Descripción de la imagen: El interior de un autobús, iluminado en azul por la noche, con algunos pasajeros mirando hacia otro lado que no sea la cámara.
En el contexto actual de intensificación de los ataques contra las personas marginadas y los bienes públicos, Pittsburghers for Public Transit se solidariza con nuestras comunidades de inmigrantes y refugiados, muchos de los cuales dependen del transporte público como medio principal para ir al trabajo, asistir a la escuela, comprar alimentos, acceder a la atención médica y asistir a sus lugares de culto. Nos organizamos para oponernos a la intimidación, las detenciones crueles e ilegales, las desapariciones y las acciones discriminatorias contra nuestros amigos y vecinos que buscan, y merecen, seguridad y refugio.
Image Description: the interior of a city bus, lit up blue at nighttime, with a few riders looking away from the camera.
In our current climate of intensifying attacks on marginalized people and public goods, Pittsburghers for Public Transit stands in solidarity with our immigrant and refugee communities, many of whom rely on public transit as a primary means to go to work, attend schools, buy groceries, access healthcare and attend places of worship. We are organized in opposition to intimidation, cruel and unlawful detainment and disappearances, and the discriminatory actions taken against our friends and neighbors who are seeking – and deserve – safety and refuge.
Image details: Flyer for PPT’s summer party reads “PPT’s Summer Party east dance connect build our campaigns” with PPT logo
It’s been a huge year for our movement for transit justice. Celebrate our wins, plan our next moves, and (most importantly) have fun with neighbors and friends!
Wednesday, August 13, 5:30pm-8:30pm Olympia Park Shelter House 1010 Virginia Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15211 Pay What You Can – No One Turned Away For Lack of Funds!
The event will be a casual indoor/outdoor, mid-year celebration of the transit victories by PPT members in 2025! This is our movement’s biggest, most important year to date–we’ve massively scaled up our statewide campaign, deepened the ties in our local community, and won some big wins. It’s time to kick back, relax, and enjoy each other’s company for a night!
This is a free event, but your optional paid contribution will help us feed the crowd, hire a DJ, and (of course) continue our work to win expanded, equitable transit service for everyone!
What to expect:
The picnic will be on August 13 at the indoor facility at Olympia Park in Mount Washington, from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. It is a casual and fun family friendly event, with indoor and outdoor activities for kids and adults. Olympia Park has a playground and we will provide art supplies and games. We’ll also have activities indoors that include party games, fun campaign strategy activities, a DJ with great tunes, and dancing. Attendees should not feel obligated to attend the entire event.
Food:
Vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options will be available, along with water and non-alcoholic drinks. While the food is complimentary with registration, please RSVP so that we can have a count of how many people to expect.
Getting there:
The party will be held at the City’s “Olympia Park Indoor Shelter House”. Address: 1010 Virginia Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15211. The 40 Mount Washington-Duquesne Heights bus stop is a quarter mile, or about 5 minute walk. The Duquesne Incline is a 10-15 minute walk or roll. Entrance for parking is on Virginia Ave, turn into the park across from Olympia Street. There are reserved handicap parking spots closer to the shelter, and there is other parking available on Hallock St. If you need help with transportation, you can try to find another PPT Member who can help by posting in the PPT Facebook Group
Volunteer!
This is a community event, and we need volunteers to help make it a success! Can you help us by signing up for a volunteer shift? There are lots of different roles available, and don’t worry–you’ll still be able to eat dinner, dance, and hang out if you take on a shift.
The distance from the 40 Mount Washington Bus stop the Olympia Park facility is about a quarter mile on a slight grade. Take care when using a manual mobility device. Some games and activities will take place outside of the building in grass. The bathrooms are indoors and have an accessible stall, but do not have an access button. There will be a DJ playing music inside the facility, which could be loud, but we will do our best to play it at a volume that is comfortable for all attendees. Attendees should be ready for variable mid-August weather and lighting. There will be interpretation in both ASL and Spanish, upon request.
COVID procedures:
Our event will be indoors with areas to socialize outdoors and areas surrounding it. The health and safety of our members is important to us. Masks are not required, but will be provided to everyone. We encourage everyone to take an at-home COVID rapid test before arriving. Please stay home if you are feeling sick or have come into contact with someone who has COVID-19.
Image description: Event flyer that reads “State Transit Funding, Updates form Harrisburg, and HOW WE’LL WIN Statewise Virtual Call July 29 5:50-7pm bit.ly/729transit”
Join us for a statewide all-hands call to learn what’s happening with the PA budget, and how we can win Transit for All PA! Tuesday, 7/29, 5:30-7 on Zoom
We know that public transit is a lifeline for everyone in Pennsylvania, no matter if they live in small towns, big cities, suburbs, or rural areas. But funding for transit is in peril in all 67 counties of our state.
