Get Ready for Rural Transit Day!

  1. Take the Rural Transit Day Pledge to show your commitment to rural transit.  It's on our Rural Transit Day webpage.
  2. Participate in a #RuralTransitDay Prequel.  It's on July 16 from 1:00-2:00 PM ET.  If Rural Transit Day falls on a weekend, the prequel will be held on the Friday before. RSVP for our Prequel, where we will showcase our photo contest and art contest winners on X.
  3. Participate in a Rural Transit Day Zoom Live Chat.  It's on July 16 from 2:00-3:00 PM ET.  If Rural Transit Day falls on a weekend, the Chat will be held on the Friday before.  Register for our Chat on July 16, 2026.
  4. Honor your staff.  Send them a Rural Transit Hero card (downloads available on our webpage), surprise them with a special meal or snack, or have staff nominate others to win a Rural Transit Day award (share their story on your social media - if you tag us socially, we will enter them in a contest).
  5. Honor your riders.  Make Rural Transit Day fare-free, invite local celebrities, musical performers, or elected officials for a ride-along, or give riders a special small giveaway.
  6. Partner with a local school, library, or recreation department to host a Touch-a-Bus event, hold an art contest for young riders to draw the bus or driver (and showcase these proudly), or have a transit career info session where drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, etc., can talk about what the job entails.
  7. Schedule a special ride or route on Rural Transit Day to somewhere in your town people would like to go (a park, farmer's market, beach, concert, etc.). 
  8. Write an article and take a photo about something wonderful that your agency has done recently and submit it to National RTAP.  We'll post it in our social media and/or newsletter.  We can also interview you and write an article.  Contact us at info@nationalrtap.org.
  9. Use our social media infographics toolbox and countdown clock to post on your website and social media.  They are available on our webpage.
  10. If you'd like to buy official Rural Transit Day t-shirts for your team, please contact us.
  11. State DOTs or RTAPs can ask their subrecipients to all do something special to celebrate Rural Transit Day.
  12. Print and/or publish your Rural Transit Day Proclamation.  Contact your elected official and ask them to proclaim Rural Transit Day.  Invite the media and photograph or film the signing to share the proclamation. We have included a downloadable Rural Transit Day Proclamation Template on this page that you can use.
  13. We continue to fill our Rural Transit Day time capsule.  In 2026, we are collecting small stickers with pictures of your bus or your logo.  If you have any, please mail them to Cara Marcus, National RTAP, 5 Wheeling Avenue, Woburn, MA 01801. Transit agencies who send us stickers will be entered in a raffle to win a Rural Transit Day t-shirt. When we fill the time capsule, we will announce when we will open it.
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