On Thursday November 19th, the Transit Riders for Public Transportation Campaign and the Bus Riders Union hosted a transportation briefing event, "Re-Envision Urban Transit: Los Angeles and Beyond." 

Important Victory for Transit Riders! On June 30th, the California Court of Appeal, Third District, held that $1 billion in "spillover" gas tax revenues dedicated to public transportation by Proposition 116 may not be diverted by the California Legislature to the General Fund. That decision became final when the California Supreme Court refused to review it on September 29.

MTA approved to support H.R. 2746 (Carnahan Bill) at the September MTA board meeting. This bill will allow local transit agencies to use anywhere from 30-50% of the transit funding they receive from the federal government to operate their public transportation system.

With the recent news of the extension of the Federal Surface Transportation Act, Rosa Miranda, organizer, mother, and member of the Bus Riders Union reports back about her visit to Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard's office on September 8, 2009. In our third delegation visit of the summer, Rosa speaks extensively on the ways public transportation and specifically, buses affect her daily life and the role of Congressional representatives in the debate around public transportation.

In the second part of our series of delegation visit reportbacks for the Transit Rider's for Public Transportation National Campaign, Bus Rider's Union members, John Bell and Maria Paz Jaen, visited the office of their congressmember, Xavier Becerra on Thursday September 3, 2009.  They urged Congressman Becerra to co-sponsor and support H.R. 2746 and the TRPT campaign platform for better low fare bus service for low income communities of color.

With the reauthorization of the Federal Surface Transportation Act (FSTA) still pending in Congress, the first delegation of Bus Riders Union members visited House Representative Watson's office to meet with her district transportation staffer, Ken Bell, last Thursday August, 20th, 2009.

The good news is that as a result of the calls and emails sent by members of the TRPT campaign over the past month, the number of congressmembers co-sponsoring H.R. 2746 (Carnahan-MO) has grown. As you may recall H.R. 2746 is a marker bill that will allow more federal transit dollars to be used for the cost of operating buses and trains in the upcoming $500 billion federal surface transportation act (FSTA).

Transit advocates, environmental justice and civil rights groups come together in Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York City and Portland to call their congressmembers to support H.R.2746 to combat the adverse impact the govenment's auto-centric policies have on communities around the US.

BRU members equipped with cell phones jumped on the buses to encourage bus riders to make phone calls to their congressmembers to co-sponsor H.R. 2746, a bill in the House introduced by Congressmember Carnahan (MO), that will allow 30-50% of federal transit dollars to be invested into transit operations.

See pics of BRU members fighting for more operations funds from the federal transportion bill.

Join us July 22nd in Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York City and Portland! We're calling on the Obama Administration and Congress to break with the last two decades of favoring toxic highway expansion.

We are featured in this piece in a Slate publication called "Big Money".  It does a good job at showing how the stimulus transportaion funds follow
the status quo of federal transit funds that virtually fund exclusively
the expansion of highways over public transportation.  It's titled,
"Potholes in the Stimulus Plan - Why isn’t mass transit part of the
package?" by Amy Tennery. 

The first draft of the reauthorization bill has been released by Oberstar's committee. We will be putting out a full analysis in a few weeks but a picture is coming into focus...

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...

Transit Riders for Public Transportation invites you to join us on Tuesday, June 9th from 9 to 4 PM for our first advocacy day in D.C. on the reauthorization of the Federal Surface Transportation Act (FSTA). We will spend the day on the Hill meeting with congressional representatives about their priorities for the next FSTA. We are also excited to be working with Congresswoman Grace Napolitano to host a Congressional briefing in the afternoon.

We are glad to welcome Organizing People, Activating Leaders (OPAL) and the newly formed Portland Transit Riders Union to our national campaign.  A third organization, Oregon Action, is currently deliberating joining. We also held extensive discussions with many new allies in the state. Oregon is extremely important because Congressman Peter DeFazio is the chair of one of the two main committees drafting the federal surface transportation act...

Last week I had the pleasure of being on GritTV with Laura Flanders. I was representing Transit Riders for Public Transportation, the Strategy Center’s new national campaign and I was on the show with other guests from Transportation for America, Transportation Alternative’s Environmental Campaigns, and NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign. We began with deep agreement about the dire crisis in transit operations funds across the country...

To understand how monumental it is for Lisa Jackson to be the new EPA chief, you have to look at history. Traditionally, heads of the EPA have been for the most part white men praised for how much money they saved industry....