Legislators have once again missed the state budget deadline of June 30th, so it’s time to put the pressure on. We’re running a campaign telling Harrisburg: no budget without transit! We need a budget that prevents transit system collapse across the state.
Join our meeting to connect with transit advocates across the state, and learn:
What’s happened in Harrisburg so far regarding the transit budget
How our movement has grown, adapted, and driven this fight
What’s next for our movement, and how we can win expanded, equitable transit for all 67 counties
The fight for transit that truly meets our needs–whether we live in Pittsburgh or Pottstown, Altoona or Allentown–is far from over. Though we’re past the deadline, we expect PA to pass a budget soon, and we know we’re in for a long fight for transit restoration and expansion. Join our statewide all-call for an update on where our fight goes from here!
Accessibility
This event meets ADA standards
ASL interpretation
Live captioning
Audio descriptions for video
Notes from the organizer: This virtual event will offer live captioning, alongside ASL interpretation.
Have accessibility questions? Reply to your registration email to confirm your requirements or request more information.
Image description: Photo of dozens of riders holding signs behind a speaker at the Save Our Service rally in May.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s Board Meeting is scheduled for Friday, 7/25 at 9:30 am, and we want to make sure they hear our voices loud and clear. Register with us by Tuesday, 7/22 and we will make sure you’re signed up and prepared to speak online or in-person at the PRT Board Meeting.
Pittsburgh Regional Transit and ACCESS Riders are facing catastrophic service cuts and fare increases starting Feb 2026, and our state legislature has still not passed a budget that includes transit funding.
And so, while we continue to put pressure on our state legislature to do their job, we are demanding the following actions from Pittsburgh Regional Transit now:
DELAY THE SERVICE CUTS. Pittsburgh Regional Transit has the ability to use some of their reserves to delay the proposed February 2026 service cuts until October 2026. Although using PRT’s limited reserve funding is not a long-term or sustainable solution, it is currently necessary to give the agency, PA legislators and riders the time to ensure that the Governor’s budget proposal for transit passes, and to give us the ability to fight for more transit funding next year. The harms of the proposed 35% fixed route transit and 62% ACCESS service cuts will be catastrophic to our communities and very hard or impossible to reverse.
STOP FARE INCREASES. There seems to be some push from the state legislature to increase transit fare costs even if state funding comes through. Pittsburgh Regional Transit currently has the 10th highest fares in the country, and increasing from $2.75 to $3 fares would make our transit more expensive than the MTA in New York City. The cost of living is already going through the roof for working and low-income people, and this would be an additional hardship. We also know that increasing fares decreases ridership, and so any revenue benefit from increased fare costs will likely be offset by having fewer riders.
MAKE ALLEGHENY GO A ZERO FARE PROGRAM. Now is the time for transit cost relief for low-income families. For the last 8 years, we have been clear that we are organizing for a fully zero fare low-income fare program that is funded by the County Department of Human Services (DHS). The County Executive and DHS have publicly supported this goal. The permanent low-income fare program we won last year, Allegheny Go, is currently only a half-fare program. Now is the time to transition Allegheny Go from a half-fare to fully zero fare program (particularly if fares are proposed to be raised further), and utilizing DHS funding will help us do this even if we do not win additional funding from Harrisburg. We are calling on PRT to provide the cost estimate and implementation plan for the County Department of Human Services to transition Allegheny Go to a fully zero fare program.
What’s Going On with the State Budget and Proposed PRT Cuts
Pittsburgh Regional Transit projects that in coming years their expenses will be higher than their income, because the level of state funding for transit has not increased in over a decade. They- like other transit agencies across the state including Philadelphia’s SEPTA system and Allentown’s LANTA system– are projecting the need for big service cuts next year to account for that. The service cuts PRT are proposing to implement starting February next year are huge and terrible- 35% service cuts to fixed route transit (the complete elimination of 40 bus lines and the Silver line), 62% cuts to ACCESS services (severely limiting where people can take ACCESS to and from), no transit after 11 pm, and significant fare increases to $3.00 for fixed route transit and increases of between 14-24% for ACCESS fares.
Our Pennsylvania state legislators were supposed to pass a budget by the deadline of June 30th. However, they have missed their deadline and to date have not passed a budget.
There is a proposal that Pennsylvania legislators are considering based on Governor Shapiro’s budget proposal. The Governor’s proposal would increase the allocation of the existing sales tax to transit by 1.75% – and while that is better than nothing, it would only provide Pittsburgh Regional Transit $40 million of the anticipated $100 million they need next year to maintain existing levels of service. We also know that existing levels of service are themselves not meeting our needs.
