Where Bus Routes Lead - Kelleyanne Curley

“Keep walking down Maple, turn left on Appleton, then right on Nick Cosmos Way; after three blocks, the building will be on your right.”

I spent my day compiling directions like these to locations I do not intend to visit. This may seem futile, useless, redundant even? Now, if you knew where these directions were leading you, and how, you might understand their value, and how I was able to sustain interest in the seemingly mundane activities of my Monday.

Before you can even begin traveling these streets, you must get on a bus. Many of us are guilty of taking buses for granted, if we even use them at all. I myself, take a free bus to my office every day. With my headphones and novel, it becomes easy to forget that I am on a bus, let alone think of their history. I know that buses have been segregated, that their design once ironically ignored wheels significant to those using wheelchairs and strollers. Transportation was a restricted privilege. People have fought for the mere right to ride the bus, to make them accessible and inclusive, it seems easy to overlook, easy to forget that buses bring us to places that, otherwise, we might not be able to get to.

My most common experience with buses has always been related to school. That is where they usually bring me - home to school, school to home. This bus that I am talking about, the one that brings you to Maple Street has the unique pleasure of bringing people from one school to another. This is the pilot year of a bus route that travels back and forth from the five colleges in the Pioneer Valley to various schools and social service agencies in the city of Holyoke. This specific route brings you to the Holyoke Boys and Girls Club and well as to Girls Inc, both organizations founded to improve the lives of young students by providing college-positive messages and giving them the space to realize and develop their skills.

Like the fight to ride the bus, there is a fight in Holyoke to equalize accessibility and get people places. In a city with one of the highest drop-out rates in Massachusetts, it is easy to look at community though a lens of needs and limitations, or maybe to not see it at all, but the people that I have been working with refuse to be restricted by negativity. We reject the idea there is a finite quantity of resources and there are “needy” individuals uses these resources without any contribution. The problem of accessibility is usually hidden behind the assumption that problems are linked to individuals and not the systems that are influencing them. We see this problem as one we can solve together with the assets of the colleges and the city of Holyoke. In the past month, I have found myself sitting with a table of VISTAs, former VISTAs, campus community-based learning coordinators and community partners working to get this bus route running. Our programs seek not just to lower the drop-out rate, but to get students into college. We are working to make education accessible and inclusive, and the buses are integral to that process.

Western Massachusetts is a geographic region full of resources, many of which are held at the institutions of higher education. The students at these institutions are limited in that they cannot easily leave the bubble of the college they attend. The people of the community are limited in that it is nearly impossible to travel the relatively short distance to a college environment. Both are limited by resources and people that are just far enough to be out of reach. Through this bus route, we are able to extend those resources to our neighbors. In return, we meet highly qualified students and community members and learn about what is going on around us. All of this done through a simple (though complexly configured) bus route that will remind us that buses and people can bring us to places that, otherwise, we might not be able to get to.

-Kelleyanne Curley
MACC VISTA at UMASS Amherst