Most conversations about transportation focus on the use of transit by working-age adults to travel between their home and job. This article investigates one of the missing personas in this...
Most conversations about transportation focus on the use of transit by working-age adults to travel between their home and job. This article investigates one of the missing personas in this conversation: children! Using Philadelphia as a case study, we can think about ways to make our transit system more equitable to everyone, including young people who have different routines and transit needs than working adults.
Parents would also benefit from more kid-friendly transportation, including some of the things mentioned in this article. It would make their lives less stressful, especially if they're in a one-car or zero-car household and have to make decisions about modal use on a regular basis. If the spouse has the car and transit looks like the way to go, let's make it easy for them!
Indego bikes with kids’ seats would be a great addition to the fleet — and bonus points for electric Indegos with kid seats.
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Kids under 12 who are accompanied by a parent ride SEPTA for free; same with students deemed eligible by their schools (though that’s only during school hours, during the school year). We could do more to foster independence in kids from 12 to 18...by giving all students a pass for SEPTA that’s valid 24/7 on all lines, regardless of how far they live from school.
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One of the city’s greatest play spaces — bike paths! Ship-ogling! Ping-pong! Plane-spotting! Playground! — is also one of its most underused, in part because the Navy Yard [is] virtually impossible to get to without a car. Extending the Broad Street Line to the Navy Yard will be...somewhere between $869 million and $1.6 billion — but with federal infrastructure money still floating around, now’s the time to go big,
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Moscow and Montreal installed swings at or near their bus shelters... [akin to] the giant slide one Utrecht train station put up to get riders of all ages to their platforms faster. [...] How about erecting some mini libraries? Installing simple climbing structures! Commissioning cool public art! Painting some hopscotch on sidewalks! And voilà — a better wait for children and caregivers alike.
I like many of these ideas and I hope they can be implemented. How can your city's transportation system be made more accessible to children and young people?
that Utretcht slide is seriously cool. We need more stuff like this for grown ups and younger folks. One thing that I loved about the HK MTR stations (built during colonial era) is that very...
that Utretcht slide is seriously cool. We need more stuff like this for grown ups and younger folks.
One thing that I loved about the HK MTR stations (built during colonial era) is that very often, each station will have a unique colour code to the wall/column tiles -- it helps when I'm reading on the train and lost track of which station I'm at now, I just need to look. Nowadays we have LEDs and such but if I were a younger rider this would sure help. "Get off at Diamond Hill, where the wall is black tiles interspersed with sparkly silver tiles".
BUT I feel like these are all just "nice" extras, when the biggest hurdle is similar to the Navy Yard problem outlined in the article, and not just a hurdle for kids -- the last mile. In many places it just plain isn't safe or feasible for kids to walk 1.5hr to a station, then take the train for an hour, then switch train to get to the museum. "There's busses" -- says people who have not waited for delayed and overpacked busses in -20C winter chill.
It's very difficult to build transportation outside of major metropolis centers.....so maybe that's out of scope.
Wow, that's a great comment! I never thought about the color-coding. If I were lost on the subway as a kid, "the red station" would mean more to me than "46th street" or whatever. I think it would...
Wow, that's a great comment! I never thought about the color-coding. If I were lost on the subway as a kid, "the red station" would mean more to me than "46th street" or whatever. I think it would also make the ride a lot more fun. Kids are always so imaginative with this sort of thing. :) A few of the stations near me have unique designs, but not so much on the line I take personally. I can only think of 2-3 that I could immediately distinguish by sight, at least without looking at a sign. Most are on the "ultra-drab" side of things.
Agreed about the critical bit being the existence of transportation infrastructure to begin with. I'm not sure rail is infeasable outside of the biggest cities—every American city used to have its own robust streetcar network, such that people could get to and from locations they would reasonably want to go to without difficulty. Heavy rail has its own ridership requirements, but any city whose bus service sees reasonable use could likely benefit from a light rail line. Lots of moderately large cities in Europe have these, and I bet more American towns could benefit from commuter lines. And for less urban/suburban areas, I think there are ways to make the bus a better experience too, starting with stops designed to protect people from the elements.
