For my last project with Challenge Detroit I worked with Megan Owens of Transportation Riders United to identify opportunities for corporations and large institutions to support the work they do as an advocacy organization. Most corporate supporters have endorsed ballot measures to fund the RTA and have sponsored campaigns, but there has been a need to do deeper engagement with the public around transit in the region. As I began meeting with stakeholders to understand how they could support a public education effort, two things became clear; companies that support transit saw it as relevant to the needs of the institution or their consumers, and that the gap in knowledge and stigma around buses that led to the failure of past campaigns could only be bridged by getting people to actually ride for the first time.

While ideating around how to do this, I learned from a lot of different sources both locally and out of state that there are a number of different things companies can do to encourage behavior change. For the outcome of this project I made recommendations around how TRU could expand their presentation series “Let’s Talk Transit” in a corporate setting, as well as how they could build a coalition that implements best practices around transportation management at their companies.