MTS Social Equity Listening Tour
Pueblo Studio facilitated the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System’s (MTS) Social Equity Listening Tour, a public engagement effort designed to understand transit riders’ lived experiences and address inequities in the system. The project aimed to identify community members’ top transit priorities and the challenges they face due to disparities in service, operations, amenities, and programs. To do this, Pueblo Studio led fifteen art-based storytelling workshops, both virtual and in-person, across the MTS service area and partnered with five community-based organizations (CBOs) to intentionally engage those most dependent on transit and most burdened by historic planning inequities, including people with disabilities, low-wealth Black communities and communities of color, the elderly, youth, people who are unhoused or experiencing housing insecurity, immigrants, refugees, and binational migrants.
Using small, hand-held recorders, simple devices not unlike those found in a child’s toy, community members captured their own stories in their own voices. They spoke to what it feels like to navigate the region on public transit and articulated their visions for a joyful, safe, and reliable transit experience. Pueblo Studio then thoughtfully shaped these recordings into an audio collage and paired them with photographs from the storytelling workshops, creating a layered narrative portrait of community experience.
This curated narrative piece was delivered directly to MTS board members as part of Pueblo Studio’s formal presentation. Because governing board meetings are often held during standard working hours, times when many community members cannot attend, narrative curation became a powerful bridge. It brought public testimony from everyday community spaces into a decision-making room that is too often inaccessible and intimidating. By centering people’s own voices rather than speaking for them, the project affirmed that those most impacted should be heard directly, and that their lived experiences are essential to shaping a more equitable and responsive transit system.
Services Provided
Community Storytelling & Narrative Development
Narrative Curation
Public Outreach Award (2023)
San Diego Chapter, American Planning Association