So although the Governor’s proposal is important to pass right now – as a band aid solution – we (as Transit for All PA!) will continue to organize for a bigger, dedicated pot of money in the coming year that allows PRT (and all PA transit agencies) to not just maintain existing levels of service but restore the 20% of service that has been cut over the last 5 years of the pandemic.
Our organizing is working! Pennsylvania legislators have been hearing our demands loud and clear that they cannot pass a budget without transit funding, AND that maintaining our transit service status quo is not enough. That is why there are proposals at the negotiating table – including our Transit for All PA funding package – that would enable agencies all around the Commonwealth to restore and expand transit to fully meet our needs.
Need help writing your testimony for the PRT Board? Use these talking points below to help uplift the demands listed at the start of this blog:
Talk about the impacts of the proposed Pittsburgh Regional Transit fixed bus/rail service cuts and ACCESS cuts to you/your community. You can find a summary here (scroll to bottom to see eliminated bus lines. It is useful to say how your life would be impacted even if the cuts were temporary.
Talk about all the advocacy you have done to fight for state funding – signing petitions, meeting with legislators, rallying in Harrisburg, canvassing/petitioning, phonebanking riders in other communities, speaking up at the PRT service hearings, or developing transit funding solutions and transit communications in the PPT research or comms committees. We want to highlight how we are doing our part, and will continue to fight for funding, but PRT needs to do theirs by providing PA legislators and riders with more time to negotiate a full transit funding solution.
Talk about the impacts of proposed fare increases on you/your community. Share stories about the high cost of living and the high cost of transit fares, and why we both need to prevent further fare increases AND transition Allegheny GO into a fare free program for low-income riders. Talk about the benefit of that to you and your communities.
image description: event flyer has a photo of a Penn Penn Plaza Support & Action rally with text that says “Penn Plaza 10 Year Commemoration Rally for Justice & Action on Affordable Housing. Monday July 28 6pm Enright Park”
Join the 10-Year Penn Plaza Rally to Demand Affordable Housing Solutions NOW – July 28th, 6-8pm, East Liberty
Ten Years Later: Penn Plaza Refugees Speak Out and Demand Action on Affordable Housing
It’s been ten years since the mass displacement of hundreds of residents of the Penn Plaza apartment buildings in East Liberty, at the intersection of Penn and Negley. The site where Penn Plaza stood held over 300 affordable apartments where families had lived for more than 40 years… While a Whole Foods and a massive parking garage now occupy the same site that used to hold hundreds of affordable apartments, the struggle continues to fight displacement and keep Pittsburgh home for all.
Pittsburgh’s Housing Justice movement has had some serious wins that have been propelled by the resident-led movement to fight the Penn Plaza evictions. On this 10-year anniversary of the evictions, past residents, neighbors, and supporters are getting together to honor the Penn Plaza story, reflect on lessons, and uplift housing justice demands.
Join us on July 28th, 6-8pm, starting in Enright Park in East Liberty for a rally and march through East Liberty. We will hear from residents who were evicted from Penn Plaza and remember the many who have died during (and because of) the displacement. We will walk down Penn Ave, stopping at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater where a black-led arts organization is under threat of displacement and other locations important to the Penn Plaza story. We will end at the corner of Penn Ave and Shady Ave where advocates were able to win affordable units that can house Section 8 voucher-holders, and demand that City Council pass an Inclusionary Zoning policy and make other important changes to ensure that other families will not experience the harms that the Penn Plaza refugees have lived through.
Video Description: featuring Helen Gerhardt, of PPT and Just Harvest, and Myrtle and Mabel, Penn Plaza refugees and members of the Penn Plaza Support and Action Coalition
The Story of Penn Plaza
In 2015, hundreds of residents, many of them seniors, received a letter from LG Realty that they would be required to move within ninety days. It was clear that the company had planned this for years and would be forcing hundreds of long-time residents from their homes with short notice. Most of the residents had lived in East Liberty for decades and had built community and networks of support there. With the accelerating gentrification happening in the neighborhood, they could not find housing nearby.
This sparked community outrage and hundreds mobilized to defend their homes, communities, and neighbors, culminating in the Penn Plaza Support and Action Coalition, of which PPT played a key role.
LG Realty failed to meet even the minimum requirements of the Memorandum of Agreement with the residents before the sale took place. They turned off heat in the bitter cold winter months, started removing windows and asbestos tiling while residents were still living in the property, and sought to create an inhospitable and hostile environment. Most of the residents ended up in unstable housing situations, displaced to areas far outside the city with limited to no transit options, and were left with immense trauma from their forced removal.
