RideAlong! Blog – Riders Action Council

What is Possible with Buses: The Case of Colombia
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What is Possible with Buses: The Case of Colombia

RideAlong! Blog, Transportation Legislation

What is Possible with Buses: The Case of Colombia

While planners and urbanists often look towards Western Europe for inspiration on transportation, there are many lessons to be learned from an unsuspecting champion of the bus: Latin America. Stretching from Mexico to Argentina, Latin America is wide, vast and diverse, but on the whole it is urbanized at a similar rate to North America, and the cities bear some of the same car-centric industrial scars that we do in North America. Because of this, urbanists in the United States often assume that American problems with car-centrism are unique, despite the many similarities to our neighbors in the South. [...]

By Noah Rowan|2022-05-07T20:28:17+00:00May 7, 2022|RideAlong! Blog, Transportation Legislation|Comments Off

Letter to the WRTA Advisory Board

October 7, 2021 Members of the WRTA Advisory Board, We are grateful for your decision to suspend fare collection during the pandemic. It has made a great difference to residents in our communities and for the rebounding of the local economy. We ask that you continue to support essential workers during one of the worst public health crises in the nation’s history and vote again to use federal pandemic relief and recovery funds to extend the suspension of fares until the end of 2022. The WRTA Advisory Board and Administrator have maintained that, if financial resources become available, they will [...]

By Noah Rowan|2021-10-22T19:12:58+00:00October 22, 2021|RideAlong! Blog, WRTA and Pandemic, Zero Fare|Comments Off

Sept. 23rd WRTA Board Meeting!

**** MEETING ALERT **** The WRTA Advisory Board is meeting to discuss, among other things, updates on fare collection on the WRTA system. This THURSDAY September 23rd At 8:30 AM The meeting will be held on zoom. Click here for link. **** MEETING ALERT **** Following the Governor’s June 16th extension of many pandemic era policies, public meetings for all sectors of government in the Commonwealth have continued to be hosted online. With online meetings comes the possibility for new levels of public engagement; leaving a zoom webinar running on your laptop while you make breakfast is all it takes to [...]

By Noah Rowan|2021-09-22T20:29:07+00:00September 22, 2021|RideAlong! Blog, Zero Fare|Comments Off

Meet the Route: The 5!

Massachusetts Audubon Broadmeadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary is a sanctuary for the people of Worcester. If you drive up Grafton St and work your way over to Massasoit, it's not hard to find. The parking lot is small and fills up fast on nice days. If you live in Worcester, you can park and walk the trails for free. Out of towners are asked to pay a small fee, mostly on the honor system. Buy a Mass Audubon membership, and you're covered for visits to sanctuaries all around the state. It's a popular, family friendly, well marked system of trails, some of [...]

By Noah Rowan|2021-09-22T20:29:57+00:00September 17, 2021|RideAlong! Blog|Comments Off

Welcome our new Zero Fare Coalition Coordinator!

This week, the Zero Fare Coalition welcomed a new coordinator, Worcester native Mike Baker! Baker is a long time WRTA rider who commutes on transit and relies on buses, but as a current PhD student at UMass Boston in Public Policy, he is uniquely qualified to look for policy and design solutions. His background is in accessible design and he serves as a board member for EPIC, an organization that supports disabled youth. “Zero Fare is a start, but I also want to fight for improved and enhanced transit accessibility in Worcester” Baker’s PhD research has focused on the geographies [...]

By Noah Rowan|2021-09-22T20:30:08+00:00September 9, 2021|RideAlong! Blog, Welcome, Zero Fare|Comments Off

Our new blog: RideAlong!

Week 1 (August 30th) Welcome to RideAlong! As Worcester’s bus advocacy movement has grown, so has the demand for WRTA specific news. Beginning this September, the Worcester Rider’s Action Council has partnered with the Zero Fare WRTA Coalition to produce a weekly blog: RideAlong! RideAlong! is your one-stop-shop for Zero Fare and RAC news developments; we will be covering everything from the daily operations of the WRTA to fare-less transportation projects across the country. Here you’ll find links to meetings, interviews with advocates, summaries of legislative work and much more. Posts will be published weekly on Wednesday evenings, so mark [...]

By Noah Rowan|2021-09-22T20:30:22+00:00September 1, 2021|RideAlong! Blog, Welcome|Comments Off