The media took notice as the Student Attendance Task Force released a report recommending "Have zero tolerance for zero-tolerance policies." and ensuring that students get adequate counseling in school before suspension.

Word has raced out that House Republicans are moving to eviscerate transit in the federal transportation bill. But there's also a series of provisions in the bill that are aimed at our grassroots communities of color who make up the backbone of transit ridership across the country. They include th elimination of environmental requirements and planning tools that project our rights.

In a shocking move, Republicans are moving to eliminate all federal funding for transit in the $200BN federal transportation bill (transit has traditionally recieved 20%).  The Ways and Means Committee is in final negotiations over this proposal to zero out transit and will vote tomorrow morning.  Please call your member of the Ways and Means Committee.

On February 2nd, the Los Angeles County Education Coordinating Council announced their decision to unanimously endorse the findings and recommendations from the multi-agency Student Attendance Task Force.

Tribal leaders and Native organizations from the United States and Canada are standing together today pleased that President Barack Obama is acknowledging his pledge to listen to the voices of this countries' original people, by rejecting the Transcanada Keystone XL pipeline.  

"This is one battle won for our Mother Earth," said Clayton Thomas-Muller, campaign coordinator with Clean Air ally Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign.

In her press release announcing the Los Angeles Unified School District's (LAUSD) resolution to amend their daytime curfew law, Board President Monica García gives credit to the Community Rights campaign for their struggles to amend the law.

In the latest advance in CRC's campaign to roll back punitive truancy/tardy ticketing, the elected board of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) yesterday voted to support City Councilmember Tony Cardenas' motion to amend the ticketing law itself .

CRC student leaders are featured in the current issue of Rethinking Schools magazine, a special issue titled, "Stop the School to Prison Pipeline." The article, titled, "Arresting Development- Zero Tolerance and the criminalization of children," is by Annette Fuentes, who wrote a guest blog with the CRC in August.

After two months of nominations it's now time for the 2012 BRU/SDP planning committee elections. There are 11 candidates running for election, 5 of whom will be elected. Learn about the candidates here. BRU/SDP members this is your chance to decide who should lead the BRU/SDP in 2012!

Some Republicans in the House led by Speaker John Boehner want to fund the new Federal Surface Transportation Bill with revenue from off-shore drilling.

Los Angeles' top judge for juvenile courts has released new guidelines to eliminate fines and unnecessary court time for students receiving truancy / tardy tickets.  The court will also direct students who miss school to school- and community-based resources that are shown to improve academic achievement and get struggling students back on track.  This is a major step toward CRC's goal of rolling back truancy and tardy ticketing that targets low-income students of color.

In February, the Community Rights Campaign and several local and national allies--including Dignity in Schools Campaign, Padres & Jovenes Unidos, Youth United for Change and the Alliance for Educational Justice--will be working with the Advancement Project to host a national training in Los Angeles, one of four regional action camps to train school-to-prison pipeline organizers, activists and advocates from across the country.

The Bus Riders Union and a broad coalition of allies put Metro's backs up against the wall today in the first Metro Board meeting since the release of the scathing federal civil rights audit earlier this week. The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) report calls into question the legitimacy and legality of policies that punished 100,000's of low-income bus riders and bus riders of color with repeated cuts in bus service and fare increases.

A Blog by Michael Alvarado

Read a blog by Community Rights Member Elizabeth Chaidez on the human impact of incarceration.

Imagine being taken out of society, and forced to live in cell for 5, 10, 15 or maybe 20 years, or forever, for a crime you may or may have not committed. You do not have any human contact except when you are transferred from one place to another. However, when you are transferred you are handcuffed and chained by the waist like an animal.

Indigenous leaders returning from Durban, South Africa condemn the fiasco of the United Nations climate change talks and demand a moratorium on a forest carbon offset scheme called REDD+ which they say threatens the future of humanity and Indigenous Peoples' very survival. During the UN climate negotiations, a Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities against REDD+ and for Life was formed to bring attention to the lack of full recognition of Indigenous rights being problematic in the texts of the UN climate negotiations.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has found unprecedented levels of racially discriminatory impacts in its civil rights audit of Los Angeles Metro, the second largest transit agency in the country. These findings represent the most serious civil rights compliance deficiencies by an agency in at least a decade. By finding Metro "deficient" in 5 of 12 civil rights categories, FTA went beyond its more typical findings of procedural 'deficiencies' to also find that Metro ignored evidence that its transit service cuts had a discriminatory impact on riders of color.

