Transit Equity Week
February 9, 2024
This week is Transit Equity Week. Transit Equity means improved service frequency and reliability, accessible vehicles and stations, and a clean and easy-to-understand transit system.
Rosa Parks refusal to relinquish her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man on December 1, 1955 was the beginning to the end of segregation on public transportation. Her courage to confront injustice and equality before the Supreme Court lead to a ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
Everyone has a right to a public mass transit system that includes:
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Safe, reliable, environmentally-sustainable, and affordable transit that is accessible to all regardless of income, national origin, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, or ability.
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An affordable public transit system that reliably connects people in all communities to the places we need to travel: home, work, school, places of worship, shopping, health, and recreation - in as efficient, and timely a manner as possible.
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Living wages, benefits, safe working conditions, and union rights for transit workers including those who manufacture transit equipment and access to family-sustaining transit jobs and training opportunities for people from underserved communities.
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A just transition for workers and communities who are dependent on our current automobile and highway-centered transportation system to ensure that no one is left behind as we transition to a more public, accessible, and cleaner transit-based system.
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Rapid transition of our transit and school bus systems to electric, non-polluting buses powered by electricity from renewables.
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Safe, healthy, and livable neighborhoods that are connected by public transportation and by bicycle pathways and sidewalks and that are planned to expand safe access to transit and reduce single occupancy vehicle miles traveled.
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Dedicated and sustainable public funding for public transit.
Public Transit provides basic mobility for many in our communities. It is also essential urban infrastructure–just like roads, bridges, tunnels, and utilities–that is crucial to the economic, social, and environmental well-being of all our regions.
