Starting next school year, Baltimore City students who rely on public transportation to travel to and from school will have a seat at the table with transit leaders.
The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) announced the new Youth Transit Council in early November, with applications for the 20 student members closing on Friday.
The panel of 14-to-18-year-olds will meet virtually with the transit administration at least six times next school year to “raise awareness and understanding of the topics most important to their transit experience,” the MTA website says.
Around 35 thousand Baltimore City students take public transportation in various forms to get to school, said Media Relations Manager Sherry Christian — three thousand of which are considered “eligible” for public transportation commutes.
Representatives from the Baltimore Student Union, a grassroots group of city student leaders, are aiming to use the new council to make commutes safer — especially at night, and without increasing police presence — and more reliable for all students.
“We don't have any yellow bus service in the district for middle and high schoolers,” said Ethan Eblaghie, senior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. “So there are a lot of kids that aren't that old — like even 11-or-12-years-old — that are going without parental supervision on the light rail or on the buses.”
Zoe Hong, another senior Polytechnic student, was one of many city students blindsided by the abrupt cancellation of Baltimore’s light rail service last Friday to repair mechanical issues.
“I usually take the light rail to school,” Hong said. “But recently, they shut it down because of all these problems, and we don't know when it's coming back up.”
Hong said public buses — her back-up school transportation option — “don’t always come on time, so you end up being late to things.” And sometimes, buses are too crowded in the morning for students to fit, she said.
These are the types of issues and experiences students are hoping to address with the Maryland Transit Administration.
The Baltimore Student Union is also pushing for student transportation passes to be “universal,” Eblaghie said, instead of only being usable during school hours and on school days.
The group is also fighting against proposed budget cuts from the state department of transportation – including $1 million reductions in operating budgets and $400 million lost in local government grants.
Youth Council members will not have authority to establish regulations or policy, but will serve more as a “volunteer advisory group” to the Maryland Transit Administration, the MTA’s website says.
Eblaghie says students want a “direct line of communication” to “offer our direct feedback on certain lines that weren't working, or if there were certain practices that were inconveniencing students in a certain way.”
It’s taken a couple years of advocacy from student groups like the Baltimore Student Union and the Associated Student Congress of Baltimore City to get here, Eblaghie said.
“We have really been making an effort to raise awareness about it, and make sure that students know that there is going to be an opportunity for them to really utilize their experiences as direct participants in the transit system,” he said. “That’s a really valuable opportunity for students.”
