We at Breastfeed Durham know that policy, including public transport policy, plays a key role in shaping our community. Accessing and attending regular care while pregnant, breastfeeding, and throughout childhood is critical to the overall well-being of families – including breastfeeding success. Parents need to get places and run errands – they need to pick up children from daycare or school, locate diapers, connect with other family members, and many other things.
Transportation policies influence how easily people can access opportunities, including health and educational services and job positions. The accessibility impacts of transport policies thus have important implications for social inequalities and for the promotion of just and inclusive cities.
The ability to make it to appointments or run errands is not equally accessible for all. These short videos shared below created by Bike Durham and the Transit Equity Campaign highlight the challenges that families and parents in our community face each day in trying to make it from point A to point B. Parents express the challenges of buses not being on time or reliable, the lack of safe bus stops, and limited routes all of which create major differences in mobility. In order for our community to be healthier, we have to stand with all the parents in our community to push towards a public transit system that results in equitable mobility.
Transit Equity Campaign has produced short videos highlighting the stories and challenges of transit riders and transit workers. For more information about the videos and the Transit Equity Campaign, we encourage you to read Bike Durham’s recent blog post.
The Durham City Council is considering the upcoming year’s budget and Capital Improvements Program (CIP) right now. Please take a moment to send a comment for safer streets and transit equity. The proposed budget have increases in funding for additional sidewalks and bicycle facilities and for additional staff capacity to deliver projects more quickly.