Ride New Orleans is an advocacy organization with a mission to win equitable public transportation for all residents across the New Orleans region. For over a decade, Ride New Orleans has advocated for better bus service, particularly service that would improve access to jobs. Years of advocacy by Ride will pay off in September 2022 when the New Orleans RTA launches a bus network redesign that is largely informed by the needs of riders. The “New Links” redesign will be the most transformative change to transit in the region since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and depleted local transit service in its aftermath. Ride New Orleans actively pushed to have a seat at the table when the community engagement outreach for New Links began. In this episode, I speak with the organization’s Executive Director, Courtney Jackson, about how Ride hosted “therapeutic engagement sessions” in collaboration with decision-makers that served to amplify the rider experience and empower the rider voice. Courtney also shares how Ride combines data and storytelling to demonstrate the urgency of frequent, reliable transit service in their advocacy campaigns. “People like data and numbers, but folks have hearts. Humanizing our transit system really makes decision-makers pause and reflect. And in that pause, they [decision-makers] start to see the importance of the work that they do and that humanizes their work.” - Courtney Jackson
Ride New Orleans is an advocacy organization with a mission to win equitable public transportation for all residents across the New Orleans region. For over a decade, Ride New Orleans has advocated for better bus service, particularly service that would improve access to jobs. Years of advocacy by Ride will pay off in September 2022 when the New Orleans RTA launches a bus network redesign that is largely informed by the needs of riders. The “New Links” redesign will be the most transformative change to transit in the region since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and depleted local transit service in its aftermath.
Ride New Orleans actively pushed to have a seat at the table when the community engagement outreach for New Links began. In this episode, I speak with the organization’s Executive Director, Courtney Jackson, about how Ride hosted “therapeutic engagement sessions” in collaboration with decision-makers that served to amplify the rider experience and empower the rider voice. Courtney also shares how Ride combines data and storytelling to demonstrate the urgency of frequent, reliable transit service in their advocacy campaigns.
“People like data and numbers, but folks have hearts. Humanizing our transit system really makes decision-makers pause and reflect. And in that pause, they [decision-makers] start to see the importance of the work that they do and that humanizes their work.” - Courtney Jackson
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Hosted by Kapish Singla
Edited by Ali Lemer and Kapish Singla
Produced by TransitCenter
Music: “Comma” - Blue Dot Sessions
Disclaimer: Political views raised by guests on the podcast do not reflect the views of TransitCenter.
Kapish: From TransitCenter, I'm Kapish Singla. This is High Frequency. In Season 3 of High Frequency, we're featuring stories of advocates who've shifted the transit agenda in their cities towards projects that better reflect rider priorities. In post-Katrina New Orleans, the number of high frequency bus routes is a quarter of what it once was. Down from 19 routes before the hurricane to five routes some 15 years later. The hurricane devastated much of New Orleans RTA's bus fleet. And federal investments, operating dollars, and political priorities since Katrina has focused on streetcars, a mode that primarily caters to the travel patterns of white residents and tourists.
Kapish: Enter Ride New Orleans, an advocacy group that has been organizing bus riders for over a decade to call for frequent, more reliable bus access. For years, Ride has highlighted the discrepancies in investments between the modes, particularly as the expansion of streetcars has done little to improve access to jobs and other key destinations for transit reliant New Orleanians. The sustained advocacy effort, in part, persuaded decision makers to take a comprehensive look at its bus network. And in 2019, the Regional Planning Commission, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority and Jefferson Parish Transit began the process for New Link-a bus network redesign. Guided by access metrics, the new network, set to be implemented in September 2022, promises to boost high frequency routes and better reflect the travel patterns of today's riders. Ride New Orleans was formally invited to help lead the community engagement process for the redesign. To learn more about how Ride collaborated with decision makers and amplified the rider voice, I spoke with the organization's executive director, Courtney Jackson.
Kapish: Courtney, Ride NOLA was formed in 2009 at a moment when New Orleans's transit system was really struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Can you tell me a little bit about why Ride Nola know that was formed?
Courtney: Ride was really formed to ensure that the decisions that were being made were going to be made in the best interest of the people who were utilizing the transit system. Our policy, our data, how we're even presenting ourselves to decision makers is all completely run and ruled by the transit riders we are serving.
Kapish: What are the most common things that you're hearing from those riders in terms of why the system isn't serving them?
Courtney: Riders are telling us that they need to have access to the things that car riders have access to and the amount of time that's not going to completely devastate their day. It shouldn't take one of our riders, for example, Miss Judy, having to wake up at 430 in the morning to get to her job at Ochsner, which in a car could take 20 to 25 minutes. It shouldn't take her 2 hours plus to get to work. Transit riders are really facing long travel times. They're facing inequitable access, and they're really facing a network that's not reliable. And also they're facing people coming into the community and telling them what they need instead of asking them what they need. So we want to make sure that as these decision makers are going in and doing their outreach, that they're really collaborating with transit riders rather than just making decisions for them.
