Public Transportation & Justice

Malden A-VOYCE School Year ‘21-’22

Our Goal

Through discussions around belonging and storytelling, our cohort in Malden explored the topic of transit justice, because we agreed that the way one gets around a place and being familiar with a place directly impacts one’s feeling of belonging.

The Main Question

We focused specifically on how the public bus system serves young people in Malden around the question: How might we use storytelling to create a fair and accessible environment for Malden residents of all ages, especially young people?

We had two main components in this project: a zine collaboration with an artist, and a series of interviews and surveys on Malden’s young people.

ZINE!

PROCESS

#1

This year, we were fortunate enough to be able to have the wonderful Kathy Wu join us in the spring as our teaching artist. She led workshops around our relationships to Malden and public transit, which we translated into collages. We put them together into a zine with all of our art and stories, that is linked here. Youth distributed them to local libraries, stores, and community organizations.

Outreach flyers designed by Malden A-VOYCE

#2

The second component was the community engagement. We conducted interviews with other youth from Malden High School and did intensive outreach to Malden youth to take our survey, available in English and Chinese. Our goal was to measure the affordability, accessibility, safety, frequency, and consistency of the bus system in Malden. We were able to collect over 80 different perspectives.

We compiled our findings into a comprehensive presentation:

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FINAL PROJECT

We were able to present our findings at Malden City Hall at a City Council meeting and a meeting directly with the Mayor Gary Christenson to advocate for Malden youth needs. We were met with excitement and high praise for our work, and have contributed to the movement for more language accessibility in student reduced fares in Malden!

INTERESTED IN JOINING A-VOYCE?