Moms and Transit
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit editor
One of the places I worked at before I came to Mass Transit was a trade magazine covering the hobby industry. Often I joke that coming from a magazine that covered model railroading to one that covers real railroads is similar, but sometimes it’s even more so.
Transit has many issues it has to deal with on any given day. Funding. Timeliness. Sustainability. Safety. Security. And along with those comes a host of stereotypes that transit has to overcome to just do what it does best — provide the public a reliable means of transportation. That’s why it doesn’t need to deal with the image of being unsafe.
I saw this article yesterday. It is the latest in a series of high-profile events relating to transit security in the Bay Area. And it’s starting to (if it hasn’t already) give transit there a black eye — no pun intended.
While covering retail hobby stores in my previous position, I had the chance to talk to a lot of store owners about how people shopped and what was right for their businesses. One store owner in Dallas told me that the secret to a successful store was getting the mom’s to shop there.
According to him, Mom controls the money and is the one to spend it when the kids want something. So for him, making his store someplace Mom would shop was key. And that meant making it feel safe. Making the store feel safe meant having wider aisles, lower shelving, brighter lighting, and spending the money to make the store feel safer meant a more successful store.
This is where transit is so similar. For transit to be successful in many cases it has to get the moms on board. That means moms going to work, taking their kids to and from school/daycare, moms shopping and everything else involved in that. And if Mom doesn’t think transit isn’t safe, she isn’t going to let her kids on board.
And don’t forget the power of word of mouth. Moms have a network — I’ve seen it in action with my wife, it’s amazing — and through that network they will determine what is safe and not safe in their communities.
Make sure transit is part of the Mom network.
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Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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February 19th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Excellent idea — the mom’s network — and your analysis of that influence. I remember experiencing that myself as a mom when my kids were young. We teach Operation Lifesaver in the schools but not sure there is any group that approaches mom’s on the importance to trains (and buses) and why they are statistically safer than having their kids riding around in cars.
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Great observation. At Everett Transit we have partnered with the local award winning Imagine Children’s Museum to engage moms and kids at an early age. We created an interactive video to supplement our school field trips and installed a static display of the driver’s compartment of an Everett Transit bus. Kids and moms learn the value (economic and environmental)of riding a bus. They learn that buses are safe and drivers are there the help them. The static display, along with loaner uniform shirts embroidered with “Future Driver” is one of the most popular displays in the museum.