Good transportation is tied to the region’s success
Jilla Nadimi is like a lot of other Millennials – she has chosen to currently not own a car. She lives in St. Paul, and she relies on transit – for work, for fun, and for everything in between – including trips to the store or the doctor.
She attended the University of Minnesota and used transit to get around. She has lived other places in the U.S. and internationally that she says have better public transportation. “I was a little embarrassed that we don’t have better transit.”
But the bigger issue for her is that good transportation and mobility are tied to a region’s success. And she, and other Millennials, can choose to move to other regions around the country that are investing in their transit systems.
“It’s an economic issue. It’s an investment that’s going to continue to give back,” Nadimi says. Transportation is about access – to places to live, work, shop, etc. “Mobility is not a privilege. It’s an equal rights issue.”
“To choose transit should not put me at a disadvantage to car owners,” she said. Sometimes, she just decides not to go somewhere because it takes too long to get there, or it’s too much of a hassle to plan. Though she grew up in the suburbs of the Twin Cities, she doesn’t get to suburban communities much because there are limited transit options and it takes too much time.
“To be competitive (as a region), we need to improve and increase our transit.”
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