Now is the time for more transit, not less | Rob Perks's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Now is the time for more transit, not less | Rob Perks's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC: "Why are states passing up billions of dollars in federal transit funds? That seems crazy but it's true."

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Transit in Pittsburgh | GoBurgh

Transit in Pittsburgh | GoBurgh: "There are plenty of ways you can show your support, get involved and amplify your voice, and most of them you can do from right where you're reading this now: sign up for our mailing list, “get pinned,” follow, like and connect with us on social media, attend an event, even send us your photo to put on our Faces of Transit photo montage above. Check out the Join The Movement section at the right and discover how you can help – and how GoBurgh can help you amplify your voice on transit-related issues."

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How financial sharks steal your bus money

The perfect financial crime – almost | PublicSource: "Such a plan worked for eight years and one of the entities defrauded was the Port Authority of Allegheny County. This spring the authority was one of the patsies featured in a New York City trial.

That trial was part of a six-year federal probe that has exposed political corruption, predatory practices and crooked financing that have diverted billions of dollars from building schools, roads and bridges in almost every state."

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Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Transit Bill of Rights

Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Transit Bill of Rights: "At the last general membership meeting on October 20th, Pittsburghers for Public Transit voted on a Transit Bill of Rights:

Members of our community need public mass transit for basic mobility and access to work, school, hospitals, shopping areas, recreational facilities, polling places, places of worship, and families and friends. Public mass transit is a vital part of any healthy metropolitan area. It is essential infrastructure—just like roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, and utilities—that is crucial to the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of our region.

We have a right to a public mass transit system that includes:
1. Safe, reliable, environmentally-sustainable, and affordable transit that is accessible to all
2. Living wages, benefits, safe working conditions, and union rights for transit workers
3. Dedicated and sustainable funding for public transit
4. Equitable distribution of public transit costs with corporations paying their fair share
5. Transit that meets the needs of each community with no communities left out

Join Pittsburghers for Public Transit in affirming this Transit Bill of Rights."

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1% holds mobility hostage to break unions

Port Authority Transit union OKs concessions - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Port Authority union employees on Sunday ratified a contract calling for $60 million in givebacks over four years, clearing the way for a vote to reverse the historic transit service cuts and layoffs that were scheduled to take effect Sept. 2."

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Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Transportation is Our Need – and Our Right

Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Transportation is Our Need – and Our Right: "Government environmental agencies warn of dramatically increased air pollution with 10,000 more cars stuck in traffic on the parkways and streets, with their engines idling, but say there’s nothing they can do about it.
Clearly, we are heading for disaster unless we start to realize that mass public transit meets vital needs in our society, and that it must be supported and subsidized at a level that will increase its availability and make it cheaper, not more expensive, for people to use."

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What Fracking has done to people in Butler

Keep jobs downtown. Its more efficient. Sprawl is wasteful.

Anything but the car: My comments on the P-G article on the June 8 transit protest: If you live in a house built since 1950 or so, on a street that was built since 1950 or so, YOU are the problem. Since you moved 15 to 30 miles out, instead of staying in the city where your (great-)grandparents lived, you are expecting the taxpayer to fund the cost of both transit *and* all those wide, suburban thoroughfares for your cars to travel on. The state cannot afford to fix roads and bridges OR fund transit. Something has to give, and really both are (raising taxes to fix roads is a different argument, though intimately related), but transit is getting the headlines.

Read the whole post here 

1% uses fake fiscal "crisis" to steal workers' pensions

Port Authority votes to cut jobs, routes in fall | TribLIVE: "Bland said state officials have indicated they won’t move to increase funding to the cash-strapped agency until it obtains major concessions from the union — including savings on future retirees’ health-care and pension costs, which make up about one-fifth of the budget. The state provides about 45 percent of the agency’s operating money."

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Is there no end to their greed? Banksters' puppets now want to cut bus drivers' benefits, while billions are given out in corporate welfare.

State Lawmaker Says Port Authority will get No State Help Until Legacy Costs are Addressed | Essential Public Radio: "“I suspect a lot of it has to do with legacy costs, benefit costs that are paid to their drivers. Quite honestly, when I rode the buses into Pittsburgh, interviewing the passengers, they didn’t care if it was a Port Authority bus, they just wanted a bus,” he said."

