On October 23rd Pittsburghers for Public Transit came together with Put People First!- PA for a great event to learn the history of Dr. Martin Luther Kings Poor Peoples Campaign, the last campaign he worked on before his assassination. Put People First! PA is an organization committed to fighting for universal healthcare in PA.

The Poor Peoples Campaign brought together people of every race to fight against poverty. Dr. King realized that it wasn’t enough to just be able to vote or integrate schools or lunch counters or public transit. As long as we saw the poor of each race as different than one another we would never succeed in ending poverty. He is quoted as saying “We have moved from the era of civil rights to an era of human rights.”

Organizations like PPT and Put People First all over the country are working in collaboration with the New Poor Peoples Campaign to achieve the equitable future that Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned. Thank you to Put People First and all the PPT members that joined the discussion: we look forward to future collaboration!

“Jonah McAllister-Erickson of Pittsburghers for Public Transit said, ‘We probably could use better public transit, but this is not the solution. Micro transit projects have been a complete flop’ in other cities, with low ridership and high operating costs.”

http://www.post-gazette.com/…/Proteste…/stories/201807300043

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.'”

you can find the article here.

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!

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.

“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!

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.

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.