When I was growing up, no one I knew ever took the bus for any reason, even if it would be more convenient than driving (as it occasionally was) or cheaper than taking a Lyft (as it always was). It just wasn't culturally normalized. When I left home to go to college, I was interested to hear perspectives of people from cities with fairly extensive bus networks but relatively little rail (like Seattle, at least at the time): for them, the train was weird. I recall a friend telling me about how she rode the bus by herself every day for all of middle and high school (maybe earlier?). At the time I remember that blew my mind. "Wait, people actually ride in the bus? And they like it?" A ridiculous question, when you think about it, but as a kid, transit ridership (bus use in particular) just wasn't really modeled for me, except occasionally taking the train large distances.
I recall in Japan a lot of the bigger subway stations had all sorts of markers. They weren’t necessarily color codes since colors are used to distinguish lines, but I each station has a statue or...
I recall in Japan a lot of the bigger subway stations had all sorts of markers. They weren’t necessarily color codes since colors are used to distinguish lines, but I each station has a statue or something that’s sort of a meeting space.
Like the statue of Hachiko at Shibuya station is apparently where you stand and wait (appropriately!) for people if you’re meeting someone there. There was another station where they had a sumo wrestler. Station mascots like that are also great for leaving impressions on children.
IIRC in the early 2000s I think Nintendo did a promotion with the Tokyo subway system as well where they tagged each station with a specific Pokémon and kids were encouraged to visit and “catch” them with some sort of subway passport. The idea was to teach children how to understand and navigate the system.
Great article and definitely something to think about but I really think the way to make public transit better for kids takes place on a much broader societal level, trust. I'm an American now...
Great article and definitely something to think about but I really think the way to make public transit better for kids takes place on a much broader societal level, trust.
I'm an American now living in Germany and I was completely ratteled the first few times I saw five year olds independently riding public transit to get to school. Low crime and high societal trust, as well as trust in children to be semi-autonomous (as American children once were) means that most kids here are able and appropriately do us public transit to get around - at least to school and back. Even some friends from the states were toying with the diea of moving here but lamented they'd need two cars to get both to work and the kids to and from schools, the idea of children getting anywhere independently is foreign to most Americans.
Pair that with decades of falling crime, even in light of the COVID uptick, and it becomes clear that America is paranoid about crime and danger. We need to be willing to allow our children and our societies to have trust again and until we do that we'll never reap the rewards of programs laid out in the article. But that's a much bigger issue to be solved that would require better work-life balance to enable higher community involvement and face-to-face interactions as well as a complete redesign of cities that ignore public transit, thus making it more dangerous, in favor or socially devoid car infrastructure. America can dig its way out, the same way that many European cities did in the 80's and 90's but the will needs to be there and I just think that mose Americans can't envision a life without their cars.
I firmly believe that people whose primary view of the world is through screens (usually TV but also social media) are the culprit here.
We need to be willing to allow our children and our societies to have trust again and until we do that we'll never reap the rewards of programs laid out in the article.
I firmly believe that people whose primary view of the world is through screens (usually TV but also social media) are the culprit here.
Most conversations about transportation focus on the use of transit by working-age adults to travel between their home and job. This article investigates one of the missing personas in this conversation: children! Using Philadelphia as a case study, we can think about ways to make our transit system more equitable to everyone, including young people who have different routines and transit needs than working adults.
Parents would also benefit from more kid-friendly transportation, including some of the things mentioned in this article. It would make their lives less stressful, especially if they're in a one-car or zero-car household and have to make decisions about modal use on a regular basis. If the spouse has the car and transit looks like the way to go, let's make it easy for them!
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I like many of these ideas and I hope they can be implemented. How can your city's transportation system be made more accessible to children and young people?
that Utretcht slide is seriously cool. We need more stuff like this for grown ups and younger folks.
One thing that I loved about the HK MTR stations (built during colonial era) is that very often, each station will have a unique colour code to the wall/column tiles -- it helps when I'm reading on the train and lost track of which station I'm at now, I just need to look. Nowadays we have LEDs and such but if I were a younger rider this would sure help. "Get off at Diamond Hill, where the wall is black tiles interspersed with sparkly silver tiles".
