Connecting Syracuse

By Sarhia Rahim columnist

To tackle the issue of poverty and begin improving the living conditions of Syracuse residents, solutions are needed to address the root of the problem. This begins with introducing accessible means of transportation.

Unfortunately, Syracuse’s public bus transportation — the Centro Transit Hub — is known for its unreliability and inaccessibility. Residents have taken to social media like Reddit as far as seven years ago to write their complaints on unresolved issues, and are still making complaints now. With the public transit system being so unreliable, both workers and Syracuse University students are affected.

Many complaints point out the long wait to reach their destination. Some note that taking the Centro is a lost cause unless you live downtown or on SU’s campus. The Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council collected responses from a survey regarding passengers experiences while riding the Centro, but that was in 2018. SMTC released a new survey this year, but the effort is absent and SMTC hasn’t publicized how they will go about responding to these complaints.

While we praise the introduction of projects like Micron and the arrival of Amazon, these new job opportunities cannot be filled by locals if they don’t have reliable means of getting to these workplaces. The Amazon warehouse is located in Dewitt and Micron will be located in Clay, both outside of Syracuse. For an Amazon employee taking the bus from downtown Syracuse out to Dewitt, the ride would take 35 minutes. Centro has partnered with Amazon to provide routes to have employees from the city be driven to Dewitt, but these bus routes stop at 9 p.m. and many Amazon workers’ shifts go beyond midnight.

Research has found that transportation insecurity is a significant factor in persistent poverty, which is evident in Syracuse. Poverty is not the result of a single barrier, but an accumulation of many. How can individuals take advantage of employment opportunities when they have no way to reach their place of work?

Accessible and reliable public transportation can remove barriers to job access, but the current state of public transportation in Syracuse leaves much to be desired. With one in four households in Syracuse not owning a car, the bus should be the next best option. As COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, we see the effects of Centro employees retiring or quitting during the pandemic and budget cuts leading to Centro getting rid of bus routes. This has left many Syracuse residents without reliable transportation options. Centro has actively been making efforts to hire more employees, but it’s not enough to meet the growing demand for faster and reliable public transportation after the pandemic.

Plans to create a rapid transit bus route are underway, but these plans can only go so far as of right now. On top of the ones Centro is currently supplying, millions of dollars and more employees are needed. Centro has ordered 82 more buses, which is a step in the right direction. But to make these buses useful, we need more drivers, including filling up all 200 positions positions. The city needs more plans that can benefit residents in the present.

All these investments to bring job opportunities into the city become pointless when Syracuse locals have no way to reach these jobs or simply navigate their way in the city. Centro is funded through the state, and while the budget is being discussed, focus is on how to get the numbers of riders back up. The same issue arises again: why would people be willing to drive the Centro when they find it unreliable?

The city and Centro need to first find a solution to hire more drivers. A lack of drivers limits the amount of bus routes available in the city. While Centro waits for plans like rapid transit to be implemented, funding and focus needs to be placed upon creating programs and services that create candidates to become drivers.

Centro bus drivers are paid a salary of $40,000 plus benefits. According to ZipRecruiter, 14% of Syracuse locals are paid just below that — about $30,000. Even with more desirable pay, the requirements to become a bus driver for Centro can limit the pool of applicants.

Barriers arise for residents who possibly grew up in public housing, may have limited access to education and never got their driver’s license. Only 27% of Syracuse residents have a high school diploma or GED, and the cost of a schooling before earning a CDL license required to drive a bus can range between $3,000 and $10,000.

The city should consider investing in driver training programs to help people learn the skills they need to be employed by Centro. This would create more job opportunities for Syracuse residents and help tackle the issue of poverty throughout the city.

Another forgotten issue is how a lack of transportation affects those with disabilities. Programs like Call-A-Bus are in place to assist those with disabilities to use Centro. But those who use this option have to fill out applications and show proof of their disability, and the application approval can take between two weeks and months.

When public transport falls short, the only option is to use Uber or Lyft. While Uber tries to mitigate this issue for those with disabilities by waiving the wait time fee, there is still the issue of economic disadvantages for those who cannot afford Uber’s regular prices. Even if these cars arrive, they may not be accessible for someone who is in a wheelchair, for example.

A fundamental factor of a holistic existence, where both individuals and communities can be developed, depends on the mobility and accessibility of a city. Beyond entry to these buses, Syracuse must also ensure that they are efficient, safe, affordable and available for all residents.

Syracuse has been seeing new options available for residents to reach their destination. The Veo e-bicycles are a nice alternative, but they aren’t accessible for everyone and don’t suffice when traveling during the winter. More pressure is needed coming from the community and local leadership to improve the current state of the bus system in Syracuse.

Sarhia Rahim is a sophomore policy studies major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at slrahim@syr.edu.