Take Public Transit Independently

Heads-Up: During the pandemic, this experience may create more exposure to the coronavirus than you or your family want. Check with your parents first. Depending on where you live, it may be necessary to wait on this until a safer time. 

A student I know described what it was like to finally have the freedom to travel in his home city on his own:

I was about a month into middle school and I had been going to school on the train with my mom or dad. By then I knew the route by heart and felt confident enough to do it independently. My parents agreed that I was experienced enough, so one morning they finally let me try taking the train alone. I left the house at around 7:30, even though my school started at 8:30 and the trip only takes 25 minutes. As I walked down the hill to the train station all I could think about were the worst case scenarios. What if I get mugged? What if I get lost? What if I’m late to school? I got to the station and almost as soon as I hit the stairs a train pulled in. 

I speed walked, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. I stopped at where I usually got on with my parents and waited for the train to pull up. The doors opened and I took an open seat. There was a person muttering to themselves and pacing up and down the train. I lowered my head and averted my eyes. They aren’t going to do anything to you, I thought to myself, all is good. At the next stop the train starts to get crowded. I am jostled a little bit as the train starts down the tracks. At the second to last stop, a woman gets on the train with her dog. Seeing the dog made me happier and this is when I started to focus on the positive. I’m most certainly on time (the time is 7:45), I have a seat, I’m getting off next. I hop off the train and ride the escalator into the world of traffic, tent cities, and grumpy people. I walk past garbage cans that smell disgusting, people sleeping on sidewalks, and cars honking at each other. I walk down the hill to my school, and nothing bad happens. As I walk into the doors of school I think, That went great! Nothing bad happened! 


Now that I have traveled independently, it feels like there is so much more to explore. I’m not confined to traveling with my parents and I can do more on weekends and with friends. For example, over the summer my cousin and I took the train around the city and explored different neighborhoods. Now, I usually go to school on my own, have gone to see friends on my own, and can unveil more layers of my city and myself.

If you think about it, it would be hard to feel safe if you can’t move around the world on your own. It would be hard to feel like you can create your future and seek out exciting experiences if you are dependent on others to take you everywhere. The more skillful and experienced you feel navigating the world, the more opportunities for adventure will open to you. This doesn’t mean that there is no danger; traveling independently, regardless of your age, presents real risks. Learn how to manage those risks and navigate independently, and the world is yours to explore.

Getting Started: For this experience, you may need some advice from the adults in your life about what level of independence is safe for your age and for your city. They might tend to underestimate you, but if you show them your abilities step by step, they may be able to relax and step back in order to support your independence.

This is one of the experiences with the widest range of responses. For some, at first glance it might seem beyond easy, a normal part of your every day. For others, it might seem terrifying and unsafe. The challenge then is going to be a bit different for each person. Could you identify the next level of independence, one step up from wherever you are now? If you already take the bus on your own, could you take a longer journey, say by train? Or if you’ve never set foot on public transit, this may be the chance to give it a try. Here are some steps to consider:

1. Look for a natural opportunity to begin, with a journey that would require more independence than you’ve had before. It might be to get to a friend’s house across town, to commute to school, to run an errand for your family, or to visit a relative. 


2. Once you have the destination in mind, prepare your route - for example by asking others for advice, or using a tool like Google Maps. Make sure you know which modes of transport are needed, like bus or train, the line or route numbers, and the round-trip cost for the trip.

3. Refresh your street smarts: Talk to your parents about the right “street smarts” for your town or city. Make sure you talk about how to get help if you are lost or scared (finding a safe place, like a café, library, convenience store, etc, and asking an adult to use the phone) and how to respond to any suspicious behavior from people around you, like someone following you (hint: head to that safe place, like a café or store, and ask for help). Make sure you have at least one phone number memorized for an adult you can reach at any time.

4. Permission: Depending on your age and your family, you may be able to then set out, or you may need to ask for permission from your family. If so, sharing your route and plan with them, and showing that you already understand the cost and time required, should help them feel better. If they’re on the fence about giving permission, offer to do a test run, perhaps with them joining, to go on part of the route and show your abilities there. 


5. Off you go!