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Banksters steal in broad daylight, so police arrest public transit advocates

Julia Rendleman/Post-Gazette

Protesters arrested at transit cut rally - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: ""They can't get to schools, they can't get to jobs, they can't get to grocery stores, they can't get to rallies like this one," Ms. Nichols said as supporters gathered at the corner of Fort Pitt Boulevard and Stanwix Street before the march. "This is unacceptable -- a city cannot operate legitimately without public transportation.""

Driving lesson: Transit cuts will make the region's congestion worse - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Driving lesson: Transit cuts will make the region's congestion worse - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "The three-mile portion of Interstate 376 from Green Tree to the Fort Pitt Tunnel experiences such heavy traffic and long backups every day that the average trip takes 13 minutes. That's 13.8 miles per hour on a road with a 55 mph speed limit.
...

This bad news could get a whole lot worse. If the Allegheny County Port Authority has to follow through on planned service cuts in September, the corridor will lose more than 60 morning rush-hour bus trips, which will add many more cars to the mix."

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Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Save Our Public Transit Demonstration 6/8

Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Save Our Public Transit Demonstration 6/8:

SAVE OUR PUBLIC TRANSIT!

March & Rally

     
Friday, June 8th at 3:00 PM
Meet at 11 Stanwix Street (the corner of Stanwix St and Fort Pitt Blvd in Downtown Pittsburgh).


JOIN PPT along with the ATU Local 85, One Pittsburgh, UFCW Local 23, Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, Sierra Club Allegheny Group, Workers International League, United Electrical Workers, United Steelworkers, International Socialist Organization, Thomas Merton Center, and Occupy Pittsburgh TO SAY:

NO to cuts, fare hikes, layoffs, privatization, and union busting!

YES to dedicated funding for public transportation and corporations paying their “fare” share!

We’re Not Broke - Fiscal "crisis" is a FAKE - Port Authority bus cuts are NOT necessary

We’re Not Broke: "The United States is not broke. On the contrary, we have enormous economic resources at our disposal. We could, if we chose to, fully pay for every service, program, and benefit that the federal government provides without borrowing a single penny. We could do so and still be a relatively low-tax country—simply by raising the same amount of revenue, or even a bit less, as our northern neighbor does."

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Union busting, killing public transit. Oil troll governor will kill PA economy to boost oil profits.

Union busting won't help: Pennsylvania's problem is shortsighted politicians - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "One would have to go back to Pennsylvania Gov. John Fisher, who ruled the state from 1927 to 1931 on behalf of the coal and steel barons, to find a state leader as anti-union as Gov. Tom Corbett. His efforts to starve and privatize public education and collapse public transportation while shielding gas interests from reasonable taxation and adequate health, safety and zoning regulation are stunningly bold. Once the teacher and transit unions are broken, can construction unions and state workers be far behind?"

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Mores than one in four Pittsburgh households have no car - we need #publictransit

The Economic Crisis Rolls on in Cities like Pittsburgh « The Transport Politic: "The service cuts planned would be, suffice it to say, devastating. As the maps below illustrate, the Port Authority’s austerity plans would eliminate almost half of the region’s routes. This is in a city where, according to the U.S. Census, more than 25% of households have no vehicle available and almost 20% of workers use transit to get to work — figures that are far higher than the national average or even that of the vast majority of American center cities."

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Oil-troll Governor loves oil, loves fracking, hates business

Officials speak out against transit cutbacks - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Bill Griffin, a vice president of DialAmerica, said the company has shelved plans to add up to 150 jobs at its Green Tree facility because of the likelihood of transit cuts. "We face the very real scenario of losing nearly half of our workforce due to lack of transportation. In simple terms, as many as 145 jobs would be lost and 150 potential jobs would not be created," he said."

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Want young people in your city? Get #publictransit. The race is on. Your #transit score is public info.

Study Ranks Transit Systems Of Major U.S. Cities - MarketWatch: "As gas prices rise and consumers seek shorter commutes and more sustainable transportation options, demand for convenient access to public transit is growing. This lifestyle shift is being led by the Millennial generation (those born roughly between 1980 and 2000) that is choosing to own cars and drive less than their predecessors."

