Thread. Had a conference call this morning. My town is part of a group of suburban municipalities working on a public transportation study. Became clear that the COVID-19 pandemic might dramatically change perceptions of public transportation. 1/4

Public transit in the U.S. has always (since the car) had the perception as "poor person's transportation". The class divide that used to be management/labor or salaried/wage earner is now knowledge worker/service worker... 2/4

...and becoming remote worker/in-place worker. Increasingly we may find remote workers becoming less reliant on public transit, while in-place workers become more reliant on it. Sadly reinforces class differences. 3/4

And the ironic thing is that it was knowledge workers returning to cities who brought renewed interest to public transit, but that interest could diminish because of the pandemic. 4/4