RTA Citizens Advisory Board: Get to know Parker Thompson

Following through on a key recommendation from regional transit strategic plan Transit is the Answer, the RTA launched a newly expanded, rider-focused Citizens Advisory Board (RTACAB) in March 2024, featuring the perspectives of a diverse group of 21 riders and agency leaders from across the region.

The RTACAB advises the agency’s staff and Board of Directors on accessibility, equity, and other impacts of its policies and programs. It has always included the chairpersons of CTA, Metra, and Pace Citizens Advisory Boards, as well as representatives from each of the six counties served in the RTA region. Transit is the Answer called on the agency to “expand the role of the RTACAB and strengthen the rider voice in transit planning and decision making.” The new RTACAB includes eight new “rider representative” positions: two for the City of Chicago, one for Suburban Cook County, and one each for other counties in the RTA region.

In a new Connections Blog series, RTA will profile each rider representative through a Q&A, digging into why community engagement is important, why transit matters to them, and more.

Parker Thompson, Kane County

Parker Thompson is a co-founder and the executive director of Elgin Community Bikes, a non-profit organization using bike riding to make Elgin a healthier, happier, and more equitable community. In addition to their work using bicycles for transportation and community development, Parker and Elgin Community Bikes provide community education and advocacy leadership in the greater Elgin area for safer streets for walking and public transportation. Thompson began his active transportation advocacy on the City of Elgin’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee in 2016, shortly after moving to Elgin and navigating the suburban city with two toddlers by cargo bike, stroller, and bus. He continues to navigate the city and region with his young family by all modes of transportation. Thompson is currently a member of the Transportation Equity Network and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s Community Alliance for Regional Equity.

How and why did you come to join the RTACAB as a rider representative?

I learned about the opportunity to join the RTACAB through my regional advocacy network. I think the email that caught my attention for it was from Active Transportation Alliance’s Director of Community Building & Leadership, Maggie Czerwinski. I joined the RTACAB as a rider representative because I wanted to ensure the many perspectives and varying needs of my community were being lifted up to regional conversations.

What is your transit experience like? What do you like about riding transit, and what could be improved?

I generally have positive experiences with transit. Using transit is one of the resources that enables my family to live in Elgin—a suburban part of the region with an urban neighborhood—with just one car. Pace Bus supplements my travel around my city and I regularly use Metra to connect to Chicago for work and fun. Transit frequency and more service hours are ways that transit could become far more useful in my life and in my community. Our lack of service beyond the middle of the evening and no bus service on Sundays are glaring gaps in service for the fullness of our community for our different work schedules, our social lives, and to engage in the civic functions that move our communities forward.

Why are you passionate about transit and cycling?

I see them as tools for healthier communities and as complementary to one another. Communities that are built in ways that encourage and empower transit and cycling often allow for more casual and safe social interaction. They develop richer networks of resources that are available to the wider community. They tend to be fun and vibrant places to live, work, and play.

How does transit interplay with cycling? How can investing in transit lead to safer streets for cyclists and pedestrians?

Transit and cycling are complementary to each other. Cycling provides for a robust and agile “last mile” for many transit users. Transit is able to cover significant distances and traverse environments that are not oriented to pedestrians and bike riders. Planning for and investing in transit can lead to streets that share with and even prioritize the safety and convenience of walking or biking in the neighborhood. From separated and protected infrastructure, like sidewalks or bikeways, to enabling mixed use development (housing, business, workplaces, and services) that allows human scale design to feel normalized, safe, and convenient, transit-oriented communities make for healthier, more equitable places for everyone. Investing in transit can shift more of our communities into being whole places for people’s lives, which allows us to slow down within them and enjoy the safety that comes with that shift in use and perspective.

What are your ideas for building the public and political support to invest in transit and active transportation?

Decisions are made at almost every level of government to either support or divest from transit and active transportation, so building the public and political support for it requires a multitude of approaches. In my local work with Elgin Community Bikes, we have focused on fun invitations to bike rides that center the social experience rather than distance or speed. These rides help people connect with their neighbors from across the city and to explore moving through the neighborhoods. We have done the same with community walks and public transit excursions, all with the goal of providing fun experiences that broaden the social imagination for how we can move about our communities. These programs also build a “human infrastructure” that informs how and why we engage in conversations with decision makers about the needs of our community for transit and active transportation. I learn so much from the people that these programs connect me with, and I bring their stories and experiences to the conversations I have been privileged to participate in that impact transit and active transportation. It is also a “human infrastructure” that can be invited to engage in the democratic processes—like surveys, public hearings, and voting—that impact the decisions to invest in healthier, safer communities.

What would it mean for riders in the communities you represent if transit is unable to find a sustainable funding solution to the fiscal cliff and experiences major service cuts?

Major service cuts would be devastating to riders and everyone in my community, if transit is unable to find a sustainable funding solution to the fiscal cliff. Riders would face inability to connect with the work, services, people, and places that are essential to their lives. The broader community would feel the echoes of that disconnection as we all suffered economically, socially, and in various other public health ways. We would also see, for the riders that are able physically and financially, a new influx of cars adding to the already dysfunctional congestion on our streets and highways.

Why do you think it’s important for public agencies like the RTA to engage with communities, such as through the newly expanded RTACAB?

It is vital for public agencies to engage with communities to keep a broader perspective in mind in their service planning, as well as learning about unique challenges that are contextual to individual riders and their specific communities. While the transit system is designed and deployed for an entire region, the lessons we learn from hyperlocal experiences can be applied to improving the common good across the system in so many ways.

Who do you think is missing from current conversations about public transportation policy issues, and how would you like to see the RTA engage them?

There are multiple constituencies that are missing from or underrepresented in current conversations about public transportation policy issues. People who rely on transit at the margins of its service with regard to frequency, schedule, and routing are a population that needs more engagement. These folks need transit to serve them and they are doing their best to make it work. Their experiences can highlight what is missing. This population needs to be heard for the wisdom and demand that they offer the system. Connecting with these riders should also compensate them for their expertise and time. Another population that needs to be engaged are people who are at the edge of their seat for using transit. This population needs a meaningful vision for what is possible with our transit system. This vision can be about what you can accomplish now, and as we look at the future the vision needs to be about a better system and real pathways to get there.

What is your favorite transit memory?

My favorite transit memory is of using the Pace bus system with my children when they were toddlers. We would bump around for adventures by bus, which included the long ride on the 554 to the Woodfield Mall where they could run around in the play area when the weather was extreme for outdoor play. From waiting at the stop with the mantra “the bus doesn’t wait for you” to taking in the world from the window seats, the whole experience just embraced their wonder as they learned to take on the world. After a fun adventure and a ride back, it wasn’t uncommon for me to need to scoop up a sleeping child from their bus seat to disembark when we rolled home. They have long since outgrown my capacity to lift them like that, but the memory of a sleeping toddler in my arms and their head resting on my shoulder is a warm memory that I cherish.