Is this guy a public-transit superhero? Or is he just a pain in the butt?

Hannah K. Sparling | Cincinnati Enquirer

Show Caption Hide Caption Cam Hardy is dedicated to making the Metro bus system better Cam Hardy, 28, an avid bus rider and president and co-founder of the Better Bus Coalition talks about what’s wrong and right with the Metro. “I just want a bus that’s going to come on time and got some decent AC.”

The phone rang at 7:34 a.m. It was Cam Hardy, four minutes after he was due to meet The Enquirer at a Downtown coffee shop.

Hardy was stuck at a bus stop on Colerain Avenue in Mt. Airy. His app said the Line 17 bus was only six minutes out. But it had been promising “six minutes” for the past 30.

“It’s frustrating,” said Hardy, who had been on his way to talk with The Enquirer about the city’s public-transit woes. Now, thanks to the late bus, he’d have to bail in order to make work on time.

Hardy, a 28-year-old legal assistant at a Downtown law firm, has been traveling the city, preaching the need for a better transit system. The Mt. Airy resident doesn’t own a car, so he takes the bus everywhere he needs to go.

And he's fed up.

He's relentless on social media, showering his 1,900 Twitter followers and 3,700 Facebook friends with a daily deluge of posts about buses – what's good, what's broken, ideas to better the system.

He's the president and co-founder of the Better Bus Coalition, a group that wants just what its name suggests.

And he shows up to Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority meetings in person, demanding that SORTA, which runs Cincinnati's Metro system, put a levy on the ballot this November.

Hardy could give it up if he wanted. He could buy a car, drive to work and avoid the headaches that come with public transit. But when he looks around the bus each morning, he knows that’s not the case for every rider.

Sixty-two percent of Metro’s riders are black, according to a 2018 survey. And the majority, 61.7 percent, make less than $25,000 a year.

“I put myself in their shoes,” Hardy said. “When I look around the bus and it ain’t got no AC on it, it’s a bunch of black people, my elders, people that look like me, suffering on the bus. They can’t just say, ‘I’m buying a car.’

“They’re an easy population to exploit and neglect. And that’s just being real.”

To some, that makes Hardy a superhero – fighting for people who lack the means, time or energy to fight for themselves.

To others, including politicians wary of pumping more money into public transit, he can be a massive pain in the butt.

“Cam Hardy is a fool,” wrote Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes in an April 2017 Facebook post. Hardy had apparently threatened to protest in front of Rhodes’ home, and the auditor was not happy.

Rhodes said the two have since met in person. They shared a pizza. They became friends.

“We still may have differences, but I have a ton of respect for Cam,” Rhodes wrote in an email to The Enquirer. “I think he has great potential as a future public official.”

Hardy, too, shrugs off the dispute. Such battles come with the territory, he said. He pushes hard, and sometimes, people don’t like it.

He doesn’t care.

“I want to see movement. I want to see you doing something,” he said. “If not, I’m going to confront you. I’m a constituent, you’re a public servant, and it’s my job to hold you accountable.”

Hot, broken and late

Hardy was born in College Hill, and he grew up there and in Avondale, where his dad lived. His family didn’t have a car, so he grew up riding the bus. He loved the freedom that came with a bus ticket. He liked exploring Cincinnati’s neighborhoods, and he still gets a chill when he sees the Downtown skyline roll into view.

He had a brief affair with a car in his late teens. It was a “raggedy a** Crown Vic," he said, "an A-to-B kind of car,” but he quickly tired of sinking money into maintenance, gas and parking. Once he got a job working security Downtown, he ditched the car and went back to the bus.

Even as a boy, he loved making the social rounds on the bus, said his mom, Peggy Hardy. He knew all the drivers by name, and they knew him, too. Every ride was a party.

He was a persistent child. Stubborn. That's why Peggy Hardy isn't at all surprised to see her son leading the charge for better transit. And she has no doubt he'll eventually get what he wants.

"Because he just won't stop until he gets it," she said. "He knows how to get out there and make changes. And we need change right now. We're going to need change for a long time."

