25 Years of Transit

When I was a sophomore in high school, my family relocated and I began to attend high school in Springfield, Ill. Prior to moving, I had been attending high school in a small town nearby. Getting around that small town on my own as a 14-year-old was fairly straightforward: I walked everywhere. Upon moving to Springfield, however, I learned getting around on foot wasn’t practical. Springfield is significantly larger than that small town. That’s when I learned how to use public transit. At the time, the transit system was old, antiquated, inefficient, and underfunded. Still, I enjoyed the relative freedom I had as a youth to go virtually anywhere I wanted in town. However, I learned a lot from the experience about getting around Springfield without a car. For starters, not everywhere I wanted to go had sidewalks. Transit will get you close to where you want to go, but you often need to walk the rest of the way. I would frequently experience situations where the bus would stop along the side of a busy road, and I would walk along a ditch because there were no sidewalks.

A 2014 photo of an SMTD bus with a bus wrap celebrating bus operators, mechanics, dispatchers, planners, and administrative staff.

In the 25 years that have passed, we still have some challenges like the one I described above. However, Springfield has come a long way in terms of transit and sidewalks. Many gaps in the sidewalk network have been filled. Transit is much more modern. 25 years ago, someone in a wheelchair might be passed up because that bus did not have a ramp or lift. Today, every bus in the transit system’s fleet is ADA-compliant. When I first started using transit, the last bus trip of the day would leave downtown at 5:45 pm. Today, we have transit well into the evening hours. Using transit was not very practical back then for most people. Today, it is much more practical for many more people.

I still use transit quite a bit in my adulthood, even though I own my own vehicle. I like to remain connected to the community in that way—you meet a lot of different people on the bus. I also still advocate for transit, walking, and bicycling—all ways to get around without needing a car. It’s so important for so many reasons. The ability to get to and from basic needs without spending hundreds of dollars a month is vital for the livability of our community.

This is why I work with others as part of an organization called Friends of Transit. It traces its history back to the early 2000s, when a group of residents began to organize for bus service beyond 6:00 pm. By 2007, evening bus service started and success was realized. From there, the transit system has been gradually improving every year.

While there is always room for improvement, I think back to how transit and walking around Springfield were 25 years ago and compare that today. The progress is inspiring, because it means we are capable of so much. I say it is inspiring because we still have a lot of work to do.