Penn Plaza is the largest mass displacement in recent Pittsburgh history, but it is far from the only one. In 2009, on a site right down the street from Penn Plaza, the 519 unit East Mall public housing was cleared to make way for the Target. During that decade, East Liberty street vendors and local businesses were also cleared in favor of luxury retail brands, tech offices, and national chains. Despite the lessons of the early 2000s, the displacement of low-income families has only continued to accelerate. Census data shows that 7,000 people of color left the City of Pittsburgh in just the four years between 2014 and 2018.
The Penn Plaza struggle has become synonymous with the harms of gentrification and the consequences of a lack of a just housing policy in Pittsburgh. It brought the housing struggle front and center and forced the city to contend with the fight for housing justice as a fight that will not be silenced and cannot be ignored.
The Penn Plaza Fight and Affordable Housing’s Relationship to Transit
Transit riders across the city are being pushed out of the City and away from access to good transit because of the lack of affordable housing. This is bad for transit riders and our transit system.
The East Liberty Transit Center, a key stop on the MLK East Busway, is located less than a half mile from the former Penn Plaza site. The Penn Plaza residents, many of whom were core transit riders, were forced to find housing in communities that have worse transit access – like Verona, North Versailles, and Penn Hills. This means it is even harder for these people to get to jobs, healthcare, food, schools, childcare and the social connections that are the foundation of a healthy, thriving life. And it means that out transit agency loses riders (which results in lower funding from the state, which results in transit cuts and fare hikes, which again lowers ridership…and the downward spiral continues!)
PPT continues to fight for dense and plentiful affordable housing in neighborhoods that have the best access to transit, grocery stores, jobs, and education because it helps transit riders and it helps our transit system. When we prioritze the needs of our most marginalized communities, and support our public systems, we benefit everyone.
Organizing for Solutions
Since 2015, PIttsburghers for Public Transit, along with partners in the Pittsburgh Housing Justice Table, have been organizing for solutions to ensure that low-income transit riders can afford to live in the communities that they call home- and where transit access is accessible and robust. In 2017, we hired Penn Plaza leader Crystal Rivera-Jennings as our Housing and Transit Organizer. She developed and led a survey of displaced transit riders, asking about the impacts of displacement on costs, time, and access to critical needs, and showing that the combination of housing insecurity and transit inaccessibility caused riders to increase job commute cost and commute times to work, and to participate less frequently in social and community events.
In 2019, PPT organized for and won affordable housing and free transit passes for the future residents at the Giant Eagle Shakespeare site in East Liberty alongside partners Just Harvest, Pittsburgh United and the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. In 2021, we included demands around affordable housing and transit through equitable transit-oriented development and citywide inclusionary zoning in the Pittsburgh 100 Day Transit Platform for incoming Mayor Ed Gainey. These proposals were ultimately included in Mayor Ed Gainey’s transition plan, in which Pittsburghers for Public Transit played a key role. PPT is currently developing equitable transit-oriented development policy recommendations for the City of Pittsburgh as a member of the City’s Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee.
In 2025, PPT organized dozens of riders alongside members of other partner orgs like 412 Justice, 1Hood, The Human Rights City Alliance, Pittsburgh United and Lawrenceville United to win a positive recommendation from the City of Pittsburgh Planning Commission for citywide inclusionary zoning. Citywide Inclusionary Zoning would require new developments of 20 units of more to set aside a minimum of 10% of those units as affordable units (which could also be paid for with housing choice vouchers). This policy has been recommended as part of the solution to the affordable housing crisis for the last 10 years, with the first report calling for its implementation coinciding with the Penn Plaza mass eviction in 2015.
TAKE ACTION! Join us on Monday 7/28 at 6pm as we take the fight to the streets to hear from Penn Plaza refugees and recognize the trauma of their mass displacement, and fight to ensure the passage of real solutions to stop gentrification and displacement.
Image Description: Red text highlighted in yellow reads “Summer 2025 Membership Drive”, overlaid on a textured image of transit advocates at a rally holding colorful signs reading “transit moves us” and “Transit for All PA!”
We just wrapped up our Summer Membership Drive and we’re happy to report: our movement is stronger than ever!
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: 2025 has been a massive year for our movement for Transit Justice. With devastating cuts to transit funding and service on the table for everyone in Pennsylvania, we’ve had our work cut out for us–and despite all the challenges, our incredible members have risen to the challenge and helped us obtain massive wins.
What did we accomplish in this Summer’s Membership drive?
We have blown our strategic plan goal for membership growth out of the water! When we set our strategic plan goals in December, we had 335 active members; we now have 503, which is over 100 more than we had aspired to add!
