Article: If They Can't Get There, Nothing Else Matters: Transportation as an Equity Issue in Aquatics

Aquatic facilities spend real energy on making programming affordable, inclusive, and welcoming. Reduced admission fees, scholarship programs, free swim nights — all of it matters. But there is a barrier that sits upstream of all of it that most facilities have never addressed: getting there in the first place.

If a family cannot physically get to your pool, your pricing structure is irrelevant. Your inclusive programming is irrelevant. Your welcoming staff are irrelevant. Transportation is an equity issue, and it is almost entirely absent from the conversation in parks and recreation.

Who Transportation Barriers Actually Affect

Transportation barriers fall hardest on the communities that aquatic facilities are most trying to reach — low-income families without reliable vehicle access, communities of color in areas with limited public transit coverage, elderly swimmers who no longer drive, and people with disabilities whose transportation options are already constrained. These are not edge cases. In most mid-size and large cities, they represent a significant portion of the population your facility is theoretically serving.

The assumption that “anyone can get here if they want to” is not an equity stance. It is a reflection of who designed the system and who they assumed would use it.

What Facilities Can Actually Do

The most direct path is partnerships with local transit agencies. Many regional transit authorities have community partnership programs specifically designed for situations like this — subsidized passes, free ride programs tied to specific destinations, or bulk pass purchasing agreements that facilities can offer at the front desk or bundle into scholarship programs. If your facility has not had this conversation with your local transit agency, it is worth a single phone call to find out what exists.

Beyond transit partnerships, coordination with schools and community organizations opens additional options. Schools often have bus access during summer months that goes unused. Community organizations serving low-income families frequently have transportation infrastructure of their own. A simple MOU — a memorandum of understanding — between your facility and a partner organization can create a shuttle program or ride-share arrangement that costs very little and serves a lot of people.

Making the Case Internally

The most common reason facilities have not addressed transportation is not lack of will — it is that nobody has framed it as a solvable operational problem rather than an abstract social issue. If you are making the case to leadership, frame it this way: transportation barriers suppress enrollment, reduce program utilization, and undermine the return on investment of every equity initiative your facility has already funded. Solving it is not charity — it is good operations.

Data helps. If your facility tracks zip codes at registration, you already have a picture of where your participants are coming from — and where they are not. Gaps in coverage often correlate directly with areas of low transit access. That data makes the conversation with leadership concrete rather than theoretical.

What a Partnership Actually Looks Like in Practice

A transit partnership does not need to be complicated to be effective. At its simplest, it is a bulk purchase of transit passes that your facility distributes through your scholarship or reduced-fee program. At its most developed, it is a co-branded initiative with your transit agency that includes signage at bus stops near your facility, a dedicated route or stop, and joint outreach to communities that are currently underserved.

Start small. Pilot a pass distribution program with one partner organization serving families in a low-transit-access neighborhood. Track whether their participation in your programs increases. Use that data to expand the program and make the case for more resources.

Closing

The facilities that are going to lead on equity in the next decade are the ones that are thinking about access as a systems problem, not just a programming problem. Transportation is one of the most concrete, solvable pieces of that system — and almost nobody in aquatics is talking about it yet.

If you want to bring this conversation to your team or your conference, that is exactly the kind of work I do. Reach out and let's talk.