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

<p style="font-weight: 400;">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. <span style="font-weight: 400;">Findings indicate that while both teens and parents express positive views toward public transportation in theory &ndash; citing environmental and social benefits &ndash; 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&rsquo;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. </span> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Recommendations include transit education programs in local schools and changes to CHT&rsquo;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&rsquo;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.