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PA Governor taking anti-business stance by ignoring #publictransit

Controller Wagner Comments On Corbett Transit ‘Plan’: "“Allegheny County has weathered the economic storm better than much of the state and nation, but crippling cuts to transit would be a major blow to our region’s well-being. A majority of commuters to Downtown and a quarter of those to Oakland use the Port Authority, and those who don’t will find increased traffic congestion, travel times and gridlock on all routes. To be a vital urban region we must solve the Port Authority’s funding gap. It is imperative that this issue become one of high priority for all our region’s leaders, including the Governor.”

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Rally Against Port Authority Service Cuts

Rally Against Port Authority Service Cuts: "Stand with our transit workers to oppose the proposed cuts to our public transit system! On Friday morning, the Port Authority Board will be officially voting to sanction a 35% cut in our transit service, which will include the elimination of dozens of routes, another fare hike, 500 layoffs, and a drastic reduction in after-hours transit service.

Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 is organizing this action, and as transit riders we need to stand together with the people that make our city run to fight against the cuts! Be there!"

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Essential transit - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Essential transit - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Our buses and trolleys do more than shuttle people to work. They keep tens of thousands of cars off our roads and bridges. (You think traffic, potholes and construction are bad now? Just wait.) They bring people to schools, shopping, hospitals, bars and restaurants. Quite often, they keep drunken drivers off the road.

Moreover, transit helps keep our communities and businesses humming. It is the only source of transportation for many students, senior citizens and working poor. Without it, businesses, and jobs, would suffer."

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Urbanites subsidize cars more than rural people subsidize #publictransit

@nataliarudiak

A sorry story of transit and taxes: State legislators support the wealthy over the many who need mass transit - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Transportation funding is often portrayed as an urban vs. rural issue, with rural legislators complaining that they do not want to subsidize mass transit systems in cities. This dichotomy is false -- and not only because there are, in fact, public transit systems in rural areas and small towns, but also because urban taxpayers heavily subsidize road and bridge construction in rural areas with the taxes our large populations pay. We need to reinvigorate a sense of reciprocity and realize that we cannot achieve success in our state without investing in every corner of the commonwealth."

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Group seeks to lure newcomers to live in city, not suburbs - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Group seeks to lure newcomers to live in city, not suburbs - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "An estimated 100,000 people are expected to move to the Pittsburgh area in the next 25 years, and national patterns indicate 70 percent will settle in the suburbs.

An effort is under way to reverse that proportion and, as part of the city's first master-planning process, local planners, consultants and the public are hashing out a transportation framework to do that."

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Protesters Demand More Public Transit Funding | Essential Public Radio

(Noah Brode/Essential Public Radio)

Protesters Demand More Public Transit Funding | Essential Public Radio: "Occupy Pittsburgh and the local Amalgamated Transit Union teamed up to demand that the state provide more funding to the Port Authority of Allegheny County. PAT is facing a $64 million budget deficit, and plans for a 35% service cut to take effect this September."

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Public #transit is the blood of civilization. Are we civilized?

Transit ripple effects: "If cuts are enacted, estimates cite that 20,000 residents will lose transit. How many others will lose out due to schedule adjustments is incalculable. What ripple effects will that have for our communities where more than one in 10 lives below the poverty line, more than one in eight has below basic literacy skills, and more than one in seven is insecure about where a future meal will come from? How will those numbers rise if we continue to ignore these basic needs of our neighbors? Do we want to find out?"

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A4 National Day of Action for Public Transit

OccupyPittsburghWorkingGroups - Public Transportation:

A4 National Day of Action for Public Transit
April 4th 12:00 noon
City/County Building Downtown

On Wednesday, April 4, Occupy Pittsburgh invites the people of Allegheny County to stand together with those across the country to demand public transportation for the 99%. Public transportation provides vital access to work, housing, medical care, school, and other services for citizens in our county. It is a basic human right which helps everyone reach a decent standard of living, and secures health and well-being of our families.