Almost 50 new dues-paying members joined during the weeks of the drive (June 11th-July 9th)
192 people donated during our summer membership drive, bringing in a total of over $4,000
New dues-paying members brought in over $1,500 during the drive
That’s why we hold two membership drives every year, to help us grow that base of superstar supporters who help us fight the good fight. This year’s summer membership drive focused on dues-paying members, whose contributions enable us to carry out our programs, hire staff and fellows, and more. We owe a massive thank you to everyone who helped make this summer membership drive a success, from phone bankers to everyday members of the community who spread the word about PPT and our work.
Thank you for helping us grow our organization! Now it’s time to keep up the fight–and we’re even stronger than we were before!
Want to keep up the fight? Here’s two actions you can take right now:
Join us for our next statewide call to learn how we win the transit funding we deserve!
image description: collage of photos of the 7 members running in PPT’s 2025 Board of Elections!
PPT’s election for our Board of Directors will run from July 9th-August 13th. All PPT Members in good standing should cast their ballots for our next leadership team!
Please read this blog with bios on all the candidates before casting your vote. An overview of our election process is at the bottom of this blog.
We are excited to announce the following candidates who were nominated to join the PPT Board of Directors. PPT Members can vote for the next round of leaders who understand the importance of our work for transit justice in Allegheny County and across Pennsylvania – leaders who are looking to become more involved in directing the course of our campaigns, communications and actions.
Learn more about the nominees in their bios below and select the one who you feel can help usher our organization and movement into a new era of advocacy, grow our community and our member leadership skills.
As a reminder, there are 7 Board Seats open for elections. All elected Board members will serve from August 2025 to August 2027.
All candidates are listed below in alphabetical order by last name. There is a photo and short bio for each candidate to give background on their past work for transit justice and other issues. Each nominee has approved and contributed to their bio.
PPT Members can vote for up to 7 of the following candidates to fill PPT General Member seats on our Board of Directors:
Image description: Teaira Collins holds a megaphone while speaking at a PPT rally in 2020
Teaira Collins is a lifelong transit rider, a Hazelwood community leader, a mother and foster mother, and now a grandmother to six grandchildren. Ms. Teaira met Laura Chu Wiens while at Port Authority testifying for improved transit service in Hazelwood, and has since become a leader in PPT’s Our Money, Our Solutions campaign for weekend service on the 93 and the extension of the 75. Ms. Teaira spoke at the City Council Capital Budget hearing press conference about the Mon-Oakland Connector alongside Barb Warwick, and on behalf of PPT during the Poor People’s Campaign Jubilee Caravan. She recently traveled to Atlanta on behalf of PPT on a delegation to connect with other Human Rights organizers across North America, and raise the important connections between public transit, housing, healthcare and food access. She is very active in the community, volunteering with The Mission Continues to help veterans and with the Hazelwood Family Support Center to uplift young mothers. Ms. Teaira also runs her own non-profit to advocate for those like her son Judah and other families with children who have Down Syndrome, and fundraises for the National Kidney Foundation to help research related to her daughter’s health.
Ms. Teaira’s motivated to fight for more and better transit service alongside the need for more funding, and has been leading annual lobby and visits to legislators in Harrisburg to educate them on the impact and need for transit funding. She is dedicated to continue organizing for a free low-income fare program because it is needed now more than ever for all communities. Ms. Teaira Collins has been:
A Hazelwood leader in PPT’s Our Money, Our Solutions campaign to create a resident-based mobility alternative to the Mon-Oakland Connector. She was integral in winning weekend service on the 93 for Hazelwood residents during that campaign.
A PPT organizing fellow for the FairFares campaign and helped sign up dozens of riders for the pilot program
A Volunteer and community advocate for The Mission Continues, Hazelwood Family Support Center, PPS PTA, and for people with Down Syndrome and Kidney Disease.
A Member of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council Board of Directors
Tom Conroy (he/him)
Image Description: Tom wears a blue collared shirt on a light colored background and is looking at the viewer with an open expression.
Tom Conroy has both a strong Union background and entrepreneurship. Tom was a bus operator for PRT for 19 years, the last six years of his employment as the union Boardman at Collier garage which gave him a seat on the board of ATU local 85. He was also the shop steward at a small union medical supply company for Teamsters local 249 for a year in the mid-1970’s. He helped my wife manage a successful hair salon from 1980 until she retired in 2022. They both took many classes and seminars on not only the technical side of our profession as barber/stylists but also classes on communication and people skills.Tom Conroy was involved with PPT when it formed. He attended the rallies to bring back service to South Baldwin, helped at a neighborhood workshop to organize those residents to fight for restored service. He’s travelled to Harrisburg several times with PPT and Local 85 to protest and rally for funding, and testified at PRT board hearings and attended a city hearing for affordable housing. He’s recently attended marches to support our immigrant community and to fight back the MAGA agenda. He completed the Organizing Fellowship with PPT this past winter/spring, and intends to remain a member of the organizing committee. Tom was also a past member of the ACLU (now signing back up!), and is becoming active in the newly formed block watch in his community.
