Transportation (News)

A group of low-income AC Transit riders are battling for more bus service and affordable housing.

By Jean Tepperman

With three young kids and no car, unemployed Oakland mother Alia Phelps was hit hard by recent AC Transit route cuts and fare increases. Getting where she needed to go suddenly took a lot more time and money. So when she learned about Riders for Transit Justice she became an active member, speaking up at AC Transit board meetings for more service with no fare increases.

Soon, though, the bus riders realized that AC Transit was broke, said Phelps, "and we realized that they didn't have the ability to get more money" because a large portion of their operating funds come from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. "Then, we found out MTC was working on a Regional Transportation Plan, deciding how to distribute money for the next 25 years."

That's how Phelps and her fellow bus riders entered the esoteric world of regional planning, attending public hearings and sitting down with planning staff. The bus riders learned that MTC and another regional body, the Association of Bay Area Governments, are developing a plan that will shape both transportation and housing in the Bay Area for 25 years to come: where we can afford to live, what our communities will look like, how we will get to work, how long the commute will be, and more.

BOOK PARTY / FORUM
Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer Eric Mann
 
SAN FRANCISCO
Tuesday October 11th 6-8:30pm
at 518 Valencia Street
Hosted by POWER
 
OAKLAND

OAKLAND Thursday October 13th 6-8:30pm
(Rescheduled - Date To Be Determined)
Hosted by Causa Justa::Just Cause
 
“Eric Mann has written an essential field guide for community organizers. His voice is crisp and clear, and his footsteps on the pavement are sharp. A pragmatic primer for all radicals.”?—Vijay Prashad, author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World
An organizing manifesto for the twenty-first century, Playbook for Progressives is a must-have for the activist’s tool kit. This comprehensive guide articulates pragmatically what is required in the often mystifying and rarely explained on-the-ground practice of organizing. Here, Eric Mann distills lessons he learned from over forty years as an organizer, as well as from other organizers within the civil rights, labor, LGBT, economic justice, and environmental movements.

Come hear the author first hand and get your own copy of this exciting new book!!
Read more about the Playbook for Progressives here.
 
Eric Mann is a veteran organizer with the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers Union. He is presently the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles and a member of its Bus Riders Union and Community Rights Campaign.

 

By Bryan Goebel

A broad coalition of community groups, youth leaders, transit advocates and elected officials called on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency today to initiate a three-year pilot program to give young people ages 5 to 17 free Muni passes. The program would cost an estimated $7 million a year and result in a 4.6 percent increase in Muni ridership.

“We believe that transportation is a human right,” said Alicia Garza of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER).  “What we’re seeing is that over the last few years the cost of (public) transportation has increased, and service and access is decreasing. Over the last two years, there’s been more than a 100 percent increase in the cost for Fast Passes for youth.”

“For families that are struggling to survive in San Francisco,” she continued, “that also means an increase in costs when wages are not increasing, when the number of jobs in San Francisco is not increasing, and when resources for public services, including schools, are not increasing. For families with more than one child this translates into an additional burden that’s being placed on working-class families and working-class communities of color in our city.”

By Michael Cooper

The fare for Atlanta’s trains and buses will jump to $2.50 in October, giving the city one of the more expensive transit systems in the country. In Salt Lake City, rides to Temple Square on the popular light-rail system rose a quarter in May to $2.25, and are scheduled to hit $2.50 in two years. Even San Francisco’s iconic cable cars went up a dollar last month, to $6.

The economic downturn is playing havoc with the nation’s public transit systems even as ridership remains near record levels: since 2010, 71 percent of the nation’s large systems have cut service, and half have raised fares, according to a survey released Wednesday by the American Public Transportation Association, a transit advocacy group.

And in many cases, those fare increases and service cuts — made necessary by flat or reduced state and local aid — are being implemented on top of similar moves earlier in the downturn.