Engaging Youth to Increase their Transportation System Support, Understanding, and Use

Abstract

This project seeks to build on the sparse national and non-Portland regional, past, transit-related research with youth to create and evaluate communication messaging that foster more positive attitudes, intentions, and behaviors related to transit and other non-car transportation options among Portland youth. The theory of planned behavior was applied to the interpretation of the youth focus group data collected for this project. This research also collected feedback on test messages aimed at encouraging non-car mobility among Portland youth. Key insights found mixed attitudes related to non-car mobility that were especially dependent on which type of mobility and often based on the youth's first-hand experience. Youth mostly held normative and perceived behavioral control beliefs supportive of non-car mobility, such as the belief that most of their friends and parents support non-car mobility and the belief that it is easy to ride transit. A dominant non-supportive belief was youth's lack of agency related to safety on public transit. Youth reported positive intentions to practice non-car mobility until they were old enough and could afford to drive. A variety of channels and settings, such as YouTube advertisements, may be effective at reaching teens, but this study concluded that teens are unlikely to subscribe and engage with text messages sent to their mobile devices. Youth responded positively to appeals to autonomy and generally disliked most of the Generation Z targeted messaging. More detailed insights and recommendations are discussed within the report.