Transit Diaries

Why this project

Most coverage of Las Vegas transit is written by people who don’t ride it. Riders are subjects, not authors — quoted in a sentence, summarized in a paragraph, never given the page.

Transit Diaries inverts that. We collect accounts from real Las Vegans about how they actually move through the Valley: the line cook making it home from the Strip at two in the morning, the UNLV student who plans her week around RTC headways, the parent juggling two car seats and a Smith’s run, the retiree who stopped driving and didn’t lose her city. Each account is edited with the writer (not for them), illustrated where it helps, and published with their byline.

Approach

• Pay contributors for their time — flat honorarium per published diary, small but real
• Edit in real conversation with the writer, not from a black-box copy desk
• Pair every diary with one strong photo and a small map
• Use diaries as primary source material in scrollytellers, testimony, and op-eds when relevant — with explicit consent each time