Materials from the Baldwin Community Meeting 6/18/14

Did you miss our community meeting in Baldwin last night, but still want to be clued into the campaign?

Or, do you want to share some of the materials we distributed with friends, family, and neighbors?

Now you can!

Seventy residents met last night and agreed to two immediate plans of action:

1) A letter-writing campaign to transit decision-makers, including our County Executive and the Port Authority’s CEO and Chair of the Board (please send one or three by July 1!)
For tips, contact information, and a sample letter, see PPT’s handout about Writing a Letter to Transit Decisionmakers.

2) Participating in the public comment period at Port Authority board meetings to publicly express concerns about the lack of transit in the borough (the next one is Friday, June 27 at 9:30AM at 345 Sixth Ave in Downtown Pittsburgh, and you have to register at least a week in advance)
Read all the information in PPT’s handout about Speaking at a Port Authority Board Meeting.

We are also always collecting more surveys to share with the Port Authority about the transit needs of Baldwin – if you haven’t already, fill one out at our “Community Surveys” tab!

Community Meeting on Public Transportation in Baldwin

PPT will be helping to facilitate a community meeting with the residents of Baldwin to talk about the borough’s transit needs and steps that can be taken to help improve and restore service. See all the details below and help us to publicize by distributing the attached poster to your friends and neighbors!

Community Meeting on Transit in Baldwin
WHEN: Wednesday, June 18 at 7:00PM
WHERE: The Baldwin Borough Building (3344 Churchview Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15227)

See and share the EVENT FLYER here!

PPT joins the ATU for Transit Action Month!

On Tuesday, May 20, members of PPT and the ATU’s Local 85 joined transit supporters from around the country in our nation’s capitol to call for federal transportation funding. The rally and lobby day was organized by the Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transit Workers’ Union as a part of their Transit Action Month campaign.

Speakers at the rally included elected and union officials, Rev. Al Sharpton, and PPT’s own Alicia Williamson, who shared our Transit Bill of Rights and the scoop on how we mobilized thousands of riders, workers, and supporters around it in order to help get a comprehensive transportation funding bill passed in Pennsylvania last fall in spite of some pretty significant political obstacles. “Which just goes to show,” she said, “that an organized ridership working in solidarity with organized labor GETS THE GOODS. Workers fighting together get the goods. We did it in Harrisburg; we can do it here.” She also thanked the ATU for “being a union that makes things happen, for making our transit systems better and safer and more equitable, and especially for helping to bring riders and drivers together to fight for what’s right because we’re not just workers and customers in a business, we’re co-owners in a public service that benefits everyone whether or not you ride.”

PPT was proud to stand with the ATU to call for more public support and funding for public mass transit. Most importantly, Transit Action Month has helped us build communities and coalitions to improve OUR transit system. Fix it. Fund it. Make it fair!

Ready to Rally! PPT and ATU members at Union Station

PPT communications manager Alicia at the podium, speaking for PPT (above)

ATU & PPT member Mike Harms with PPT organizer Molly Nichols and ATU International’s President Larry Hanley (wearing a PPT button!) (below)

PAAC’s ULI Panel and MindMixer Forum

PPT was happy to be invited to present this morning to PAAC’s Urban Land Institute advisory panel on the future of our transit system. We told them about us and our Transit Bill of Rights and suggested that PAAC sign onto it.

What would it look like for Port Authority to join us in affirming and realizing these rights? Well, for starters…

Making sure that public transit planning and decision-making processes are inclusiveand transparent
Giving riders and drivers a more substantive and formalized role in transit planning
Making the board (including who they are, how and why they were appointed) more visible
Communicating with the public about how their feedback is considered and addressed
Besides maintaining and enhancing existing service to those who are already best served by our transit system, also prioritizing and actively working towards the restoration and expansion of service to those underserved neighborhoods in our community
Ensuring that the voices of current residents of neighborhoods affected by transit-oriented development projects are given equal weight to those of public officials and outside developers in planning processes
Supplementing data-driven policy with place-based qualitative analysis and studies
Lowering fares and creating simple and affordable fare structures
Working with and mobilizing communities to help find solutions that meet their transit needs

Read more about the U.L.I. process HERE!

You can also have your say about public transportation in our region by registering for the Port Authority’s MindMixer forum – sign up and speak out today! http://paac.mindmixer.com/

PPT Brings the Community Transit Survey to Baldwin!

Twenty-one PPT volunteers, including eleven Port Authority riders and ten drivers, took to the streets of Baldwin on Saturday, May 10 to see if residents wanted their bus back and if they were willing to take action to get it, and the answer to both was a resounding “yes.” We surveyed over 300 people in the neighborhood, all of whom agreed restoring public transit service was a vital need for their community. We heard stories from workers whose daily commute has increased to four hours round-trip following the cut of the Spencer route, from seniors who have taken to hitchhiking down the hill to get to local businesses, from landlords who are unable to fill their rentals because there’s no transit access, and many more.

We’ll be doing our part to make sure all these voices and those of the many other under-served neighborhoods around the county are heard by decision-makers. Help us to communicate the transit needs of our communities by sharing our online survey and volunteering to survey your neighbors!

Community Mass Transit Survey Now Online

Pittsburghers for Public Transit is launching a new campaign to restore service and push for increased public inclusion in transit planning processes, and we’d like to hear your input.

For starters, we’re asking for your help in assessing the need for mass transit in the North Baldwin, Brentwood, and Carrick communities. PPT is well aware of the lack of mass transit in these neighborhoods, and thus we are encouraging residents to take a few minutes to fill out an online survey so we may better understand the needs of this under-served area and communicate them to decision-makers.

