. We have a website at betterbuscoalition.org. Or check us out on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Share your bus stories via social media (tag Cam Hardy). Or if you’re in Cincinnati, check us out in a neighborhood near you.