Reimagining the Bus Stop
A project working with the Kounkuey Design Initiative to create multi-functional bus stops for four underserved communities in the Eastern Coachella Valley.
Context
The Eastern Coachella Valley (ECV) is an underserved area comprising four small neighbourhoods: Thermal, North Shore, Mecca, and Oasis.
43% of the working population in these communities work in agriculture, and create $526 million in gross agricultural value for the US annually. However, 40% of them also live under the poverty line. As an unincorporated area with poor local representation in governance, investments into infrastructure have been extremely low. Residents suffer from severe lack of connectivity to services, both locally and beyond. The lack of access to public transportation has global implications for our environment as well; According to the EPA, in 2017 29% of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions came from transportation alone, the most out of any sector in the economy.
The Kounkuey Design Initiative is a community development and design non-profit that has been working on a mobility plan for the ECV in collaboration with partners and stakeholders such as the Riverside County Transportation Department and SunLine Transportation Agency. As part of the plan, they have received grant funding to build five more bus stops for the ECV, with potential for further expansion. I worked with in a team of five students to use principles of Human Centered Design and co-create prototypes for bus stop designs with KDI and the residents of the ECV.
The Approach
My first draft of the systems map.
We began our process by using system thinking to individually think through how the bus stop factors into the public transportation experience and lives of the residents at the ECV. Coming together as a team, we then decided to jointly create a map not just of transportation inequity generally, but to answer the targeted question “How might we make multi-beneficial bus stops that best serve the ECV communities?” Our map outlined enablers, inhibitors, and stakeholders.
We then moved into the empathy stage of our design process. As the ECV was an over two hour drive from where our team was based, we maximized user insights by conducting intercept interviews in analogous spaces such as bus stops in lower-income neighbourhoods close to us such as Pomona, and other waiting spaces like the DMV. We also arranged calls and meetings with experts such as staff at Sunline and regional planners with social justice focuses.
Based on the insights in these interviews, our joint experiences from previous coursework, and research into precedents for well-designed bus stops, we quickly moved into creating three lo-fi, themed prototypes: One focused on creating spaces that were comfortable for children and that enouraged learning and creativity, one focused on fostering local entrepreneurship and creating spaces for “pop-ups” or food trucks, and one focused on safety in the context of immigration rights, combined with a community garden so as not to align the community purely with the brand of being largely undocumented, and inviting further policing. Our designs were based on the concept of “extreme users”, because we believed that when you design for people at the peripheral, you are also likely designing for the benefit of those within the curve as well.
Operating on a “show don’t tell” philosophy of community interaction, we arranged these prototypes with amenities that could be applicable to all three designs on a board, to present to our real end-users in the ECV for their feedback using the “dotmocracy” approach, in which users vote for their top designs and priorities using stickers directly on the board.
Using the Dotmocracy board outside a local market.
By working with lo-fi methods of presenting our prototypes, we hoped that residents would find us approachable and feel at ease criticizing us to give their honest opinions. This was especially important as the community comprises largely of Latinx individuals, and our team clearly stood out as outsiders just by our ethnicities. Because of the area’s history of exploitation and non-democratic participation, we knew we had to be sensitive to the likely wariness residents would feel towards us in order to have productive discussions we could learn from.
During our visit to the ECV, we were also able to conduct more interviews with local experts, such as local organizers at the Alianza coalition. From here, we were able to better define user perspectives, refine and narrow down our prototype, and think within budget constraints to decide how we could realistically create an optimal bus stop design for the area. Along the way, we kept seeking feedback from peers and analagous users on how we could improve our ideas.
User Perspectives
“Once, while I was out playing, I had a heat stroke. The nearest store was over 2 miles away and we could only get there by foot because the buses don’t run regularly. I had no choice but to drink from a nearby farm’s water sprinklers.”
— Middle schooler with limited access to safe play spaces.
“I don’t have stable access to internet in my home. How do I apply for colleges?
— High schooler looking to become first in their family with an undergraduate degree
“Infrastructure hasn’t improved because official demographic data doesn’t really represent how many people live here and what our needs are.”
— Expert Organizer from Alianza
“Taking the bus is associated with low socio-economic status. We don’t take it unless we have to.”
— A father who has just purchased a car for his family.
Initial Prototype Preferences
From the Dotomocracy board we discovered that, contrary to what we had initially expected, the entrepreneurial prototype garnered the most interest. Residents told us they felt that community gardens were insufficient to feed their families, and they liked infrastructure that better matched the local desert landscape and took culture into account. Children had recently gained a park to play from another KDI project.
Of the amenities available for selection, the most votes were awarded for the water fountains, non-smoking waiting areas, lights, and other features related to safety, highlighting a priority for residents in an area where street lighting was poor, and women rely most heavily on buses after their husbands drive the only family car to work.
Rebuilding Our Prototype
In light of these new insights, we created another prototype design which included a pop-up food stand, water fountain, smoking/non-smoking designations, cooling fans, a light notification system (as bus passengers in Pomona had told us that sometimes the buses passed them when they could not see people waiting), lights, solar panels, and more.
