Pictured: Youth in Mt. Airy, North Carolina’s workforce development program learn how to change a tire on a van the program uses for transportation.
Transportation can be a major barrier for agencies serving rural and suburban youth in workforce development programs. Even if your program is based in a central location like a park, school or community center, the work placements your program provides may be difficult for students to get to. While some agencies have access to vans and buses that provide transportation to their programs, other agencies may have difficulty finding funding sources for transportation.
Regardless of your situation, these four tips can help strengthen your agency’s transportation strategy and ensure that all participants can get to where they need to go, whether your students are walking, biking or busing to placements.
1. Make Public Transit Familiar and Accessible
Learning how to ride public transit is a skill. Taking students to a train station to get bus passes or showing them how to get tickets online can be one way to make public transit more accessible for students who may not have much familiarity with local buses and trains. Familiarizing students with public transit can also be an opportunity for career awareness. Bus drivers, train conductors and even transit security may be work experiences your students have not considered. Your local transit authority may be willing to partner with you for a career day, showcasing the roles behind the scenes — everyone from engineers to social media managers — that help keep public transit running. It’s a great way to expand your students’ view of what is possible.
2. Offer Transportation Stipends or Incentives
If your agency doesn’t have access to vans or training drivers, or if insurance and maintenance costs are too high, consider subsidizing travel costs instead, to support students driving or carpooling to their work placements. For some grants, direct outlay to program participants is not an allowable expense. However, gift cards to gas stations for students who carpool may be allowable. Supporting your students in this way may incentivize carpooling and make travel to work placements financially accessible. Consider looking for stipend or transit funding opportunities from local businesses or elected officials at the local level. Some council people have discretionary funds they could use to support this aspect of your programming.
3. Choose Strategic Program Locations
Some effective workforce development programs are able to reduce transportation issues by locating programs at easy-access centers, like community rec centers, local high schools or state workforce development board headquarters. These locations may be hubs for school buses or local public transit, making it easier for students to attend. For high school students, locating workforce development programming on campus after school means eliminating the transportation barrier to participating. There may be more resources (volunteers, caregivers, parents, etc.) available to support transportation home after the program ends.
4. Promote Safe Walking and Biking Routes
There are resources that can help you work with students to plan walk or bike routes to program or work placements. One example is Safe Routes to School, a program that many states have adopted. This organization has workbooks that support students and program managers in identifying safe routes for students to walk and bike. This may also be useful for students taking school buses or public transportation who need to navigate safe routes from bus stops.
Reliable transportation is foundational to the success of workforce development programs. When students can get where they need to be safely and efficiently, they are better positioned to show up, stay engaged and succeed. For more guidance on developing workforce development programs within your park and recreation agency, explore NRPA’s new youth workforce development framework, available now!
Rukmini Kalamangalam is an NRPA program specialist.