April 4th is the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s groundbreaking speech “Beyond Vietnam: Breaking the Silence” in which he spoke of the connections between war and poverty. He explained his understanding that “America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube”, and that he had become “increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”
In this spirit, we recognize that attacks on public transportation happening across the country, from Boston to Portland, Pittsburgh to Oakland, and DC to LA are part of a larger austerity program being enforced against the 99% of Americans. We also recognize that these and other austerity measures are a result of the military adventures that “draw men and skills and money” away from the poorest and weakest in our society and for the benefit of the richest and most powerful 1%. These are fronts of the same struggle for a humane society, in which the needs of all come before the profits of the few.
Exactly one year after Dr. King’s speech on war and austerity, as he built momentum for a strike to support municipal workers, he was assassinated on April 4th, 1968. Today, we remember a great visionary by continuing his fight for economic equality and an end to war.
On April 27, the Port Authority Board of Directors will vote on service changes that would result in a 35 percent service reduction. Nearly half of the county’s current routes could be eliminated, stranding 45,000 riders and eliminating 600 transit jobs.  In addition, many workers depending on public transportation to get to work will lose their jobs if the proposed cuts are put into effect, adding to local unemployment figures and further plunging our local economy into recession. These cuts would have a devastating and disproportionate impact on low-income communities, students, the disabled community, workers, seniors and the environment.

We do not accept any transportation funding strategies that shift the burden further onto the backs of the 99%; the poor and working classes. Instead, we demand an end to the wars abroad and to austerity at home.  We demand that corporations pay a “fare” share to fund public services like transportation and we demand an end to tax loopholes.  We reject Governor Corbett’s proposal to extract more concessions from the local transit workers’ union (ATU local 85), since they have given their fair share of concessions and are part of the solution to the crisis, not part of the problem. The real culprit behind underfunded pension funds and high healthcare costs is the 1%. Our government’s failure to regulate big banks like BNY Mellon or Bank of America and prevent reckless and sometimes illegal financial moves is the real cause of public pension funds shortfalls.  It is also no wonder that healthcare costs for these same workers are out of control when our region is dominated by fake not-for-profit monopolies on both the insurer and provider sides of healthcare.
Occupy Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers for Public Transit call on all Pittsburghers to join us on April 4th at 12:00 noon at the City County Building and fight to save this county’s public transit. We are also inviting transit riders to join with us on Tuesday, April 10 at 12:30 before the Pittsburgh City Council’s Post Agenda discussion about transit funding in front of the Council Chambers at 510 City County Building, 414 Grant Street and at the Port Authority Board of Directors meeting on April 27th.

###


Press Release Link
General Information: 724-343-1433 • Info@OccupyPittsburgh.org
www.OccupyPittsburgh.org

If there is a future...

Students will read in their history books about the people who fought the uphill battles for public transit. 

Riders Speak Out Against Transit Cuts - Upper St. Clair, PA Patch

Riders Speak Out Against Transit Cuts - Upper St. Clair, PA Patch: ""This will not only affect Green Tree, but the entire regional economy," Montz said. "Everyday you hear that the Parkway is backed up from Green Tree to the tunnels. What's next? From Robinson to the tunnels?"

Bus fare on multiple routes, including the cost of purchasing a weekly, monthly or annual transit pass, will increase under the proposed plan. Also, the Collier Garage across Route 50 from Kmart would close.
...
Trevor Smith, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, said city bus routes enabled him to take on an internship before graduation.

"So much of my education comes from outside the classroom, through the Port Authority and public transit," he said. "I use the bus to get to my internship, to training, to meetings.

"There are all of these opportunities that I wouldn't have without the Port Authority.""

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We're NOT broke! Fund public #transit. It's a bargain.

Campaign for what works

More than 300 sign up for #transit hearing

Transit hearing scheduled Wednesday - Pittsburgh Business Times: "More than 300 people have signed up to voice their opinions about the massive transit cuts and fare increases due to take effect later this year in Pittsburgh."

Want talent? Get #transit

'Pittsburgh Today' study: Region rates well in job creation, economy: "Of all these daunting problems, however, a lack of funding for public transit is the region's most immediate and pressing weakness, Mr. Heuck said.

"In any regional economy, the most important factor is the human labor and people have to get to work. Talented people expect a city to have a functioning public transit system.""

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Mass transit is not a luxury

Mass transit is not a luxury: "The irony is that mass transit is better for urbanites in almost every possible way than driving a private automobile. Parking is expensive and consumes huge amounts of space. Auto insurance can be a financial nightmare. Driving is inherently dangerous, especially on the tangled streets of Pittsburgh. Our famously polluted air is now mostly due to car exhaust. Meanwhile, our fanatical need for oil has led to global warfare -- economically and literally.

Mass transit doesn't solve these problems, but it dramatically reduces their impact."

