Want to show kids the world? Give them a bus to ride

We are discussing the role of public transportation, both in a recent Gazette editorial, as well as The Gazette interviewing local candidates for city council. This conversation needs to be had, but is neglecting something important - kids.

I grew up in the South Bronx in a neighborhood that makes the worst in Iowa look like Disneyland. In the fourth grade, a teacher taught us how to use the subway, and gave us assignments to get to difficult places.

The assignment was not necessarily to go into a museum, but to navigate the transfers and to get 'there.”

Wow. There was an entire world out there that I never knew existed. I grew up in wall-to-wall buildings, and I suddenly saw parks, and museums and concerts.

We have a subset of this world, but the kids whose parents do not have cars cannot get there. The summer is fantastic. Jazz Under the Stars at Noelridge. Music in Marion. Music in Hiawatha. Cedar Rapids Municipal Bands all over the place. No car? Need a bus! Movies in the various libraries - recently Sunday and Thursday. Need a bus. Evenings and Sundays.

Tax breaks to the First Avenue Hy-Vee to stay open were given purposefully because many of those customers have no car, and need a place to buy groceries. But that also means the kids cannot get to a world that I was able to navigate because we had subways.

Wealthy folks have taken trips abroad because they believe that travel broadens. College students are encouraged to take semesters abroad, for the same reason. Cedar Rapids has its own items for which travel broadens, even staying within this community. However, to get to these events, you usually need a car, and thus - again - the kids are really left out, at the very time of most effective education - and they need a bus. An evening bus, a Sunday bus - travel broadens, even within Cedar Rapids.

We need a bus not only to get folks to work, we need a bus so that kids have ready, and constant access - whenever they want or need - to see world outside of a tiny one, and to experience the cultural activities available to everyone.

I saw some of the top museums, top music and jazz, all because of a subway. Give the kids a break. Give them a bus. Evenings and Sundays. All the time.

' Niles Ross, of Cedar Rapids, is a retired pharmacist. Comments: ross-niles@gmx.com