Alisa Grishman
Image Description: Alisa is smiling and wearing a blue shirt with buttons and butterflies with her brown hair pinned back, with pink flowers and landscaping in the background.
Alisa has been a member of PPT for many years now, and has participated in many campaigns including the Fair Fares Campaign and Transit For All PA! She has served on the Board of Directors for four non-profits, so brings a lot of experience from that sector as well. She hopes to continue PPT’s efforts to be inclusive and equitable in all that it does.
Alisa led the effort to make PRT revise its views on allowing open strollers on buses, leading to their creation of their first official policy on priority boarding for people with disabilities. She participated in multiple Harrisburg trips with Transit For All PA! to secure funding for the continued working of public transit in the state. Alisa has spoken at PRT Board meetings, amongst other events, to help pass the Fair Fares program. She is the founder of Access Mob Pittsburgh, a disability justice organization that seeks to improve the lives of people with disabilities through positive advocacy such as education and economic incentives. Alisa co-hosted the Week Without Driving with PPT, BikePGH, and AARP to bring awareness to the 30% of people who don’t drive and advocate for better sidewalk, road, and transit accessibility.
Gabriel McMorland (she/her)
Image Description: Gabriel McMorland smiles, looking down, with a blue ribbon on her shirt
Gabriel is a white trans woman, who is also blind and transit-dependent. She has been active with PPT since 2015, and was previously on the Coordinating Committee from 2017-2022. Gabriel was very involved with the Don’t Criminalize Transit Riders campaign and early service campaigns, and on the current campaign around scooters and sidewalks. She was the Community Organizer at The Thomas Merton Center from 2014-2017, and TMC’s Executive Director from 2017-2023, doing work that ranged across racial justice, ecological defense, labor solidarity, immigrant rights, and other moves towards liberation. She is also a musician, and played bass in the live performance of Wheels on the Bus at PPT’s end-of-year celebration.
Gabriel invests time and leadership into PPT because she needs PPT to succeed. She has seen many times how PPT includes the sidewalks, curb cuts, and crosswalks as part of the overall transit system, and how PPT has centered people with disabilities to ensure that everyone’s needs are served. She believes that the outcomes of PPT’s work are practical, tangible, and truly affect peoples’ lives: PPT enacts its radical values of racial justice and worker justice, and makes them real through organizing. Gabriel’s vision for PPT is to ensure that organizing and leadership development continue to be at the heart of PPT’s work.
Paul O’Hanlon (he/him)
Image Description: Paul O’Hanlon sitting in his wheelchair with a purple checked shirt outside in a garden.
My name is Paul O’Hanlon, I’m a retired lawyer. From 2001 to 2014, I worked for a disability rights law firm, and before that I was the Senior Housing Attorney and Housing Unit Chief with Neighborhood Legal Services Association in Pittsburgh.
I caught the “transit bug” in 1991. At that time Port Authority began the long process of becoming accessible to passengers in wheelchairs. Since that time I’ve been involved in advocating for the best, most accessible, area-wide and affordable public transit.
I have been involved in a number of advocacy issues in Allegheny County, particularly around housing, accessible public transportation, and voter engagement.
Paul Vereb (he/him)
Image Description: Paul is smiling in front of a leafy green tree, wearing a pinstriped blue collared shirt and looking at the camera.
Paul is a retired transit maintenance supervisor who stressed safety and efficiency while employed at PRT and he understands the importance of keeping transit affordable and reliable. Paul realizes the need of effective transit for people who rely on our system, and the personal and communal affect any changes could have on our region. He also brings a worker’s perspective to the table. Although Paul’s retired, he’s a firm believer in riders and transit worker’s rights, safety, and the pursuit of a thriving system.
Paul recently participated in the PPT Fellowship program which included a rally/press conference concerning the Bus Line Redesign. He’s rallied in Harrisburgh with ATU Local 85 and spoken to Representatives and Senators in support of sufficient funding for transit. He partcipated in the spring training, giving an important and often overlooked worker’s perspective. He circulated a petition to save our routes, jobs, and service, while visiting the garages during Transit Worker Appreciation Day, garnering nearly 100 petition signers to fund transit.
Abhishek Viswanathan
Image Description: Abhishek is smiling in front of green leaves and white flowers, with long flowing dark hair and a beard, and a colorful diamond patterned shirt.
