Teens on the Tracks: The Reality of Youth Commuting in NYC
When adults can get a cab or Uber with the money they earned, students and teens aren’t always able to do the same thing. And because teens rely on a system that fails them often, what exactly are they supposed to do?
At 8:00 - 8:35 A.M on a cold morning, crowds of students line up along the platform of the six train, whether at Parkchester, Hunts Point,125th Street, or Elder. Everyday students walk to the platform believing they are beginning another commute to school. Hoping that the trains will run smoothly for once. But too often, they walk into a system that seems to work against them. The six train, which should represent both access and mobility instead now became a place where frustration, exhaustion, stress, and motivation collide together.
There are strong tensions that surround these metal doors on the subway. Across the Bronx, teens wake up wondering if today's commute will be the one that makes them late for whatever they have to do. And this isn’t really just a Bronx problem. Young people across NYC face overcrowded platforms, unexpected delays, and unpredictable behavior from strangers or the homeless man doing questionable stuff. When students feel unsafe or unsupported simply trying to get to school, the community suffers. Teens arrive drained before the first bell. Parents worry each morning until they get the “made it” text. And schools struggling to maintain structure lose learning time to a system that is supposed to help. And unlike the average adult, teens rely completely on the train with a license or money. When adults can get a cab or Uber with the money they earned, students and teens aren’t always able to do the same thing. And because teens rely on a system that fails them often, what exactly are they supposed to do?
Behind every delayed train and every overcrowded train car are real students with real stories.Teenagers who are simply trying to learn, work, or go to something they’re passionate about. Real young people who want to feel traveling in the city they call home. And real kids who are not asking for much, just getting to school without issue. But what actually happens is harsher. Many Bronx families do not have the option of driving or using alternative transportation. So when the 6 train lets them down, they face the struggle of stressing how they will get where they’re going when they’re supposed to be there.
In one instance shared by a Comp Sci High twelfth grader: “I didn’t have problems with being on time to school during ninth and tenth grade but once we came to the new school, obviously instead of being able to walk I had to take the train.” They went on to talk about how this caused more and more delays for them, which was not normal. They told us: “Overtime, I honestly stopped caring whether I'm late or not in the morning. I feel so lazy and unmotivated to get up and ready on time all because of these delays, which has killed my motivation. It’s so tiring repeating this everyday, and I have no other way to get here other than the train.”
Experiences like these affect young riders. Yet this is the system they have no choice to rely on, and this could also cause teens to be affected mentally and academically. Based on interviews from students who are more commonly late than others, they all seemed to have faced many delays throughout their high school years and this has changed their mindset completely. When students face many delays like this, it could cause them to be less motivated to get up early for school and get there on time even when there were no delays on that day. Though at our school, the new eligibility rules have pushed a few students to force themself to get up, for many others these rules have caused stress and panic, especially when just two latenesses can affect whether they can or can’t go on a trip with their friends.
And the issues go beyond just simple delays. Safety concerns have also become a major part of the commute.
Safety concerns are another major issue in the MTA because many subway stations and the train carts are overcrowded and packed during rush hour, which increases the risk of falling or being pushed near the platform edge and this can be overwhelming and unsafe for teens traveling alone early in the morning, this also puts them in a dangerous and stressful position. On top of that, there's also frequent encounters with aggressive or unpredictable behavior from strangers, which can make students anxious during their travels just because they didn’t give a dollar to the homeless guy in the corner. Some stations have poor lighting, broken cameras, slow emergency responses, and other hazards which add to those fears. The point is students who don’t feel safe on their way to school, because of dimmed lights, packed stations or unusual people, are negatively impacted overall, becoming less focused, less confident before school even starts.
Delays on the subway can happen for many different reasons, most of them being outside of a student's control. One of the major causes is aging infrastructure. Many of the train's signals, tracks, and electrical systems are old and often break down forcing a train to slow down or stop completely and students can’t do anything about this but are heavily impacted by this. Delays are also caused by overcrowded trains, because it takes longer to load and unload passengers which causes the train to be behind and delaying other trains behind it, and because these issues happen often, students never know if their commute will be smooth or if it will cost them valuable time and energy.