In our next round of testing, people told us that they were concerned about riders who would feel uncomfortable waiting for the bus after declining to purchasing items from their neighbours operating the pop-ups. Comments were also made that our bus-stop felt like a “swiss-army knife”, and that perhaps it would be a better idea to prioritize our stop’s functions for coherence of the whole project.
These comments gave us confidence to finally move into deciding the final components of our tool-kit to create locally appropriate, multi-functional bus stops with research into existing resources that would fit the project’s budget.
Our Final Toolkit
Utilising a safe, off-grid water solution.
Because the ECV communities did not have strong infrastructures in place, we knew it would be a challenge to connect to existing water pipes to provide drinking fountains at our stops. Our team thus identified a company called Zero Mass Water, which manufactures SOURCE hydropanels which absorb moisture from the air to produce clean, potable water that is safe from air-borne pollutants. A standard array (2 panels) costs $5,500, and can produce between 4 to 20 liters per day. Even in the arid ECV, these panels were a viable technology, which require less than 10% humidity to function. Maintenance of these panels would only need to occur twice annually, and can be performed by someone trained locally.
Providing access to the internet, collecting more accurate data on community needs, and possibly making a bit of revenue.
Because Sunline already provides wifi on their buses, we thought providing them at bus stops was a natural next step. With the provision of wifi, we met needs outlined in two of our user perspectives: The need to access the internet to fill out online applications, and also, the need for accurate data to make transportation planning decisions, which can be done through the wifi landing page, where questions could be rotated regularly.
We felt that it was important to maintain user anonymity in these forms, and thought around the issue of double-counting numbers by using a proxy question of repeated log-ins to Sunline’s wifi.
Additionally, our mentor at KDI had also informed us previously that Sunline had constructed much nicer bus stops in the Western Coachella Valley, with art and shelters provided because of the potential from ad revenue with a larger population. Inspired by the work of social entrepreneur Melanie Edwards, who I had met previously at the Kravis Lab Moonshot Accelerator, through Mobile Metrix, we thought that the wifi-landing page could also be an opportunity for revenue-generation by providing a platform for market research.
Creating opportunities for local business without compromising rider comfort.
Taking into account the feedback about riders feeling pressured to purchase from live sellers, we brainstormed and came up with the idea of vending machines to sell local crafts and products such as shampoos, or, depending on community receptiveness to the idea, more lo-fi alternatives such as a product cupboard where payments are made using a trust system.
Redefining norms of who takes the bus.
We designed samples of posters that could be placed at bus stops, to change the perception of bus riders from “low-income” to “savvy and consumption-smart”, using principles of inclusive design (using high contrast text for readers with color-blindness, having braille and text-to-speech options available, etc) and social psychology research. Posters were in Spanish because 97% of ECV residents spoke Spanish as their first language, with the option for translations available through a (mock) QR code. The main text translates to “The people of California care about the environment. We take the bus! Did you know? A passenger on a full bus emits six times less carbon than in a car!” “The people of the ECV contribute to a climate-smart future. We take the bus! Did you know? Buses use 4x less energy than cars.” This phrasing uses evidence based framing of bus riders as part of an in-group.
Constructing forms harmonious with the landscape, whilst considering culture, budget, and cooling mechanisms.
KDI often uses concrete in its designs as it is a cost-effective building material which is fairly neutral to fit into the aesthetic of different landscape types. Inspired by this, we looked to soviet bus stop designs (highlighted above) to give us ideas (left) for how different bus stops could take different forms, while appearing to belong to the same design concept. To decrease costs of cooling, instead of installing fans we thought our design could utilize solar orientation and manoeuvrable louvers to create cooler bus stops which were adaptable to environmental changes in dust and wind. These louvers can also be colored to mimic the designs of mexican flags and pay subtle tribute to the cultural heritage of the population.
Ensuring visibility at night, with perks.
We found a variety of solar panel lighting options with variable light intensity controls throughout the day, to increase safety in the area around the stops. Many claim to be able to remained powered for three days after one day of solar charging, and are also equipped with phone charging outlets to use excess energy generated.
Lessons Learned
By working on this project, I was exposed to a lot of important design concepts that are critical to problem-solving at scale: The importance of empathy in research, and in being open and resourceful to solutions that aren’t always the “next big thing” in tech, but which work and are accessible.
I also gained experience in using interview tools and methods to dig deeper into user perspectives such as the “5 Whys” and “Journal Mapping”, and in being biased to action by prototyping often and working with feedback to ideate creatively. Because the Covid-19 crisis forced us to move this work remotely, I also gained experience in collaborating from home through creative platforms such as Murals.
I enjoyed looking into the social psychology literature to think about how systems and language change behaviour, and how this can be a tool for good without compromising on wider citizen participation in design.
I hope you find this work as interesting as I did! If you would like to learn more, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Credits to flaticon.com for user icons.