An article was written by Margaret J. Krauss published by WESA entitled “How Fare-Capping Could Make Transit More Equitable”. It did an incredible job of describing the ways Port Authority’s current fare system cost low-income folks more for access the same transit as their more wealthy counterparts.
“‘A lot of people can’t shell out the cash up front for a pass, and often end up paying more than it’s worth’, said Emily Cleath of Just Harvest, a nonprofit organization which addresses hunger through economic disparity. Cleath spoke at a recent meeting of transit riders in Rankin.
‘Instead of having to ration their rides or pay more than other people for the same service, a fare-capping system would ensure that our lowest income riders are not paying more for the system, simply because they can’t afford a pass.'”
On July 25 a group of incredible Brookline transit riders and a bus operator presented over 550 petition signatures and resident testimony to the Port Authority board, requesting additional Saturday service hours and the restoration of Sunday bus service on the 39. Those same transit riders and operator will be meeting with Councilman Anthony Coghill on August 28th with the hope that he will help encourage Port Authority to restore this vital weekend service to his thriving business district.
Of the many service request asked of port authority, the restoration of the 39 weekend service would be among the cheapest to implement while still providing maximum benefit to the residents and businesses of Brookline. We are hoping for a pilot implementation to establish ridership, and then as long ridership is high we believe that the route should be restored permanently. PPT would like to thank Tom Conroy, Nora Kelly, Sheron Duff, Tish Newman, Bob and Jackie Cohn and Pat DeSimone for their contributions to getting this route back on the road!
Thank you to all those who joined us on the evening of June 25 to celebrate and lead the way for a more equitable, affordable and accessible public transit for all!
Rankin Resident Pearl Hughey talking about the importance of fare equity and ensuring that low-income riders don’t have to pay more for the same essential service.
See the Riders’ Vision for Public Transi tand Join the Campaign to fight for dedicated connections from the East Busway to Monroeville and McKeesport, free transfers and fare equity, free fare days across Summer 2019 using Clean Air Fund money, and winning policies connecting good transit to affordable housing. The work is only just beginning, and you all are key to making it happen. You can sign up on our website or you can email me, at laura@pittsburghforpublictransit.org, to get involved!
Join us! Sign up on our main page to take part in any of the four planks of the Riders’ Transit Vision: Transit as A Roadmap for Economic Opportunity, A Foundation for Equity, A Solution for Air Quality and Climate Change, and A Vital Link for Quality, Affordable Housing.
On June 25th, PPT and Mon Valley Initiative will hold a Celebration and Launch of a Transit Riders’ Vision for how our region could build a more accessible, affordable, and equitable transit network that allows our communities not merely to survive, but thrive.
We will celebrate the restoration of the 59 bus to the Hilltop Parkview Apartments in Duquesne, and the important preservation of the frequency of the 61 A, B, &C bus lines and their direct access to downtown with Port Authority’s Bus Rapid Transit plan. Over the course of this past year, thousands of bus riders, bus drivers, elected officials and borough councils, religious and community organizations came together across the Mon Valley to ensure that the lifeline 61 and 71 buses would not face nearly 50% frequency cuts and mandatory transfers to go downtown, with no other alternatives to get there. After dozens of powerful testimonials in the Port Authority, URA, and County Council board rooms, hundreds of postcards and sign-on petition signatures were submitted, riders’ voices were heard! In addition, bus riders in the Hilltop Parkview Apartments in Duquesne will see the first 59 bus stop at their doorstep on June 17th, which will restore their critical connection to food, employment, healthcare and so many other vital needs. Residents submitted more than 150 letters to the Port Authority sharing their stories of their inability to access the grocery store less than a mile away, and the treacherous conditions they had to endure to walk to the nearest bus stop.
We celebrate that the Port Authority and regional elected leadership listened to the needs of our most vulnerable communities, and ensured that these bus riders would not see any additional barriers to their connections to life.