Abhishek is a lifelong transit rider (in various cities and countries) and he’s invested in making Pittsburgh’s transit system accessible, equitable, and exciting to use. He have been working with PPT for several years in various capacities, always ensuring that transit riders and workers are the main priority. His background is in data science and I have used my skills to create maps and tools for riders to better understand the impact of changes to the transit system. Abhishek also introduces his students to local transit datasets so they can work with data that is grounded in services that thousands of people (including many of them) use daily. Abhishek also has experience with labour, environment, and anti-carceral-tech organizing in Pittsburgh. His vision for PPT is to bring more riders and students into the fold, amplify rider and operator voices through data storytelling, and use our broad base to push for increased accessibility and affordability. He also hopes that through intersectional organizing, PPT can connect with other social justice organizations to build a city that we can all thrive in.
Some key campaigns in which Abhishek has played a vital role include
Securing equitable infrastructure, particularly for improved bus shelters
Evaluating the Bus Line Redesign to ensure it works for All
Developing the Riders Vision for Public Transit
Developing a Transit Fellowship in the South Hilltop
Banning Facial Recognition and other surveillance at CMU
Overview of PPT’s Board Election Process
Pittsburghers for Public Transit is a grassroots, democratic, member-led organization that fights for racial justice and public transit as a human right. The election of a Board of Directors from and by our general membership is a cornerstone of what keeps us accountable to our members. The Board is responsible for strategizing and executing the organization’s campaigns, overseeing the staff and direction of the organization, and for financial oversight.
The Board’s Executive Committee chooses how many seats will be up for PPT’s board election each year. Our bylaws say that our Board can be anywhere from 5 to 15 people and that 2 seats are reserved for transit workers connected to a local transit union. Earlier this year our Board’s Executive Committee decided to open 7 seats to be elected from our general membership, with a minimum of one transit worker to be elected to the Board this cycle.
Each spring, the PPT membership nominates fellow members to run for the Board of Directors. If those members accept the nomination, then they are invited to submit a photo and bio to be placed on the ballot, and they are invited to speak about their qualifications at the July General Member Meeting.
PPT Members in good standing can cast their ballots for two weeks in July. The nominees with the highest vote totals are invited to join the Board of Directors for a 2-year term.
How can PPT members vote?
PPT Members in good standing can cast their ballots from July 9th to August 13th using the form below. The nominees with the highest vote totals are invited to join the Board of Directors for a two-year term. As a reminder, all active PPT members commit to doing the following:
Contribute their time over the past year and/or financial resources to help us grow our movement for transit justice. Members can contribute their time and help build power by participating in our monthly meetings, volunteer-led committees, campaign organizing drives, rallies and events.
If you are unsure of your PPT Membership status, you can check by email (info@pittsburghforpublictransit.org) or by phone ( 412-626-7353 ).
Image Description: NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani smiles at a podium reading “Zohran for New York City”. His hand is on his heart, and behind him are graphic blue, red, and yellow stripes. There is a crowd gathered and a colorful banner behind him.
The most dynamic public figure of our moment has lessons for us about transit organizing!
Two years ago, the then little-known Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani had a conversation with the national coalition of transit rider unions – the TRUST – of which Pittsburghers for Public Transit and the Philly Transit Riders Union are members. He shared his observations from a grassroots campaign to win dedicated, expanded state funding from the New York State Assembly and Governor to stop a funding cliff and improve services and lower fares on the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).
Today, he is the Democratic frontrunner for mayor of New York City.
Check out Zohran Mamdani’s clip from 2023, addressing transit rider organizers from across the United States, on strategies for organizing (and winning!) statewide funding fights:
We are excited to hear the resonances between our current transit fight and the rider organizing in our neighboring state of New York! Some of the key lessons we took away from Mamdani’s talk were:
1. Be Bold: Lead With an Ambitious Set of Demands
Mamdani points out that we are charged with expanding the perception of what is possible to win, and in fact, it is that ambitious vision that energizes the public for the fight.
Riders and workers are inspired by this demand! As a result, just in the last four months, more than 15,000 people have joined the Transit for All PA campaign, with hundreds of people joining the Transit for All PA statewide calls to develop and ratify our collective agenda.
2. Take the Budget Fight Out in Public from Behind Closed Doors and Call the Question on Where Politicians Stand
Zohran Mamdani urges riders to make the budget fight public, and to call for politicians to say where they stand on the advocates’ transit demands.
This year, we brought a whopping 350 riders and transit workers from all around the Commonwealth to Harrisburg, for a massive press conference and meetings with legislators from across the Commonwealth. Transit riders in communities large and small thronged the halls of the Capitol, bringing information and their stories to every single legislative office. They called the question on where each of those legislators stood on the issue of funding transit, to ensure that our systems would not merely survive, but thrive.
Through rallies and legislative visits in all corners of the state, our weekly participatory research, monthly communications calls, and regular statewide organizing discussions with hundreds of riders, we’re building a culture of transparent and collaborative community organizing and daylighting the budget processes that profoundly affect our lives but are often hidden behind closed doors.
