The Reductress published a satirical post in which students discover their teacher takes three buses to get to work and decide to reward her with a better commute...made possible by better bus service.
A satirical post plays on the trope of students recognizing the commuting hardships of their beloved teacher and deciding to do something about.
You're probably familiar with this kind of story, when some beloved figure in the community is awarded a car to overcome their marathon of a commute.
Actually, the commute doesn’t even have to be a marathon. From reading headlines like this, you'd think just taking a bus is a massive indignity.
- Teacher took buses to work, so students' parents bought her a car
- Parents Buy Car For Teacher Who’d Been Taking The Bus
- Mom gives daughter's teacher new car so educator doesn't have to ride multiple buses to work
At least one media outlet pointed out that maybe the solution for situations like these would be to pay teachers more, and that's true regardless of whether teachers decide to spend that hypothetical money on a car. But what if the solution is treating all transit users with respect by funding adequate bus service and public transit infrastructure so that everyone could get around without a car?
This satire from the Reductress imagines just such a wild hypothetical in this complete fabrication of a fake news story:
In a heartwarming story from a middle school in the suburbs of Michigan, Kelsey McGovern’s 6th grade English class came together in a big way after learning their beloved teacher commuted two hours on three buses every day to get to Edgewood Middle School. Instead of surprising her with sweet notes or a birthday cake, the students surprised Ms. McGovern with the most heartwarming gift of all: better public transit infrastructure throughout the greater Detroit area.
The article includes the shock at learning that better bus service is possible with some fairly simple fixes, like all-door boarding and bus only lanes:
“At first I couldn’t believe they were able to make a bus ride so fast,” said McGovern. “But then I saw that all they did was paint ‘Buses Only’ in one lane of the street. It kind of felt like someone should have done that sooner.”
Only in the fake news.
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research