But these are only the first steps towards a vibrant, growing transit system that provides for better economic development, more equity for our most marginalized communities, and addresses pressing climate and air quality challenges.
At this event, Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Mon Valley Initiative will announce and lay out the Four Planks of The Riders’ Vision and ask our community leaders to join us in taking next steps for ambitious, proven and achievable measures to grow transit ridership in Allegheny County.
We hope that you can join us! There will be light food and refreshments, and childcare, transportation and deaf-interpretation services will also be available upon request. Please RSVP here by Thursday June 21st.
“Laura Wiens of Pittsburghers for Public Transit applauded the incremental progress the Port Authority has seen in winning the $500,000 grant for the agency’s first electric bus, but said there are multiple funding sources available that could help build a large scale fleet of electric buses. She mentioned that Pennsylvania is receiving about $118 million in a settlement from auto manufacturer Volkswagen. Wiens said some of that money could go to purchasing electric buses.
“Transit can dramatically reduce our carbon footprint,” said Wiens. “We hope to see a more robust effort.”
— Ryan Deto in the City Paper. Read the entire article here!
Thanks to all the hard work of the Don’t Criminalize Transit Riders Campaign over this past year, the Port Authority has walked back their initial proposal of having armed police check fare payment on the T!
Thank you to the many hundreds of people that signed petitions and postcards, gave powerful testimony at the Port Authority Board, showed up to a rallies in chilling rain and below-freezing weather, and made sure that the Port Authority and people like Rich Fitzgerald and Dom Costa heard you loud and clear when you said you would not see your neighbors and fellow transit riders be put in harm’s way! You made this victory possible!
Over the last year, we’ve had dozens of people testify at the Port Authority, more than 30 organizations and neighborhood groups sign onto a letter opposing criminalization of transit riders. The Pittsburgh School Board sent a separate letter talking about the impact to youth. We had hundreds of postcards that we delivered to Rep Dom Costa’s office and thousands of petition signatures. We had lots of immigrant transit riders say that they would no longer take the T, because it would become an immigration checkpoint rather than a safe and effective way for them to live their lives.
This is a victory protecting our residents from police brutality, from criminalizing the poor, from accelerating the school to prison pipeline, from wrenching immigrant families away from their homes and communities, and from discouraging folks from taking public transit. So much was at stake. We know this, because we’ve seen public transit become a flashpoint for all of these tragedies in so many other cities.
Going forward, there will continue to be work to do around this issue, because the severe criminal consequences for fare evasion remain in place, even if they are rarely enacted. Our coalition will continue to push the Port Authority to ensure that riders and drivers are at the table to advocate for changing the laws on the books to create a more humane civil fare enforcement policy in the future.
Pittsburghers gathered outside the City’s and Heinz Endowment’s “P4 Conference” to highlight the hypocrisy of talking about inclusion, equity, and a city for all while offering billions on incentives to attract Amazon HQ2 to the city.
Amazon HQ2 stands against everything the P4 says it supports and against the interests of the hundreds of thousands of residents that call Pittsburgh home now.
A couple of hundred tech jobs moving to East Liberty caused massive displacement.
If we call what happened in East Liberty a tragedy, then bringing Amazon here is a crime.
A few hundred tech jobs in East Liberty created a crisis of housing speculation, gentrification and displacement. Imagine that 50 or 100 times over, and our city will have a housing crisis and the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in a matter of a few years.
Amazon HQ2 will exacerbate the already existing housing crisis, push transit dependent riders to areas with little to no bus service, make the city unlivable for most of the residents who are here, and will privilege the new, wealthy, tech workers who will be relocating here at the expense of long time residents.
Questions the city doesn’t seem to have answers for: Who will be prioritized for transit infrastructure projects? Will they be projects that increase connectivity for tech workers, or ones that create better connectivity for seniors and low income workers that depend on public transit?
