Wheels on the bus: Multidisciplinary UTC sociologist seeking a broader understanding of transportation accessibility

Without reliable transportation, some low-income people are isolated, socially excluded and forced to adapt by making a choice that further perpetuates their isolation: “I just don’t go nowhere.”

Dr. Chandra Ward reports this finding in her paper, “How transportation disadvantage reinforces social exclusion,” published in the June 2023 Journal of Transport Geography. Ward, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, conducted research documented in the paper in 2020 with funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation of Chattanooga. UTC Assistant Professor of Sociology Darrell Walsh co-authored the paper with Ward, whose research involved interviewing residents of a local public housing community about their access to and use of public transportation.

“I asked to interview people who did not have their own personal transportation, that did ride CARTA or use some other alternate means of transportation. What I found was that people adapted to not having a vehicle by simply not going anywhere, and I found that reinforces the social exclusion they already experience,” Ward said. “When they do have to go somewhere, it’s only the most essential places—the doctor, the grocery store—and they use the bus or their social networks.”

Ward’s interviewees otherwise described challenges from bringing gear onto a bus for a family outing; to the expense of bus fare and time of travel to better-paying jobs, most often at substantial distance; to lack of shelter at the bus stop—making weather a factor in a city documented to experience rain about 175 days a year.

“This ﬁnding has implications for the potential generational impact of transport-related social exclusion, in that children of the participants start life with a deﬁcit in social capital compared to their more mobile counterparts,” Ward noted in her paper. “Further, participants were excluded from leisure activities that provide both meaning and enrichment in one’s life, as well as a source of stress relief. This is especially important considering the health effects of poverty, brought on primarily by the excess stress of poverty.

“One could conclude that the adaptive strategy of ‘not going anywhere’ reinforces concentrated poverty and its deleterious effects.”

Dr. Chandra Ward’s research interests include transportation equity, mobility, smart city initiatives, urban development and displacement, and public housing. Photo by Angela Foster.

Ward said her findings, in part, also “speak to the whole ‘two Chattanoogas’ narrative.” As a city renowned for its parks, proximity to mountains and outdoor recreation, “These are assets that we, as a city, use to define ourselves and to attract other people to come here, yet there are people who live here but can’t experience these.”

Her study recommends further research into the health and social ramiﬁcations of a lack of access to broader social networks and recreation, and her paper urges transit agencies and policymakers to seek a broader understanding of transportation accessibility and inclusion.

Ward’s next look into local use of public transportation comes later this month when she and members of the UTC Sociology Club (for undergraduates majoring in sociology) get on board a CARTA city bus and take “a tour.”

“I was invited by another faculty member to talk about this paper to students in a social problems class, and out of that, students who are part of the Sociology Club came to me and said they wanted to try and de-stigmatize riding the bus and achieve more buy-in for city bus transportation from broader and more diverse segments of the community, including students,” she said. “They were like, ‘We don’t know much about the Mocs Express, where it goes, what’s the schedule, how to use it. There’s no signage.’

“Their view was, ‘It’s incumbent upon us to explore this resource and see if we can make more students aware of public transportation in Chattanooga and more willing to use it.’ They were really looking and thinking critically about it, and I’m very much interested in public transit accessibility, so we have a bus tour planned for later this month.”

As rental real estate—including near UTC—becomes more expensive, forcing more students into off-campus housing at greater distances from campus, adequate and available transportation has the potential to impact student retention, Ward said, making public transportation a matter of interest to a growing number of students going forward.

A UTC graduate who now works for CARTA will join the tour with Ward and UTC sociology undergraduates. The student-led research project to be initiated on the CARTA bus tour will seek to understand the prevalence of transportation insecurity among UTC students and how that can affect student retention, Ward said. The group’s initial observations from the tour will be presented at the 2024 UTC Spring Research and Arts Conference in April.

An urban sociologist, Ward was named director of community engagement for the UTC Center for Urban Informatics and Progress in August 2023. Ward has been a UTC faculty member since 2017, with expertise and research interests in transportation equity, mobility, smart city initiatives, urban development and displacement, and public housing.