This week we’re at Mpact in Philadelphia chatting with King County Metro’s Rachel DeCordoba about her work educating the next generation of transit riders through the agency’s youth mobility program. She chats about transit education and curriculum, and the importance of learning with peers.
Scroll down below the audio player for an edited excerpt of our conversation, or click here for an unedited, AI-generated transcript of the entire conversation.
Jeff Wood: What’s the best way for the engagement to happen? What’s the best avenue? Obviously you said people have different ways of using the system and understanding. It’s not a monolith obviously. So, how do you reach out to the folks in the different ways that they interact with each other or the different ways that they can be accessed?
Rachel DeCordoba: A number of ways, so, for example, one of the activities that we do within our program is a classroom transit education curriculum. So we work with a fantastic team to go out into classrooms and teach information about how to use our system about how to “ride right” as we say, and about a number of issues that are adjacent to how to use our system, like sustainability or accessibility, or the role that transit plays in a greater community.
And when we are out doing that direct engagement with students, we also touch on, you know, we have — whether it’s an online comment form, or a phone number that you can call — not only if you have concerns about something, but if you want to give any sort of feedback. Ensuring that we’re clear about what those channels are, but also being really clear about the fact that we take that feedback and we share how we use it, how we maybe code it or share it with people who can address that situation directly.
And sometimes we hear feedback from those young folks that they didn’t think that comment would go anywhere. They didn’t know that channel existed. So that’s one way that we work directly with youth to make sure they know how they can make their voices heard.
Jeff Wood: From the curriculum standpoint, I watched a couple of the YouTube videos. It’s age-appropriate, too, or like, age-specific. It seemed like there was some for younger children and then there was some for older folks as well.
Rachel DeCordoba: Exactly. Yeah. We recently wrapped up a pilot and we’re back out in schools this fall. Our curriculum contains three different modules. For two different age groups. There’s a version for grades 2 through 5 and a version for grades 6 through 12. We do want to reach students at multiple stages throughout their schooling. And to your point, yeah, that’s done with different types of language, different types of activities.
Jeff Wood: And how does the education, once it happens, like, how does that affect how older adults use the system too? Like, are the kids going home and then telling their parents about, you know, what they learned and then maybe influencing some of their decisions as well?
Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, that’s been one of the most exciting things with the feedback that we’ve gotten so far — is, yes, know that the students themselves now understand how to plan a trip or how to board the bus or what’s expected of them when they’re riding. But we’ve heard great feedback from them and from their teachers saying, you know, they and their family were able to take a trip to a local attraction together for the first time using transit because now they all know how to plan a trip. We hear of students bringing this information back to their parents and now having a way to get around and their parents, not having to drive them or drop them off to activities.
So, even though we’re talking directly with young people, it definitely radiates out to the folks in their lives and kind of act as transit ambassadors in a way.
