Going Places

Earlier this year, Luca Johnson ’24 landed his dream role: working on the Safe Routes Philly initiative. 

Managed by Philadelphia’s Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability, the city-wide program helps protect children from traffic incidents on their way to school.

Johnson’s role at Safe Routes, which is supported by the AmeriCorps VISTA program, is helping him master skills for administering a public initiative for a major city, such as grant writing and community outreach.

“My favorite part of what I’ve been doing is joining a walking or biking ‘school bus,’ where students, parents, and volunteers meet and walk or bike to school together,” Johnson says. “I get to bike with the kids and talk to them about safe biking practices.”

Growing up in the Boston area, he always wanted to work in public transportation—and saw first-hand how the subway system (colloquially known as the T) and the city’s bus lines tended to benefit wealthier neighborhoods. 

At Oberlin, he pursued this interest in public transit with depth, rigor, and passion thanks to the sociology department. Encouraged by Professor of Sociology Greggor Mattson, Johnson applied and won the Jerome Davis Research Award, which sent him to Los Angeles to conduct fieldwork on the city’s metro system.

With the help of his advisor, William G. Smith Associate Professor of Sociology and Comparative American Studies Alicia Smith-Tran ’10, Johnson presented his findings on “transit vanity projects as a representation of spatial injustice” at a conference of the North Central Sociological Association.

Throughout his time at Oberlin, Johnson says he felt supported in his desire to follow his curiosity. “Community-centered transportation is a very niche field, and that was intimidating when I first entered the job market,” he says. “But Oberlin’s ability to encourage these niches makes it so that when you do find that fit, your level of interest is really rewarded.

“Having the freedom to explore my intellectual interests at Oberlin and being in a supportive learning environment gave me the confidence to enter a space like the Office of Transportation with a growth mindset,” he adds. “I know that ‘growth mindset’ is such a phrase—but it’s true, and it allowed me to soak in all the information I can here.”

Johnson especially appreciated his soft landing in Philly. In early 2025, while living in Los Angeles, his previous organization shut down due to funding cuts, and he lost a similar role.

“I saw the impact of that organization during my time in L.A., and seeing how quickly something like that can go away reaffirmed its importance,” Johnson says. “That experience only hardened my resolve to continue this work.”

During his year-long appointment at Safe Routes Philly, he is helping the program expand throughout the city by making connections with other schools and “using mapping technologies to reflect the work that we’re doing and how we want to expand,” he says. “I get to do so many different things, including creating the institutional memory of this program to ensure its longevity.”

Kristen Evans is a culture writer and critic who has written for BuzzFeed, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, NYLON, and the New Republic.