Santa Clara County is one of the wealthiest and most developed regions in the world. It's easy to assume that access to education is not a major issue here. But what if getting to school depends more on where you live than we think?
Maps, for the most part, simply signify where things are. In reality, they shape how we understand access and opportunity. A clear example is redlining — a discriminatory practice in the 1930s in which governments and lenders denied services to residents based on their neighborhood, primarily targeting Black communities. Furthermore, the way space is organized cartographically determines what options are available to people.
One day, I started thinking about the commute to school. I realized most students who live in the vicinity walked or biked, while others who lived further away were driven. That begs the question: What about students who live far from school and don't have access to a car? What does it look like for them?
To explore this, I used GIS to map 30-minute travel zones (isochrones) around each public high school using walking and public transit at 7:30AM. I put in all local public transport agencies in the county and ran it through a software called Open Trip Planner, determining how far travel could reach within that window.
30-minute transit isochrones around public high schools in Santa Clara County at 7:30AM
As you can see, large portions of Santa Clara County fall outside a 30-minute transit range to any public high school. Access is concentrated in the more urban and more connected parts of the county, while less connected areas are significantly less accessible. This creates a stark contrast — with some reaching school with ease, while others face complicated, time-consuming journeys.
It's important to note that some of the uncovered areas include lower-density or less populated regions. This analysis doesn't directly measure how many students are impacted, but highlights where transit access may be structurally limited.
Even so, this raises important questions. Students without access to private transportation may face structural barriers that others don't — meaning access isn't determined by policy or school quality alone, but also by geography. Spatial inequality in transit infrastructure quietly shapes who can participate fully in public education.
Maps don't just point out locations; they shape possibilities. They reveal that access to education may depend more on location than we'd like to believe.
Punj Agrawal is a student researcher who uses maps to expose power dynamics and social inequalities. He employs Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and mapping techniques to analyze how geography shapes access and opportunity.
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