3. It’s All About Effective Conversations
Mamdani describes how organizers in NYC developed a powerful communications strategy to complement their campaign. He highlights the importance of these tools to help riders easily plug in to the organizing, and a simple and clear message that connects what is happening in the legislature to people’s needs and experiences on the bus.
As Transit for All PA, we’re training all of our members to be organizers and effective communicators of our message: better transit is possible, better transit is necessary, and better transit is transformative. Good organizing starts with a good conversation, in which we ask questions to hear the needs of other riders, and to understand what their vision is for better transit. We then help draw the line between that vision and our shared statewide solutions, as well as the action that must be taken to achieve those solutions.
Like Zohran Mamdani suggested, canvassing with QR codes that allow riders to easily fill out letters directed to their own legislators has been a powerful tool to allow folks to take action in the moment, and get plugged into longer term organizing efforts for transit funding. As a result, we organized tens of thousands of riders to send over 190,000 (!) letters to our state elected leaders to fund the transit service we deserve. We empowered riders from across the state to lead their own canvasses and connect with their own communities and legislators with a Transit for All PA organizing toolkit.
Effective communications tools have been game-changing, but even more important are training our members as organizers and having a clear message to communicate. Through these efforts, we have successfully propelled transit to the top of the agenda in this year’s state budget negotiations.
4. Organize with Transit Riders, Everywhere.
Mamdani points out that we are nowhere near exhausting the communities we should organize alongside to win the transit we deserve!
We must organize with transit riders in all 67 counties of Pennsylvania, because transit is available in some form – as fixed route buses or shared ride paratransit services for older adults and people with disabilities – and needed in all 67 counties. Our small town and rural neighbors have been denied quality transit service for far too long: we aim to change that. Through our monthly Transit for All PA calls with small cities and rural communities, we are building solidarity across geographies to understand every community’s distinct needs and develop a shared statewide funding solution.
And finally, we cannot minimize the importance of solidarity and shared leadership with organized labor. Our transit worker sisters and brothers, who run our systems day in and day out, are the people who are most expert in the issues our current transit systems face. They are also the first to speak up about opportunities to make our transit service better. Moreover, there are millions of dollars in direct economic benefits generated from workers that manufacture the goods and services that support public transit. Those workers, too, have much to offer our organizing, and they have a lot at stake in this transit funding fight.
We see once again that ambitious goals can attract wide support, and that organizing – across geographies, across constituencies- gets the goods.
Image Description: An older-style PRT bus stop sign, with the top portion edited to read “Audit”, and decorated with a yellow cutout and red starbursts. To the right is bold black text reading “Bus stop summer” with a yellow background.
PPT won more funding for bus shelters–now we’re making sure it gets spent where it’s needed!
In 2024, we decided to raise the importance of transit rider comfort, safety, and dignity by launching a Bus Shelter Campaign. Our goal was to get more shelters installed at high ridership stops in low equity neighborhoods within the city of Pittsburgh. We first assessed the condition of existing bus shelters, then conducted site visits to stops without shelters. With PPT members helping to create new tools and in collaboration with Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI), we successfully audited 25 bus stops and won the first-ever allocation of funds for Bus Stop Amenities in Pittsburgh’s 2025 Capital Budget!
This summer we’re hitting the pavement with our Bus Shelter 2.0 Campaign! Our goal is to help DOMI identify 25 eligible bus stops for the installation of the city’s remaining 10 inactive shelters (shelters located at sites that no longer serve a bus route) and provide DOMI and Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) with additional information for future installations.
Two ways to help us win more bus shelters:
In order to help DOMI find the most eligible 25 stops, we need some support from you, the expert riders of our system!
1: Crowdsource bus shelter form
DOMI has asked for your expertise: what bus stops do you see in your communities that desperately need shelters? Is there a stop on your commute route that has a DIY bus shelter, like a chair, milk crate, or shade structure that someone has placed there on their own? Do you frequent a stop that has tons of riders, but nowhere to shelter them?
If the answer’s yes, we have a new tool for you: a crowdsourced bus shelter form! Simply input your info and some basic information about the stop, and we’ll make a list to send over to DOMI. Bookmark this form and fill it out next time you’re waiting at your stop!
Please note: this form is NOT intended for immediate response or repairs. We will use this data to inform our future campaigns, not coordinate immediate construction or repairs. If your stop needs immediate repairs or attention, please contact Pittsburgh 311 by filling out their online form, or dialing 311 or 412-255-2621 on your phone.
2: Join an in-person bus shelter blitz!
Participants will meet at PPT’s office at the Friends Meeting House on July 30th, review materials, prepare, and then split into four different groups to audit eligible bus stops in four different regions of the city. The groups will travel by car to effectively audit a large number of stops.