Kapish: Ride has really been shining a light on the access to jobs network over the past few years. Can you tell us what some of those access stats reveal?
Courtney: Right now you have folks who can get to 89% of the jobs in 60 minutes or less in a vehicle, whereas somebody who is riding transit can only reach 37.4% of the region's jobs in an hour or less via transit. That's a huge discrepancy. Once that metric was brought to the forefront of the transit conversation, people really started to talk about their investment in transit as it relates to just everything here in New Orleans-from taking people out of poverty to increasing the workforce. It hits every point. Access to jobs is an important piece. And when you're talking to these decision makers, that's also the piece that they are just: "Oh, my gosh, this is crazy. Okay, something's got to change."
Kapish: New Orleans is on the verge of making a huge change to its bus network soon with the implementation of a network redesign. How did that come about?
Courtney: You had the New Orleans RTA Regional Transit Authority and the JP Transit, Jefferson Parish Transit do what's called a strategic mobility plan. And really what they were looking at is how they can better serve transit riders from the top to the bottom, from bus stop shelters to how frequent they were and how reliable they were. And out of that really came the network redesign. It started in 2019 with the comprehensive operations analysis, the looking at what's working, what's not working, what needs to change. And then from there, they went into the community outreach phase. So 2019 to 2020, you had Regional Transit Authority staff, you had RPC staff going out into the community. And the first round of questions were all about trade offs: what it's going to mean if they change lines on a map and what people would prefer. And then from that they were able to move into concepts. So phase two, which was spring of 2020, they went back into the community after hearing what riders said that they were cool with. Did they want to make a connection? Did they want a direct route? Did they want a circulator that went into the community and they came back with three concepts: coverage and consistency; ridership and frequency; and access and speed.
Kapish: What involvement did Ride New Orleans have in the New Links process?
Courtney: We were invited by folks at the Regional Planning Commission to provide that edge that they needed to make this successful, that edge being making sure that we were accessing the greatest amount of transit riders we possibly could. You can have as many meetings as you want at the location of your workplace, but if you don't go into communities and ask them what they want, if you don't meet people where they're at, if you don't provide language that's accessible, none of it's going to work. And we had a team at Ride that could do all of those things. We went out into the community. We met people where they were at, and we really were lucky that there was a team both at the RTA and Regional Planning Commission that were willing to let us be kind of the gnat in their face. The, the annoying younger sibling that called them out when when they needed to, and it made all of the difference at the end of the day. I remember talking to one of the Regional Planning Commission planners and inviting them to come to a youth roundtable. It was an informative session for the Regional Planning Commission and the RTA to really hear about what these young people who were at the crossroads of their lives like they were going to go into higher education or they were going into the workforce, but what they needed was access to be successful at either of those things. And really they got to tell the Regional Planning Commission and the planners what they needed.
Kapish: What were young people saying about their mobility needs in the region?
Courtney: Oh, my gosh. It was everything from, you know, the most honest answer in the world of like, "I just don't like getting on the bus because it's dirty" to "I just don't trust that I can get on the bus at 4 o'clock in the morning to get to my job, and so I'm having to stack my bills to maybe take an Uber just in case my bus doesn't show up." You heard a lot of people really harping on the reliability and frequency of the transit system and showing that it wasn't just about them harping on the system, but that it connected to their day to day lives and how important it was as it relates to them being successful. And that, I think, is why stuff started to get taken seriously. You had these really honest young folks. Well, now I sound like an old person, young folks. You had these really honest conversations with people at this really pivotal point in their life, saying, "If you don't change my transit system, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get a job. If you don't change the way I get to for my school, I might have to drop a class." These folks really went in and they showed the importance of transit. And not only did they go in and that just for that meeting, but they stayed connected. And they became advocates for themselves. That's what got me super hyped about doing outreach and doing it well, not just because I love organizing, but because when you empower folks, you give them the opportunity to say what they need to say and say it in an effective way that's going to make tangible change. Oh, my God. It's it's amazing.
Kapish: How would you begin to describe the community engagement approach that Ride chose to adopt in the process?
Courtney: If I was to say in my own language, we really chose a therapeutic model. We really decided to go out into the community and have therapy sessions with them to build that trust with them. Because if you're just going out willy nilly asking a transit rider how they're doing in their transit experience is going for the day. More often than not, they're going to give you a one word answer, and then they're going to need to catch the bus that's coming and potentially might not come for another 20, 30 minutes. And so we asked them to take a level of care that we hadn't seen and go out into the community and meet people where they're at. And the results really showed. You saw transit riders feel engaged. You saw transit riders feel empowered. And when they felt empowered, they invested more of their time in this change. And there was also another reason for this. We wanted to make sure that transit riders felt empowered. And we really asked Regional Planning Commission and the RTA to turn just an engagement series into really a bonding series. We wanted them to have fans. Transit is such a great thing. It provides so many opportunities and there's no reason why the RTA, Jefferson Parish shouldn’t have these people be transit fans and be transit nerds.
