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What’s the Fuss About the Bus?: How Parent Perceptions of Transit Affect Teen Transit Use in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Despite Chapel Hill Transit (CHT) offering fare-free bus service to all residents, local youth exhibit strikingly low ridership. This study investigates why, exploring the often-overlooked influence of parents on adolescent transportation choices. Through four focus groups composed of Chapel Hill-Carrboro parent-teen pairs, this research explores attitudes, perceptions, and behavioral norms around public transportation use in a small university town. Findings indicate that while both teens and parents express positive views toward public transportation in theory – citing environmental and social benefits – actual bus use remains minimal. The most significant barriers are not rooted in safety fears or negative perceptions, but in unfamiliarity, perceived inconvenience, and a built environment that doesn’t support teen travel patterns. Parents are generally supportive of their teens riding the bus but rarely model or teach transit-riding behaviors. Teens, for their part, rarely need to use the bus due to the prevalence of peer and parent car access. Recommendations include transit education programs in local schools and changes to CHT’s operational schedule and route coverage to better serve teen needs. In particular, the study advocates for normalizing transit within families and schools to promote long-term transit use among youth. While Chapel Hill’s fare-free transit model provides a rare opportunity for youth to develop a relationship with transit, cultural, infrastructural, and educational interventions are needed to turn that potential into real ridership gains among the next generation.
DOI: 10.17615/xw3p-xh30
Author: Annie Oommen
Language: English
Subfield: Transportation
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6943861602
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