It’s no secret that the city of Rochester is designed in a way that requires its inhabitants to have reliable modes of transportation. Due to the I-490 Inner Loop Expressway cutting off the downtown area from surrounding neighborhoods, as well as the overall outstretched nature of the city, driving a vehicle can feel like not only an expectation, but a necessity for getting around. This poses a real challenge for those without access to vehicles, leading them to turn to public transportation instead.

The good news is that Rochester’s local government and foundations are well aware of these issues, and projects are in the works to overcome them. One of these plans include The Inner Loop East Transformation Project, which is set to reconstruct ⅔ of a mile of the loop between Monroe Ave and Charlotte St., and will fix one of the main transportation issues by allowing people to walk and ride bicycles around the neighborhoods and downtown area.

Currently though, around 26% of households in Rochester do not own a vehicle, putting pressure on residents to use the city buses for their daily commutes. There is a noticeable difference in the types of riders: a far greater proportion are people of color. This inequity in public transportation is due to systemic racism, a deliberate lack of opportunities, and our country’s overall history of treating non-White people as second-class citizens.

Today, Native Americans are the first most likely racial group to live in poverty, at 25%, and African Americans are the second at 21%. Out of every race, White people have the lowest chances of being stuck under the poverty line. This is a system of design.

Colonization has left Native Americans with far too little land and resources to build back from, hitting them the hardest for generations to come. Other calamities associated with North America’s darker history include slavery, Jim Crow laws, and voter suppression. Even after slavery was abolished, Black citizens continuously faced obstacles and loopholes that prevented their freedom in other ways. They were still separated from White people, often refused decent paying jobs, turned away from establishments, and denied the right of using their voices to create change.

Despite the Civil Rights Movement allowing African Americans to finally start feeling more secure in an environment where they would no longer be legally discriminated against, such basic human rights were not acquired until 1964, when The Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate against any person based on race, color, religion, gender, or nationality. Not only has not enough time gone by for racism to fade out since then (if that’s even a probability at all), but generational inequality also fiercely lives on.

Since Black people were a main target for housing discrimination throughout history, neighborhoods are largely sorted by race, with more Black people being in the poorer areas, and White people in middle to upper-class. Since it is more difficult to own a home and establish economic stability growing up with parents that are less wealthy, this has carried on to modern day. According to “Homelessness and Black History: Poverty and Income” featured on Endhomelessness.org, a 2019 statistic found that the average household income was $76,057 for White families, and only $46,073 for Black families.

Going back to the issue of public transportation, bus schedules do not provide riders with the freedom to control their own schedules. In an attempt to make this a bit easier for city-goers, Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority has expanded its transportation access. According to RTS Public Information Officer Tom Brede, “RTS operates from 5am to midnight on weekdays and 6am to midnight on weekends. We have routes that run every 15 minutes and every 30 minutes between 6am-6pm on weekdays. The frequency of those routes is every 30 minutes and every 60 minutes between 5-6am and 6pm-midnight on weekdays, and all day on weekends.” For those who live just outside of the city, RTS On Demand is available in seven zones, so they now have a way to use public transit, too. There may still be issues with public transportation, but there are promising attempts to make it better for each individual who needs it.

Floshare recognizes the hardships that commuters face, and has a specific goal to help the people going through them. Every person, regardless of racial background, deserves to be in charge of their own lives and get where they need to go, affordably and with convenience.

The inequity that historically marginalized communities face may be unavoidable, but with acknowledgement and real thought-out plans to generate more opportunities and equal chances, perhaps we can make some real progress in working toward a fairer future.