Promoting Public Transit at Oxy

When I hear people complain about how they have to stay on campus all of the time because they do not have a car here in LA, I usually tell them about the Gold Line. Very few people know what I am talking about and fewer know that there is a Gold Line pickup on York Ave. A year or so ago I was part of the majority who didn't realize that public transportation was just around the block. This was partially due to the fact that I have had a car on campus since my freshman year so whenever I wanted to go somewhere I hopped in the car like most people in LA. The other factor at play was that I flat out didn't believe that Los Angeles had a public transportation system at all.

After three years on campus, I started taking public transportation, albeit infrequently. So why did it take me so long to access public transportation here in LA? There seem to be a number of reasons that lead to me not using the local public transportation system. One is that I was lead to believe that coming to a campus in LA meant that I would need a car if I wanted to get anywhere and no one told me differently. There also seems to be a lack of education about the access that is near campus. I originally wanted to blame this on Oxy for not making it known that public transport was close by, but they have a link to the MTA in the "Life in LA" section of the school website. It can be found here: http://www.oxy.edu/x2352.xml.

So the information is out there, if you are looking for it, but having information available on public transit is not the same as promoting its use. Part of making people more aware of the public transit available locally will be the cinematic masterpiece released later this semester by Derek, Alex, Derek Inc. As sweet as the movie is sure to be, it will probably not be enough. When I started using public transit in LA, I soon found out that it is not very user friendly.

The Gold Line will take you some places but if you want to go somewhere off its path you'll have to make some transfers and you don't want to be the middle class college kid who winds up in Watts. To avoid this, we will need to educate people on how to use public transit in addition to telling them where to access it. The final hurdle we will have to overcome is the perception that public transit is grimy and dangerous. I'm not gonna lie, I've been on some dirty buses but there are plenty of good examples as well. In order to promote public transit, we will have to overcome stereotypes, give opportunity for access, and educate on how to use it once you access it.