The brief survey is available under the “Baldwin Survey” tab on our website. Please encourage your neighbors to fill out the survey as well!

TRANSIT TALES: Part II

TRANSIT TALES

True-life stories and panel discussion on our public transit choices
Thursday, April 17th at 7pm

The Kaufman Center

1835 Centre Ave (right by the Hill House)

Bricolage’s Fifth Wall series seeks to break down the barriers between scripted storytelling and current events in the world at large.

The 2014 Fifth Wall Series continues with a panel discussion on public transit in Allegheny County. Specifically, how (or if) public input should be included in planning for public transit. Panelists include:

Lucy Spruill – Committee for Accessible Transportation

Bonnie Young-Laing – Hill District Consensus Group

Ben Samson – Architectural Designer

Tom Conroy – Amalgamated Transit Union

Grant Ervin – City of Pittsburgh

Moderated by Chris Potter – Pittsburgh City Paper

Transit Tales, a collaboration between GoBurgh, Bricolage, and Pittsburghers for Public Transit is a multimedia program of community engagement, experience documentation, and creative storytelling that aims to raise public awareness and positive perception of public transit while attracting involvement from a diversity of audiences that may not engage in traditional conversations.

YOU DID IT!!! Transportation funding bill passed! Next steps – come celebrate, then help plan how to restore and expand service.

The transportation bill passed the PA House on Tuesday night, passed the PA Senate on Wednesday and should be on the Governor’s desk by Friday for his signature. This bill will fund roads, bridges and public transit – we can stop fearing the next round of cuts. Now we can start planning how best to expand and restore transit service!

YOU did this – you didn’t give up! Even when the news on Monday was grim, you kept calling and emailing state legislators. Our contacts in Harrisburg say your efforts made the crucial difference!
Please join us to celebrate the victory at a performance of your very own stories, Transit Tales at Bricolage Production Company tomorrow during Light Up Night, downtown at 937 Liberty Ave, starting at 8pm.

We will be planning next steps at our General Membership meeting this Saturday, from 10-11:30am in the Homestead Grays room of the Human Services Building, at One Smithfield St, downtown Pittsburgh. Free parking is in back – driveway into the lot is on Fort Pitt Blvd.
Please join us – we want to make sure that public transit planning in the future will include our concerns, our ideas, and the needs of our communities.

THANKS AGAIN – YOU KEPT OUR TRANSIT ROLLING!!!

Transportation funding bill imperiled! Please keep calling these state legislators!

BREAKING: Pa. transportation funding bill in jeopardy

Please email your own legislator using this easy to use site . And here’s the site where you can look up the phone number of your state legislator.

Contact Key Legislators
In addition to urging your own elected officials to vote for the funding, we are asking that you reach out to legislators in parts of Pennsylvania where they and their constituents are not as informed on why public transit is so important to the economy and to the tax base of the entire state budget. Please take a few moments to call their offices and share the information below.

Rep. Michelle Brooks      724-588-8911
Rep. Sheryl Delozier    717-761-4665
Rep. Keith Gillespie     717-840-4711
Rep. Glen Grell                 717-795-6091
Rep. Sue Helm                 717-651-0100
Rep. Mark Keller               717-582-8119
Rep. Ron Marsico            717-652-3721
Rep. John Payne             717-534-1323
Rep. Rick Saccone 412-653-1025
Rep. Stan Saylor             717-244-9232
Rep. Curtis Sonney        814-897-2080
Rep. Mike Turzai             412-369-2230

Please tell them:

Transportation is a top priority of goverment!
Pass a robust bill for $2.5B with $500M for transit.
We demand safe bridges.
We deserve better roads.
We need reliable public transit
Save 12,000 construction jobs
Save all the jobs that are currently riding on public transit
And save the businesses that are currently dependent on public transit to bring their customers and employees to their doors
And ADD the tens of thousands of new construction jobs this bill would help to create.
All those jobs and businesses produce the urban tax base that pays for the rest of the state budget, including roads and bridges in rural and suburban Pennsylvania.

You can also help immensely by passing on this web address and asking your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors to contact these representatives as well. And they can contact their own legislators easily by forwarding an email available at this link.

Please call today! We send enormous thanks to all the volunteers who have already helped reach out to voters and legislators across the state.

Last Call for Transit! Volunteers are needed!

The PA General Assembly is down to the wire, with just five session days left to address the transportation funding issue before Thanksgiving. That’s why we’re reaching out to legislators tomorrow to impress upon them how important it is that they pass a robust bill that funds transit, as well as roads and bridges.

Most important in ensuring that legislators hear our message, is making sure that they hear from their constituents. We are looking for volunteers to staff a phone bank toight, November 13th to reach out to voters across the state. from 6-8:30pm at the Sierra Club, 425 N. Craig

Contact Key Legislators
Because Allegheny House Representatives are generally supportive of public transit, we are asking that you reach out to legislators in parts of Pennsylvania where they and their constituents are not as informed on why public transit is so important to the entire state economy and budget. Please take a few moments to call their offices and share the information below.

Please tell them:

Transportation is a top priority of goverment!
Pass a robust bill for $2.5B with $500M for transit.
We demand safe bridges.
We deserve better roads.
We need reliable public transit
Save 12,000 construction jobs
Save all the jobs that are currently riding on public transit
And save the businesses that are currently dependent on public transit to bring their customers and employees to their doors
And ADD the tens of thousands of new construction jobs this bill would help to create.
All those jobs and businesses produce the urban tax base that pays for the rest of the state budget, including roads and bridges in rural and suburban Pennsylvania.

Please call today! We send enormous thanks to all the volunteers who have already helped reach out to voters and legislators across the state.