Housing Harmonies

#3 Getting around on public transit

Welcome to Housing Harmonies, a webcast and network café inspired by musical harmony, where sounds come together to create something new, positive, pleasant. We aim to bring people in to harmonize with us, to share, to learn, and to collaborate.

Each episode draws from one or more conversations with people in the housing ecosystem. Through discussion and commentary, we bring a neuroinclusive lens to housing. After the release of an episode, we schedule and host a Network Café, inviting folx to come together and further discuss the topic of the episode.

Episode theme

Accessible transportation to get to important destinations such as jobs, medical appointments, or family members is essential to independent living for Autistic and Neurodivergent individuals. We discuss how public transportation can support this and the importance of learning how to use buses or trains.

Public transportation systems historically built without accessibility in mind take it for granted that people can navigate or use their services. More recently, we notice more transit systems developing transit training programs and adopting accessibility standards. A quick scan across Canada showed that transit training programs exist in several city transit systems, although details about them are limited. To explore this more, we connected with Cori in Ottawa, who has many years of experiences teaching people how to use public transportation. You will also hear Mike from our team chime in a few times during the videos.

What is transit training?

We started our conversation with Cori on the need for accessible public transportation and the concept of transit training in Ottawa, where OC Transpo is the city transit system. We refer to it as bus training, as buses were the primary mode of transit in Ottawa until the more recent light rail system.

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The process of transit training

Cori discusses the process of transit training starting in a classroom setting, simulating the experience for students.

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An individualized approach

From the classroom setting, we moved on to talking about the one-on-one training she does now and gives a few tips that others can try. She reminds us again that it starts with the individual and their needs.

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What if the bus doesn’t come?

Cori discusses how she helps individuals handle situations and problem solving when the transit ride does not go as planned.

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A success story

During our conversation, Cori shared a number of success stories. Here is one of them.

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A dash of pessimism

Cori highlighted how transit training should be pessimistic about the transit system because problems are bound to happen at some point.

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Cori emphasized the need to practice using the system repeatedly. The Ottawa transit system (OC Transpo) provides training passes so that Cori can take her students on the system without paying fares.

Check your local transportation agency for travel training. Here are links to a examples from a few large cities in Canada:

Calgary

Vancouver

Winnipeg

Montreal

Ottawa

Network Café

Join us online on Wednesday July 31st from 1-2 pm ET to chat about transit systems and transit training from a neuroinclusive lens. Click on the Registration button to register for the event on Eventbrite.

Registration

During the Network Café, we invite attendees to take turns sharing experiences and solutions. We will use the following questions as a guide for our conversations:

1. What parts of Cori’s experiences resonated with you?
2. What positive experiences have you had with transit systems?
3. What would make transit systems more neuroinclusive?

We would like to thank Cori for taking their time to share their experiences with us.

We welcome suggestions for topics to discuss. Please connect with us through our online Contact page.

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