One of the challenges that young students face is the accessibility of public transportation. Even when these young students have access to these services, they’re still met with challenges of reaching their destination on time.

In the past, The Passion and Purpose club worked with AC Transit to have the Student Transportation Initiative pass. This would help students by providing discounts through the AC Transit EasyPass Program. This would allow the students to save a tremendous amount of money which had estimated around $1,650 a year. All of this would have been funded through an already existing Chabot Student fee. Based on the number of units a student has, this would be exempted, but students could choose to opt out. Unfortunately, this Initiative didn’t pass, but there is still an effort being made to have this passed.  

Brenda Gomez, who is apart of the YES Program (Youth Enrichment Services) tries to help young students, most of which are in continuation schools. The YES Program provides bus passes for these students for up to $75. Funding for these passes was cut up to $100,000. Even with these passes, the buses are still not reliable when it comes to reaching their schools on time. Another issue is the location. It’s typically not safe during the night which led to some being assaulted and robbed. So public transportation isn’t the only challenge here, it’s the area in which these students live too.

Presley Chang and Isaac Chavez of the Passion and Purpose club had interviewed many of the residents in the South Hayward area. They had discovered that most of the issues concerning public transportation were increasing costs and the congested roads. Multiple trips can leave a massive dent in the wallet, and it is always difficult to arrive at their destination on time. One of their interviewees was Carlos Luntonio, who is the Director of the Devocio Vasquez Health Center. One of the solutions that Luntonio came up with is to have the public transit have their own designated roads like the ones they have in San Leandro.  Hayward would most definitely benefit from this.