Community Solutions

 

Dan Hendry is more than just a social innovator

He is a facilitator, mentor, and communicator, Dan has focused his energy and efforts on making Kingston a sustainable, livable, and smart city. He works to educate young people, giving them the skills necessary to make informed choices about living sustainably in a changing world. With over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship, sustainability and social innovation, Dan’s work is community-based and serves the purpose of changing systems to a sustainable model.

 
 
 

Youth Transit Programming

 

A decade ago, Dan helped lead the charge and developed a simple but powerful model to transform public transportation, that has changed the transportation model in the City of Kingston. In his role with the Limestone District School Board, alongside the City of Kingston (Kingston Transit) we created the Kingston Transit High School Bus Pass Program back in 2012, offering high school students in the City, free bus passes.

On-bus orientation and free passes have increased high school ridership from 28,000 to close to 600,000 (pre-COVID) annually in Kingston, Ontario. The underlying philosophy in developing this project is that with encouragement, mastery of transit tools, authentic life experience and a bus pass in hand, students will gain independence and confidence.

The “Kingston Model” for youth transit programming is a game changer model for combating climate change and increasing youth independence and confidence.

 
 
“Kingston Transit High School Bus Pass created. Free bus passes for Grade 9 students. Youth ridership increases to 28,000 annually.”
— 2012
“First year that all high school students (Grade 9 – 12) can ride the bus for free. Youth ridership increases to 600,000 annually.”
— 2016
“Kingston Transit eliminated fares for ages 0-14 to encourage young families to use transit.”
— 2017
“Kingston Transit Field Trip Pass Program was developed”
— 2017
“The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ “Sustainable Communities Conference” Inaugural Inspire Award, for the project that best demonstrates creativity and innovation. ”
— 2018
“The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ “Sustainable Communities Conference” Transportation Award”
— 2018
“TEDx Ottawa at the National Arts Centre, delivering a talk in front of an audience of 800 titled, ”Throwing Our Car Culture Under the Bus””
— 2019
“The Federation of Canadian Municipalities partnered with the program to create a guidebook for using city–school partnership to inspire youth to choose sustainable transportation. Guidebook available in French and English.”
— 2019
“Participated in the Queen’s University’s DDQIC Summer Initiative with Jadon Hook and Jega Rajendran and conceptualized a social enterprise that uses learning from the success of the proven “Kingston Model” of youth transit programming to help build long-term transit ridership post-COVID-19 across mid-sized North American communities.”
— 2020
“Partnered with the Small Change Fund to seek collaborative opportunities to scale youth transit programming to other communities”
— 2021
“Represented Climate Reality Canada in the global 24 Hours of Reality Project hosted by Al Gore. Featured in the “Expanding zero-emission vehicles and transportation” presentation.”
— 2022
 
 

The “Kingston Model” Youth Transit Programming Resources

 

Additional Resources

 
 

“The free bus pass allowed me to develop independence since I was no longer reliant on my parents for rides, and improved my social life dramatically since I could travel across town reliably without charge.”

– Saige Clark, Frontenac Secondary School Alumna

 
 
 

“A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”

— Stanford Social Innovation Review