Kapish: Who will benefit once the network is implemented and what benefits will they see?
Courtney: I think you're going to see an increase access to jobs in a way that you haven't seen before here in New Orleans. I think that you're going to see a quality of life totally change. New Links is going to not only just have that tangible change that people need. My bus comes on time. It comes when it says it's going to come. It's also going to improve the way the transit agency looks at the people that they're serving. Truly, I think that they're seeing the transit riders a lot more than they had before, because now you're hearing about bus stop shelters being placed. Now you're hearing about collaboration between city agencies and the RTA because we need those dedicated bus lanes. We need to change the way the streets look to make sure that all modalities, all of our movement works. So it's setting the precedent for collaboration that I at least haven't seen out here.
Kapish: Advocacy groups such as Ride New Orleans aren't always asked to have a formal role in processes such as an agency's network redesign. Why do you think it's been valuable that riders had a seat at the table for New Links?
Courtney: I think it's valuable because we provide a sounding board. You've got huge agencies and so many moving parts, and even if you're the best agency on the planet, there's a possibility that things are going to slip and there's a possibility that you just hone in on the project and kind of lose sight of the reason for why the project exists. We bring the reason for why it exists to the table, and we provide that insight. We've set a really good example when we did the New Links outreach, and I think that that's the change that we're seeing, and I think that's the change that transit riders deserve. When I first started organizing, people just kind of said, the transit system works. And then I would say, Well, do you realize that this system serves this amount of people in this other city and this is how it looks. And they're like, "wait excuse me." And I'm like, Yes, you deserve better transit. Let me tell you about it. Let's talk about what you deserve and here's what you can do to ensure that that happens. And so I think the empowering of transit riders as well has also changed the way that they're having communication with them. It's transit riders holding the transit agency accountable, and I think that it's the transit agency saying, all right, we have to make a change and we're going to try. And that's that's huge.
Kapish: Ride New Orleans is now about 13 years old. And I'd just love to hear Courtney, in your own opinion, what do you think Ride has been able to do in terms of pushing the city and the transit agency to take that people first approach to decision making?
Courtney: I think we brought the human element to the advocacy conversation. We have found the beautiful sweet spot of being data driven and policy makers that actually reflect the people that we're serving. We told the story of transit riders and we were able to get those stories to decision makers, and that makes all the difference. I think that that has changed the way some of our decision makers are interacting with us, with with our policies, with the way that we're organizing. Storytelling is extremely powerful because it's it's the experience that really touches people. It's the Miss Judy's who have been in New Orleans their entire life who use the transit system to not just get to their work, but to get to their family, to events and the importance of that access and the stories that they tell because of the access that they have really hit the people who are making the changes to their transit system, who are in charge of the way their transit system moves. People like data and they like numbers, but folks have hearts, and I think that humanizing our transit system really makes decision makers pause and get kind of quiet and reflect. And in that pause, I think that they start to see the importance of the work that they do, and that humanizes their work. And it's powerful.
Kapish: New Links won't solve all of the transit issues in the city. What is Ride focused on next?
Courtney: That's a really good question because our life right now has been New Links and making sure that it's implemented because it really is going to set the foundation for better transit. We also know that better transit isn't just getting on the bus and sitting on the bus. It's also accessing the bus. And so we're going to be really focused on complete streets, making sure that we're having conversations about how people get from their door to their bus stops, that things are well-lit, that they have shelters. We're going to continue to build the rider voice and make sure that they have seats at the table, that they're part of the designing process and they have access to planners. The dream is to touch on everything, but the top priorities are right now getting New Links implemented, setting that foundation, and then building up into rider dignity, safer streets, more complete streets, and then moving into fares and having youth at the table. So we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but it's all tied in. It's all tied in New Links. I'm not going to lie. We start to see a better system. We're going to be able to build off of that. So it's really exciting.
Kapish: And Courtney, what advice do you have for other transit advocates and organizers listening to this podcast?
Courtney: Keep doing the work, keep doing the work, and on a weekly basis, de-center yourself. Not only is it good for your mental health, but it's going to make your work so much better. We serve people. That's what we do for a living. Let their stories be the guiding light to all of the work that you do. And as long as you follow that, your work is going to be a reflection of them and therefore beautiful change that we need. Transit is access and access is opportunity.
Kapish: The New Links network will be implemented on September 25th, 2022. Once implemented, 46% of residents of color will be within a ten minute walk of transit that comes every 20 minutes or less. That's up from 27% currently. In addition, 47% of carless households will be within a half mile of transit. That comes every 15 minutes or less, up from 30% at the moment. As the new network unrolls, Ride New Orleans will stay active in assisting the New Orleans RTA in informing riders of these changes to the map.
That's all for today's episode. I'm your host, Kapish Singla. This episode was edited by Ali Lemer and Kapish Singla. High Frequency as a TransitCenter production. For more information, please visit us at transitcenter.org