I.C. transit system needs fixes

By Robert (Ted) Gutsche Jr.

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I do not use the Iowa City bus system, but for the past two years I have seen our community struggle to understand and deal with disturbances outside of the Old Capitol Town Center: Crowds of youth waiting for buses and, in some instances, arguing and fighting.

Recently, The Daily Iowan ran a story about an increase in policing and surveillance as a means to curb the problems.

But what the story misses - and what our community seems to ignore altogether - is that these bus-stop scenes are symptoms of a larger problems, namely, an obsolete bus system.

Instead, it seems we have become complacent enough to believe that having eight to 10 white police officers with guns surrounding and watching a crowd of young black kids is a good idea.

Having spent time talking to some of these students and bus riders for CrossingBorders.us, a community storytelling website, and for my dissertation research, I was troubled to hear about the poor workings of a transportation system that, for many, is their only option to get around.

The city apparently has never done a comprehensive evaluation of its transit system, according to Chris O'Brien, the city's transportation services director. Instead, O'Brien told The Daily Iowan, the city chooses to make tweaks every other year as “improvements.”

It is time for this community to demand a true study of its transportation system. I wonder why no one seems to be asking two major questions: Why is the city's only transfer point downtown? And why are there huge crowds of kids at the downtown bus stop?

Presumably, the city wants the bus hub to be downtown to increase business and residents' access to business. But that's not happening.

Over the last 20 years, business has moved or expanded outside of downtown. So has housing.

Our downtown transit hub has clusters of schoolchildren, in part, the school district says, because of rules that don't require the district to provide transportation to many of the youth you see downtown. These students must use city transit and that means a ride home that is sometimes as long as an hour.

Responsibility for solving this problem should be resolved through a community partnership: city government, the school district, the University of Iowa and downtown business owners.

And those of us who do not ride the bus shouldn't ignore the topic or flick our nose at kids acting like kids.

We must do more than turn to law enforcement to solve this problem. And, we must be smarter than blaming kids.

Robert (Ted) Gutsche Jr. is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at The University of Iowa. Comments: robert-gutsche@uiowa.edu