Youth are the experts we needed to hear from. 

A survey before the summer pilot was conducted to better understand the youths experience and attitudes toward OST activities as well as their transportation-related habits. Most of the youth believe that, belonging to a team or club would make them feel good, but they also believe that not a lot of OST opportunities exist in their community. Most of them acknowledge that it is very difficult to find these opportunities in Kansas City. The surveyed youth suggested that the summertime is mostly challenging for finding things to do as they don’t feel they have many choices. 

In terms of transportation, most of them (especially females) depend on rides from someone but they don’t always have access to a car they can use. It was also found that they are mostly familiar with taking the school bus, walking, biking, or taking a car/riding with someone, but they are not familiar with transit or microtransit options (e.g., zTrip). In fact, public transit is rarely or never an option for these youths and they don’t seem to know enough about it to even consider it. Also, their top three factors for deciding on how they will get around are: safety, cost, and travel time.