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Rally to Save Public Transit in Pittsburgh

Rally to Save Public Transit in Pittsburgh: "Take action to fight for public investment in transportation and demand that corporations pay there "fare" share. Pittsburghers for Public Transit, ATU Local 85, and Occupy Pittsburgh will be rallying outside of the public comment hearings on Wednesday February 29th at Noon to demand that the proposed cuts be rejected and that a permanent solution to the funding crisis facing public transit be found!"

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Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Leafletting Events- Feb. 14, 24, 28

Pittsburghers for Public Transit: Leafletting Events- Feb. 14, 24, 28: "Join Occupy Pittsburgh, Pittsburghers for Public Transit, our union member sisters and brothers, and other residents to distribute post cards on buses, at bus stops, and at congested intersections to mobilize the public in support of public transit.
"

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The Pittsburgh Transportation Wiki | CitiWiki

The Pittsburgh Transportation Wiki | CitiWiki: "CitiWiki is an experiment in collaborative civic change conceived and created here in Pittsburgh. There’s nothing else quite like it in the world. This wiki allows you to work with other citizens to contribute directly to an organized online, multi-media plan that outlines grassroots transportation recommendations and solutions for the Pittsburgh region. "

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Governor ignoring own transportation commission

keepPGHmoving.com

keepPGHmoving - Welcome.: Governor Corbett has not acted to support the recommendations of his Transportation Funding Advisory Commission.

Governor Corbett appointed a Transportation Funding Advisory Commission in spring 2011 to develop a plan to address the state's transportation funding crisis. The Commission presented its recommendations in August 2011, including:

• Combined stable and consistent funding sources

• Streamlined operations

• Efficiency improvements

• New tools such as public-private partnerships to help improve transportation systems statewide.

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State is liable to wreck transit at any cost

State is liable to wreck transit at any cost: " Buses, trolleys and subway cars are among society's best laboratories of democratic and social practice. Public transit even has the added virtue of conserving energy and money. "

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PPT Strategic Planning Meeting!

PPT Strategic Planning Meeting!: " Transit riders and workers in Allegheny Country are once again faced with a crippling 35% service cut, fare hikes, and the loss of more than 500 good union jobs. We have no option but to organize and fight back. Join PPT this Sunday to help us chart a course for the next 9 months of this struggle, which will determine the fate of public transportation in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County."

8:30am until 10:00am  

345 6th Avenue Downtown Pittsburgh

https://www.facebook.com/events/350256521658823/?ref=notif&notif_t=event_invite

Why people who never ride a bus should oppose #transit cuts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/PublicTransit4Pittsburgh/140050246024009

Occupy Pittsburgh Demands Affordable and Reliable Public Transportation | Occupy Pittsburgh

Occupy Pittsburgh Demands Affordable and Reliable Public Transportation | Occupy Pittsburgh: "Occupy Pittsburgh will be working to promote public education and awareness on this issue, for we believe that public transit is a human right! We will be organizing in communities, at bus stops, and on threatened bus routes to encourage participation in the public discussion period and the February 29 Port Authority public hearing at the David Lawrence Convention Center. Our occupation is about changing public policy discussions to bring the interests of the 99% to the table!"

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Message from PA Governor: Fracking, good. #Transit, bad.

Town and Country Transit ridership is up for the second quarter in a row compared to last year. Nonetheless, General Manager Patti Lynn Baker said the organization needs to prepare to work with less money next year.
Baker said at Wednesday's TACT authority meeting that expected funding for this year is in a good place, but the cash flow is sluggish and the outlook for 2012-13 is even more foreboding.
"It's kind of making things a little bit difficult (as) daily operations go," she said. "Things are a little rocky as far as cash flow coming in, but the money is all there as far as all the grant money."
She expects the situation to turn around in the next few months, but said representatives for PennDOT have warned her to prepare for less funding next year.


Read more: Town and Country Transit sees ridership increase - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/news/s_777337.html#ixzz1jvHvrQ2r

Hanna, Frankel introduce state transportation funding plan -- 1-4-12

Hanna, Frankel introduce state transportation funding plan -- 1-4-12: ""Mass transit is a critical component of our transportation network,” said Frankel, D-Allegheny. "A well-functioning public transit system creates vibrant cities, takes cars off the roads, and gives freedom of movement to all our residents who can’t drive.
"

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