Of Buses and Women

11:07 AM EST on January 8, 2009

Today on the Streetsblog Network we're hearing from Santa Rosa CityBus, the only blog on the network (so far) that is written by employees of a municipal transit agency. Their latest post laments the lack of positive press for the bus in general:

Riders on a Seattle bus in 1952. Photo from the Seattle Municipal Archives via Flickr.

How hard can it be to find culturally significant people, or just plain old interesting people, on a bus? Despite all the hot press that heavy rail, high-speed rail, light rail, and subway trains have been getting lately, it is a little-spoken fact that of ALL the transit trips in the United States, bus trips made up 57.5% of the total transit trips taken through the third quarter of 2008. That is 4,699,270,000 (that's billions) trips by bus between January 2008 and September 2008.

It's our sense that bus riders are disproportionately underrepresented in the blogosphere as well, although the post gives a nod to fellow Streetsblog Network members Bus Bench, Boise Bus Blog, and Bus Chick.

Also today, a very thought-provoking entry from Eric Britton at New Mobility ThinkPad. Eric is calling on transpo geeks everywhere to make 2009 the "Year of the Woman in Transportation":

Transportation policy and investments up to now has been shaped almostexclusively by males — and not just any males but males with jobs, moreor less decent university educations, a full place in the community,and a generally serene view of the future. And oh yes, to a man, ownersand drivers of cars. (A word of self-disclosure here: I have justpretty well described myself.)

Head over to his site and take a look at his extensive and well-researched proposal for involving more women in the discussion of transportation policy. It's an idea that we'll follow up on in more depth later.

Hey, we just noticed something. Is it just a coincidence that all the bus blogs mentioned above feature at least some female contributors?

What do you think?

Sarah Goodyear

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