Transit: Getting Around

The Project

How do you take transit in a new place?

• How do you buy a ticket?
• Can you use an app?
• How do you find where the bus goes?
• How do you get on?
• Is this the same everywhere?

We’re exploring the quirks of getting around without a car, by trying it in a bunch of places. These little research excursions show our successes and failures, likes and dislikes, victories and surprises.

From this, we aim to assemble a quick-start guide, to help you navigate a new, unfamiliar place successfully on transit and on foot.

We start by looking at a city’s transit website. Then we actually visit the place and try getting around. Sometimes something that sounds easy ends up tricky; other times it’s easier than expected. Sometimes there are surprises that make a trip inconvenient or even impossible.

Our goal isn’t to describe everything about a city’s transit; it’s to show the essentials you need to ride it well enough. If you showed up and stepped off a plane or Amtrak, how do you get to your hotel?

Transit Logs

Below see how we got around. This project emerged over time, so some are thoroughly documented, while others are based on memory.

We present these for insight. They are not definitive guides. We may convert them to guides in the future.