Hardy loves the bus, but it’s an honest love – warts and all. He praises the pros of the system: He can work, sleep or read about politics during his commute. He never has to worry about repairs or gas prices or potholes. He’s saving a ton of money.

But there are cons, too. Buses are often late, or they don’t show up at all. Sometimes, they break down. Some of Cincinnati’s routes don’t make sense to Hardy, and he’s sick and tired of riding on buses without air conditioning.

"Honestly, it's unacceptable," he said. "We can and we should do better."

The straw that broke his back

He starts each morning with an inspirational quote on social media. On June 26, it was from Samuel Johnson: "Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."

On June 24, it was the rapper Eminem: "The truth is, you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed."

Hardy's social media feeds are like that these days: very active, largely positive – almost like a politician’s. He posts articles about the transit system and photos from his commute, always tagged with the slogan #GoMetro.

But he wasn’t always like this. His earliest tweets, from more than five years ago, are speckled with profanity and references to women and sex. Looking at them now, Hardy barely recognizes the man he was.

He was aimless, he said. Drifting. Existing, but not really driving toward anything.

Now, he spends his days focused, lobbying SORTA board members, staking out Cincinnati City Council meetings, representing his neighbors on the Mt. Airy Town Council, prepping for his new radio show on 1660 am and installing benches at bus stops where there’s no place to sit.

He grew up. He found his mission, and he’s going after it with everything he has.

In a way, it was a slow transformation, frustration building on frustration until Hardy decided he had to act. But he also remembers the exact moment he snapped – the moment he changed from just another irritated rider into an activist obsessed with fixing the system.

It was about two years ago, and Hardy had just gotten off work. He hopped on the Line 17 bus out of Government Square, headed back to Mt. Airy. He posted a pic of the packed bus, tagging it #GoMetro, just like always.

But then, just before midnight at the corner of Liberty and Main streets, the bus broke down, and something in Hardy broke, too.

He fired up Facebook Live.

And he went off.

“These are the type of problems poor, black people gotta deal with right here,” he said. “Broken-down buses. What is our city administration doing about this (expletive)? Seriously?”

Hardy went on for six minutes and 42 seconds about how common such breakdowns are, how they cost people jobs when they’re late for work, how the city’s leaders are neglecting public transportation.

SORTA is projecting a $184 million deficit over the next decade; something has to change, Hardy said.

He questioned a SORTA manager at the scene that night. Then, he sighed and signed off.

“I gotta find a way home, y’all,” he said. “Bye.”

A never-ending fight

Hardy is not married and doesn’t have any kids. The last movie he saw in theaters was “Creed,” the 2015 boxing saga starring Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone. On the spot, he can’t think of a single thing he does just for fun.

He’s going to Nashville in a few weeks, so that’s something. But then again, he’s going for a transit conference on how to win ballot initiatives in red states. “Pretty dope,” he says.

“You know, I should have more fun, but I don’t,” he said. “It’s something I’m working on, but I take this so serious. That’s why I get on SORTA board members, because I want them to be just as concerned as I am. I spend most of my day thinking about this, because I’m in it.”

Hardy knows this is consuming his life. He’s OK with that, because to him, this cause is worth his life’s work.

Not everyone has a car. People need reliable buses to get to jobs. Kids need buses to get to Kings Island, playgrounds and swimming pools. It’s about building the economy and fighting poverty, Hardy said. It’s about the next generation.

At their July 17 meeting, SORTA board members are expected to make a decision: Either they will ask voters this fall to approve a countywide sales tax or they won't.

But no matter the outcome of that vote, it’s difficult to picture Hardy doing anything but what he is doing now: championing the bus system. If it’s on the ballot, he’ll be making phone calls and knocking on doors, urging people to vote Yes.

If it’s not, he’ll be lambasting public officials for failing to act.

On June 28, Hardy caught the Line 19 bus out of Mt. Airy at 7:29 a.m. He transferred to the 15X in Northside and got off at Government Square shortly after 8 a.m.

It was a good ride: on-time, air-conditioned, exactly as it should be, Hardy said.

As he walked the few blocks to his office, he passed a Metro worker walking the opposite direction.

"Good to see you, Ted," Hardy said. "Go Metro!"