We got to the heart of why we do what we do at PPT and the ways in which transit connects to almost every other aspect of people’s lives. Bus Lines are Life Lines, and the fight for transit justice is such a critical part of of the fight for a better, a more equitable, a more just society.
We are constantly fed a narrative of scarcity– we are left in a position of scrambling for crumbs from giant development needs or mitigating some of the harm that those deals will inflict, all the while told that these are the two options we have: crumbs or nothing.
But these deals are made with our money, our land, our cities. What if we used these resources to actually meet the needs of our communities? What if we actually used our resources so communities could have clean water, healthy food, clean air, affordable housing?
Port Authority Heeds Public, Makes Changes to BRT Plan New plan, federal grant application will better serve Mon Valley communities
Rankin, PA — On Thursday night, at a standing-room only meeting in Rankin, Port Authority of Allegheny County presented its new bus service plan for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. Hundreds of riders, bus drivers, anti-hunger, public transit, and disability advocates, and a wide range of Mon Valley organizations, businesses, elected officials, and other stakeholders have mobilized for months to raise concerns about proposed frequency cuts to critical bus lines serving the Mon Valley and mandatory transfers for Mon Valley riders to reach downtown.
After assuring the audience that there would be no cuts to the frequency of the 61 ABC buses, nor forced transfers in Oakland, Port Authority CEO Katherine Eagan Kelleman affirmed the public nature of our transit system, “We don’t own this service, we run this. You own this service,” she said. “If it doesn’t meet your needs, we did it wrong.” Mon Valley Initiative, Just Harvest, and Pittsburghers for Public Transit applaud this example of leadership that reiterates Port Authority’s accountability and responsibility to the public.
As one woman in the audience said, “People tell us that we’re lazy, but we want to work. It’s very hard to get a job when there is not a bus to get you there!” Public transit plays a critical role in providing low-income under-served communities access to jobs and fresh food. Those involved with efforts to get Port Authority to listen to those communities say they will continue to insist that those most affected by service decisions be at the table for decision-making. Several audience members pointed out that the original plan had been developed without Mon Valley stakeholders after ignoring years of input by those who rely on public transit the most.
Mon Valley Initiative was among the groups that joined Just Harvest and Pittsburghers for Public Transit to advocate for bus riders in Homestead, Swissvale, Braddock and Duquesne, as well as other under-served communities that would have been adversely affected by the original BRT proposal.
“A robust public transit system is important to the Mon Valley’s future,” said Laura R. Zinski, chief executive officer of Mon Valley Initiative, a regional community development organization based in Homestead which also partners with local community development groups in three counties.
“We’re glad that so many Mon Valley residents spoke out about their need for transit, and we’re grateful to the Port Authority for responding to their concerns,” Zinski said. “We look forward to working together with Port Authority, Just Harvest, PPT and other stakeholders on these issues.”
Just Harvest, Pittsburghers for Public Transit, and Mon Valley Initiative urge Port Authority and our city and county governments to revise their criteria for service and development decisions to include equitable access to healthy food, affordable housing, schools, health care, living wage jobs, and other vital needs and human rights, so that we do not have to keep fighting these battles for basic fairness. We urge our public agencies and elected officials to honor and enforce civil rights laws not only in words, but through deliberate and inclusive planning as well.
We stand with the hundreds of people who made their voices heard through phone calls, postcards, letters, rallies, press conferences, and at PAAC, URA and County Council meetings. “There can be no clearer and more convincing example of the power of collective action to protect people’s well-being. When we fight together, we win!” said Helen Gerhardt.
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MON VALLEY INITIATIVE is a non-profit community and economic development organization that works to unite the communities and restore the economic vitality of the Mon Valley.
JUST HARVEST has been improving government’s response to hunger and poverty in Allegheny County since 1986, by improving public policy, increasing community food access, and building community power.
PITTSBURGHERS FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT is a grassroots organization of transit riders, workers and residents who fight for accessible, affordable and equitable public transit.
