WHAT WE’Ve accomplished

Baltimoreans for Educational Equity and the Fund for Educational Excellence worked together during the 2022 legislative session. Together the two organizations convened a student transit coalition. Collectively these groups demanded city legislators amend Senate Bill 0862 - Transit Services for Public School Students to:

• create the option for student transit passes to be offered in digital format to students;

• remove the time-based language and include Youth Workers as free transit riders; (partial win)*

• Remove the sunset clause from the legislation which would allow for students to ride free in perpetuity.

*Language restricting the hours that students may travel for free remained in the final legislation however there is the win of extending free ridership to Youth Workers.

WHAT LAYS AHEAD

We celebrate our hard-fought win on the passage of an amended SB0862. We also believe that our legislators should be bolder in their approach to eradicating transit barriers for our students. We need to elevate transformational change over incremental gains –-especially for transit issues that have pervaded student experiences in Baltimore for decades.

In December of 2021, the Maryland Transit Authority committed to two things: 1) establishing a student transit advisory committee 2) launching an anti-harassment campaign. Members of the student transit equity coalition continue to meet with the MTA to advance these commitments.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Baltimore’s neighborhoods — and public transportation to and from certain areas — have been shaped historically by decades of racist public policy.

City students, a majority of whom are Black or Latino, are crucial customers of public transportation, but the system was not designed with their needs in mind.

For the 29,000 City Schools middle and high school students who rely on MTA public transit, this creates a significant set of challenges which beg the question: why hasn’t this been addressed, and what can we do about it now?

In, 2021 the Fund for Educational Excellence published a report titled NOT IN SERVICE: Why Public Transit Must Aim To Serve Students. This report examines how students experience public transportation in Baltimore and the implications that experience has for their academic and career opportunities.

SOLUTIONS

In one-on-one interviews, 274 current students reported long, multi-trip commutes, late arrivals, safety concerns, and more. The cumulative report, NOT IN SERVICE, offers recommendations – many directly from students – for improvements to accommodate their needs and reverse the ongoing patterns of discriminatory disinvestment in Black and Brown communities.

Over the past several months educators, students, and community members have been working together to uplift these recommendations to MTA administrators and elected officials demanding bold leadership to address community concerns.