Eau Claire Celebrates Transit Equity Day with Free Fares

City of Eau Claire officials gathered at the newly opened downtown transfer center on Wednesday to celebrate Transit Equity Day.

Transit Equity Day is held on February 4th to honor the birthday of Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in 1955 sparked the over year long Montgomery Bus Boycott, a crucial moment in the Civil Rights movement. Phil Swanhorst is the Eau Claire Transit Commission Chairperson and a former Eau Claire bus driver, and shared his thoughts on the history of Transit Equity Day in the city.

“This is the tenth year since I attended a conference in Washington D.C. to create February 4th,” he said. “Why February 4th? We wanted an activist that believed in equity in transportation. And who better than Rosa Parks, and her birthday is February 4th. So ten years ago we created that, and by we, it was unions, it was management, it was Ireland, it was South Africa, it was European countries.”

In its proclamation declaring February 4th as Transit Equity Day, the Eau Claire City Council highlighted the importance of public transit as an essential service for residents to access things like healthcare and employment, as well as its importance in addressing climate change. Swanhorst also shared his thoughts on what future progress could look like for public transit in Eau Claire.

“Continued applicable ADA compliance,” he said. “Believe it or not, we build our buses, our transfer center, our accommodations are very ADA compliant. When we drop off at some schools, some healthcare facilities, some older churches, they are not ADA compatible. So the future would be to have our community be ADA.”

To honor Transit Equity Day, the local nonprofit Joining Our Neighbors Advancing Hope covered all bus fares on Wednesday so residents could ride for free. Each bus also had a rose in the front seat to honor Rosa Parks.