If you’ve ever lived close to a college or university, you know they bring richness and diversity to their communities. Some campuses are thoroughly intertwined with the cities they are in, but others are quite separate. For all those campuses, campus transit—on demand and fixed route—it is a vital connection to the larger community.
Colleges and universities have a symbiotic relationship with their communities, but as a 2016 APTA panel pointed out, it doesn’t happen overnight or without concerted efforts.
Are those efforts worth it?
From jobs (for students and the community) and access to classes to supporting businesses of all kinds, seamless transit connections between campus and city is the key ingredient to success.
Even beyond these benefits, having robust transit connections to and from campus to the city, reduces congestion, pollution, and the need for massive parking lots. As we all move toward more sustainable futures, transit is one of the best ways to get there. And when a city is thinking about its own transit network, it can’t forget the nearby college neighbors.
Colleges and universities are essential parts of their communities
Colleges and universities are essential to their communities, and vice versa. They both rely heavily on each other for services, jobs, and everything people need. That connection can become tenuous when people rely on personal cars to get to and from campus. Without efficient public transit, these two worlds can become like islands to each other. Close, but separate enough that they can’t truly take advantage of what the other has to offer.
“Their system really supports not only the student body as well as the faculty and everybody else, the staff, but also the local population. Because it is so wide, it’s such a big part, an integral part of the community. Princeton is right there in the middle of it and they serve as such an integral part of getting everybody around such a large area.” – Erick Van Wagenen, CEO of WeDriveU from a recent episode of Transit Unplugged.
While people only look at the benefits from the university’s perspective, let’s look at three ways the larger community benefits from transit connections to higher education.
Connecting to education
Whether it’s continuing education or kids going to college close to home, transit connects people to learning. Modaxo’s Blog and Podcast Manager taught continuing education classes at the University of British Columbia for many years. We asked him why that was so important, and he said this:
“I taught classes on building websites and starting podcasts for years. I’d take transit to the UBC downtown campus on Saturday mornings to teach people who really wanted to learn about technology. I saw people building skills for their jobs, starting small businesses, having a creative outlet. It was always fun to feel like I was helping people just learn something new. And making sure people have easy access to these classes is how it happens.” – Tris Hussey, M.S., Blog and Podcast Manager, Modaxo.
And transit connections to and from the community and campus, make that possible. The single parent taking courses to finish their degree or just pick up skills to get a better job, they might be tropes for movies and TV, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true.
Imagine if you didn’t own a car or parking on campus was prohibitively expensive, how would you be able to take that class to a better future? How can someone from a disadvantaged community trying to get their education get there (we talked about his in detail in a previous blog post specifically about access to education)?
Connecting to culture
Universities are full of opportunities for everyone around the campus to take in art, music, dance, theater, speakers, and all the exciting things that just happen on campuses. Again, it’s transit that makes that possible. Maybe a kid gets their first chance to hear an opera at a student production or hear a world-renowned speaker who inspires them to reach for the stars. When people can quickly hop on a bus and connect into the campus, that becomes possible. When people rely on taxis or personal cars to get to these events, that’s another barrier some people can’t cross.
Connecting to jobs
Universities are massive employers. And the benefits of working at a university go far beyond just money, you’re there to experience everything and often can take courses or use the library for free. Now, imagine if you live beyond walking distance to campus and don’t have a car, you wouldn’t even bother to apply. Good Will Hunting might have been fiction, but people do start working at a university, start taking classes, and get a degree that is a path to a better job.
But it also works the other way with students getting jobs at local businesses. Local businesses of all kinds get access to a worker pool who might also come up with the next big thing. You never know what amazing things come out of fresh ideas from students.
Regular and on demand transit forge the bond
Transit, both campus-run and city-run, are what forges the bond between colleges and college towns. TransLoc can connect those dots and make on demand and fixed route transit solutions that bring opportunities to everyone.
To get there you need systems and people who can work together to create seamless systems for payment, routes, schedules, and expansion.
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