On Tuesday, June 9th, ten different organizations from across the country, including our allies from Transportation Equity Network (TEN) joined Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT) for their first national Advocacy Day on the Hill.  The first half of the day organizers from across the country met with at least 30 meetings with the staff of congressional leaders. The Advocacy Day culminated with a Congressional Briefing hosted by TRPT and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee member, Congresswoman Grace Napolitano on the importance of greatly expanding permanent transit operating assistance funding in the next federal surface transportation act...

Have you ever been in an unhealthy relationship? Has it been because in some way you enabled your partner to continue to behave in unhealthy ways? Unfortunately when it comes to our relationships to policy makers in Sacramento we continue to enable unhealthy choices that in the end affect us in dire ways. Resources that we need to have sustainable, well-educated and healthy communities are being given away to corporations through tax breaks while the legislators increase our taxes; spend billions of dollars on freeway and rail expansion that exacerbates global warming; construct shiny new prisons and hire prison guards and police while the golden state's schools are crumbling and teachers and counselors are being cut.

Members of Westchester High School's Taking Action rally for 1000 more buses, 1000 less tickets!

See the Poem Who am I? performed by student/author Cathia Barrow

"Am I really the future as everyone says or just another court case
Below the federal poverty line is where the majority is based
So how can one afford a $250 truancy ticket for being 30 minutes late
Especially since unemployment among minorities is highest in the state
Not to mention that LAUSD has a 50% high school drop out rate"

Did you ever come late to school? Of course, we all did. You'd get a look from the teacher, a warning about your grades, or even detention. Well, times have changed. Being 15 minutes late can now get you handcuffed by school police and issued a ticket for $250 with a mandatory day in court. Black and Latino students have been telling us about their experiences with these "zero tolerance" policies.

After an insistent 5-year BRU public health and environmental justice campaign, the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes project has won U.S. Senate funding approval. This breakthrough clears the way for MTA to begin implementing Bus Only Lanes along the busiest single transit corridor in the country.

President Obama's focus on "shovel ready" capital projects that advance the highway lobby compromises his mission of social justice and reversing global warming.