BUT I feel like these are all just "nice" extras, when the biggest hurdle is similar to the Navy Yard problem outlined in the article, and not just a hurdle for kids -- the last mile. In many places it just plain isn't safe or feasible for kids to walk 1.5hr to a station, then take the train for an hour, then switch train to get to the museum. "There's busses" -- says people who have not waited for delayed and overpacked busses in -20C winter chill.
It's very difficult to build transportation outside of major metropolis centers.....so maybe that's out of scope.
Wow, that's a great comment! I never thought about the color-coding. If I were lost on the subway as a kid, "the red station" would mean more to me than "46th street" or whatever. I think it would also make the ride a lot more fun. Kids are always so imaginative with this sort of thing. :) A few of the stations near me have unique designs, but not so much on the line I take personally. I can only think of 2-3 that I could immediately distinguish by sight, at least without looking at a sign. Most are on the "ultra-drab" side of things.
Agreed about the critical bit being the existence of transportation infrastructure to begin with. I'm not sure rail is infeasable outside of the biggest cities—every American city used to have its own robust streetcar network, such that people could get to and from locations they would reasonably want to go to without difficulty. Heavy rail has its own ridership requirements, but any city whose bus service sees reasonable use could likely benefit from a light rail line. Lots of moderately large cities in Europe have these, and I bet more American towns could benefit from commuter lines. And for less urban/suburban areas, I think there are ways to make the bus a better experience too, starting with stops designed to protect people from the elements.
When I was growing up, no one I knew ever took the bus for any reason, even if it would be more convenient than driving (as it occasionally was) or cheaper than taking a Lyft (as it always was). It just wasn't culturally normalized. When I left home to go to college, I was interested to hear perspectives of people from cities with fairly extensive bus networks but relatively little rail (like Seattle, at least at the time): for them, the train was weird. I recall a friend telling me about how she rode the bus by herself every day for all of middle and high school (maybe earlier?). At the time I remember that blew my mind. "Wait, people actually ride in the bus? And they like it?" A ridiculous question, when you think about it, but as a kid, transit ridership (bus use in particular) just wasn't really modeled for me, except occasionally taking the train large distances.
I recall in Japan a lot of the bigger subway stations had all sorts of markers. They weren’t necessarily color codes since colors are used to distinguish lines, but I each station has a statue or something that’s sort of a meeting space.
Like the statue of Hachiko at Shibuya station is apparently where you stand and wait (appropriately!) for people if you’re meeting someone there. There was another station where they had a sumo wrestler. Station mascots like that are also great for leaving impressions on children.
IIRC in the early 2000s I think Nintendo did a promotion with the Tokyo subway system as well where they tagged each station with a specific Pokémon and kids were encouraged to visit and “catch” them with some sort of subway passport. The idea was to teach children how to understand and navigate the system.
Great article and definitely something to think about but I really think the way to make public transit better for kids takes place on a much broader societal level, trust.
I'm an American now living in Germany and I was completely ratteled the first few times I saw five year olds independently riding public transit to get to school. Low crime and high societal trust, as well as trust in children to be semi-autonomous (as American children once were) means that most kids here are able and appropriately do us public transit to get around - at least to school and back. Even some friends from the states were toying with the diea of moving here but lamented they'd need two cars to get both to work and the kids to and from schools, the idea of children getting anywhere independently is foreign to most Americans.
Pair that with decades of falling crime, even in light of the COVID uptick, and it becomes clear that America is paranoid about crime and danger. We need to be willing to allow our children and our societies to have trust again and until we do that we'll never reap the rewards of programs laid out in the article. But that's a much bigger issue to be solved that would require better work-life balance to enable higher community involvement and face-to-face interactions as well as a complete redesign of cities that ignore public transit, thus making it more dangerous, in favor or socially devoid car infrastructure. America can dig its way out, the same way that many European cities did in the 80's and 90's but the will needs to be there and I just think that mose Americans can't envision a life without their cars.
I firmly believe that people whose primary view of the world is through screens (usually TV but also social media) are the culprit here.