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By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
For some Birmingham students, getting across the city can mean leaving home hours before class. For others, unreliable bus routes can mean missing a doctor’s appointment, extracurricular activity or other opportunity.
Those experiences took center stage Tuesday night as Birmingham city leaders, transit officials and young people gathered at Boutwell Auditorium for a town hall focused on the future of transportation in the Magic City.
The event marked a major public step for goBHM, the City of Birmingham’s multimodal transportation planning initiative, which is designed to guide transportation investments and improve how residents walk, bike, drive, use public transit and move throughout the city.
The city describes goBHM as a community-driven plan intended to create a transportation system that is safer, more connected and more accessible. The Sept. 29 town hall gave residents an opportunity to see preliminary recommendations, provide feedback and hear directly from city and transit officials.
Mayor Randall L. Woodfin said the goal is bigger than simply moving vehicles through Birmingham.
“Transportation, everybody, is about people,” Woodfin told the audience. “It’s not about necessarily moving vehicles from this point to this point. It’s also about people and creating opportunity.”
Access to Opportunity
During a Next Gen panel moderated by Emmy and NAACP Image Award-nominated producer, writer and director T. Marie King, Birmingham-area students described how transportation limitations affect their daily lives.
Kennedy Jobs, a student at George W. Carver High School, said transportation can become especially important when trying to make necessary appointments.
Osman Dielo, a senior at P.J. High School, said having both parents working can make it difficult to get to programs and activities throughout the city.
Jackson Jones, a UAB student and Birmingham Promise mentor, said he has heard similar concerns from college students who depend on public transportation.
Some students who live farther from campus, he said, may have to leave three to four hours before class just to use Birmingham’s bus system and then rely on another mode of transportation, such as a scooter, to complete their trip.
For city officials, those stories underscored why multimodal transportation is being treated as an issue of opportunity.
James Fowler, chief of public infrastructure for the City of Birmingham, said the existing transportation system was largely built on the assumption that people have access to a private vehicle.
For those without personal transportation, Fowler said, “We need to be creating options where … it doesn’t feel like it takes three hours to get to where they’re going.”
Emmy and NAACP Image Award-nominated producer, writer and director T. Marie King moderated a panel that included area students. (Sym Posey, For The Birmingham Times)More Than One Way to Move
Woodfin outlined six principles during his remarks, including treating transportation as a people-centered issue, expanding transportation options, connecting mobility to economic opportunity, building destinations instead of simply corridors, reconnecting Birmingham’s neighborhoods and keeping safety at the forefront.
He said having multiple ways to travel gives residents greater freedom to work, attend school, shop, visit friends and access other services.
“More transportation options will provide more freedom for our residents,” Woodfin said.
The mayor also connected transportation to Birmingham’s economic future.
If Birmingham wants to attract industries and create jobs, he said, residents must have reliable ways to reach those jobs.
Woodfin also pointed to the importance of reconnecting neighborhoods that have been separated or reshaped by transportation infrastructure over time.
The city’s goBHM effort comes as Birmingham is pursuing projects intended to improve connectivity, including efforts to restore two-way traffic on portions of formerly one-way corridors and develop infrastructure for walking and biking. The city’s transportation department identifies the 4th Avenue North project as an effort to restore a two-way configuration and improve connectivity through the corridor.
Woodfin said future transportation decisions should also account for the people who will inherit the city.
“Whatever we’re building for the future, to always keep the next generation in mind,” he said, “because what we build has to be for that next generation.”
BJCTA Highlights Transit Options
Charlotte Shaw, executive director and CEO of the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority, discussed the role public transit can play within a larger multimodal system.
The system includes fixed bus routes, bus rapid transit and microtransit services that operate on demand within designated areas.
Shaw acknowledged that the existing system does not serve every part of the region equally. BJCTA serves a regional area of roughly 1,100 square miles, she said, while its current service area covers about 186 square miles. Expanding service, she said, requires additional funding.
Shaw pointed to Alabama’s transportation funding structure as one of the challenges facing transit expansion and said the state Legislature would need to invest more to expand public transportation service.
She also addressed concerns about safety and public perception. Shaw said public transportation can sometimes carry a stigma, including the perception that buses are primarily for people who cannot afford cars.
“That is not true,” she said. “Public transportation is for people to get around as convenient and as reliable as possible at the best cost possible.”
The event marked a major public step for goBHM, the City of Birmingham’s multimodal transportation planning initiative. (Sym Posey, For The Birmingham Times)Changing the Perception
The students on the panel offered their own ideas for getting more young people familiar with Birmingham’s transportation options.
Social media was one suggestion. Students said transportation information needs to reach young people where they already spend time. Students suggested making public transportation more visible and appealing through creative social media campaigns.
Landon Weaver, a UAB sophomore, said changing the public perception of transit could begin with short-form videos designed to reach young people.
Others recommended making schools a central part of the outreach strategy. Students suggested working with principals, counselors, teachers and school programs to educate young people about available transportation services.
Others suggested giving students opportunities to actually ride public transportation so they can become familiar with the system.
That idea resonated with the panel: Exposure, officials said, could help make public transportation a normal part of how Birmingham residents move rather than something viewed as a last resort.
Building Communities
The conversation also moved beyond buses and roads to the relationship between transportation, neighborhood development and economic growth.
Fowler said Birmingham cannot simply run bus routes through every part of the city without considering the cost and how neighborhoods are developed. Instead, he said, the city needs to strengthen areas where destinations are concentrated and where residents can live, work, shop and access services near transportation connections.
Woodfin has referred to these areas as “urban villages,” describing them as places where people can access multiple services and destinations near where they live.
Shaw connected that concept to transit-oriented development, saying rebuilding the vitality of historic neighborhood centers can help create communities where public transportation becomes a practical part of daily life.
She also pointed to Birmingham’s history, including the construction of highways through Black neighborhoods, as context for why reconnecting communities matters today.
“People are noticing to build a community, you have to be attracted back in the community,” Shaw said.
Safety Remains a Central Concern
For students and other residents, however, transportation access also depends on what happens after someone gets off the bus.
During the discussion, questions were raised about lighting, sidewalks, cameras and safety around transit stops.
Fowler said the city is incorporating safety into projects, including the Birmingham Civil Rights Crossroads urban trail project, which the city says is designed to reconnect the historically significant Graymont and Smithfield Black neighborhoods with downtown Birmingham and the Civil Rights District.
He also emphasized the importance of having people out in public spaces.
“We need people on the street,” Fowler said. “We need neighbors to be out there.”
For the city, the goBHM plan represents a shift from discussing transportation only as a matter of roads and vehicles to considering how mobility affects the broader quality of life. The city’s own transportation department says its goal is to develop and maintain a transportation system with multiple options for every user while supporting walkable and vibrant communities.
Woodfin said the plan should not become a document that simply sits on a shelf.
“We’re building a program that’s going to help guide infrastructure investments and shape how the transportation system of Birmingham works over the next five, 10, 20 years,” he said.
The city is continuing to gather public feedback as the goBHM plan moves toward its next stages. Residents can follow the initiative and participate through the City of Birmingham’s goBHM transportation planning resources.
Learn more at birminghamal.gov/letsgobhm.