The BRU, Communities for a Better Environment, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, and Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles have sent this letter to Mayor Villaraigosa and the Board of Directors of MTA calling for swift action on climate change. We demand restoration and expansion of bus service and a halt to the multi-billion dollar expansion of the I-710 freeway as two immediate actions that would benefit the health and well-being of LA's low income communities of color while reducing LA's carbon footprint.

Joining forces with Communities for a Better Environment, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, and Physicians for Social Responsibility-LA, the BRU marched to demand the Mayor and the MTA "Expanding the bus system, not the 710 freeway. Meanwhile, BRU organizer Francisca Porchas is representing Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and Transit Riders for Public Transportation in Durban, building our connections with the international climate justice movement.  

Mother Earth Achieves a Victory Today with Obama Administration Decision to Delay the Keystone XL Pipeline Decision. Read the statement from Clean Air allies The Indigenous Environmental Network in the latest victory against Big Oil!

In selling new bus passes that are only good for 30 days, instead of
the old 31 days, MTA has once again limited our mobility and forced us
to pay more for less."With this new policy I can no longer get my child to school on the last day of the month because MTA found a way to make low-income families pay them more money." A single mother speaks out on the impact of the new policy.

Many in the Occupy movement believe that making specific demands will leave the movement open to cooptation and division. But without demands that ask the president, Congress, and Wall Street to make radical changes in policy, there is the danger that they will still carry out business as usual while the protests grow stronger.

Representatives from 11 leading member organizations of Transit Riders for Public Transportation gathered for 2 retreat-like days in Los Angeles.

With our recent victory securing the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes, we've made it a priority to continue building an organized constituency of
low-income bus riders who have the knowledge and commitment to intervene in public health and environmental policies that connect with mass transit.

Both High School and College campus newspapers respond to a victory for the community as LASPD adopts new protocols for enforcing daytime curfew and issuing truancy tickets to students.

We're really gaining ground in our fight for civil and human rights in our schools and communities. We need to highlight a few reasons why the policy changes on truancy/tardy ticketing that we won two weeks ago from LASPD are important. The media coverage was great but there's a few things they didn't cover.

This statement is from parents, students, and community and civil rights groups in response to a report released today about the Los Angeles Unified School District's implementation of the School-Wide Positive Behavior Support policy. The policy was adopted in 2007 with support from Public Counsel and CADRE parents to reduce out of school suspensions, particularly of students of color, and improve graduation rates, student performance and school culture. The report was conducted by the University of Oregon Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior in consultation with LAUSD leadership. Public Counsel, CADRE, Youth Justice Coalition, Community Rights Campaign and Children's Defense Fund are part of Dignity in Schools Los Angeles.

Check out news coverage on the new report co-authored by the BRU and 14 other civil rights, labor, environmental, public health, and housing organizations from around los Angeles. The report Transit Civil Rights & Economic Survival in Los Angeles: A Case for Federal Intervention in LA Metro details the 4 year storm since the end of the consent decree.  LA Opinión, LA Weekly, and Streets Blog report.

Media trumpeted the news as the Los Angeles School Police Department unveiled protocols intended to reduce the number of daytime curfew tickets written to students. The revised procedures are a result of collaboration and discussions between Public Counsel, the Community Rights Campaign, the ACLU of Southern California, Children's Defense Fund, CADRE, and Youth Justice Coalition - groups that work to keep students in school - and Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) leaders.

Civil rights, labor, environmental, public health, and housing organizations argue bus service and fare increases result in civil rights harms for transit-dependent people and obstruct economic recovery for low-income transit-dependent Angelenos.

The collective voices of students and parents rang through the cities of Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland and Los Angeles as they demanded an end to the criminalization of their children, increased parental involvement in all school related decisions, and greater funding for schools. The event, which was hosted by the California Endowment, included a rally, a school to prison pipeline art installation and finished with a panel.

On Tuesday, October 11th, the Bus Riders Union held its first Tea Time
with Korean elders in two years. Eleven Korean bus riders attended the
Tea Time to listen to a presentation that provided historical and
political context around the Bus Riders Union, and the environmental
justice campaign, Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses

On Tuesday October 4, 2011, the Strategy Center held a screening of "Precious Knowledge:" The Love Struggle of Learning, a documentary about the battle to save the Ethnic Studies Program in Tuscan Unified School District. The documentary follows four high school seniors in the Mexican American Studies Program and their emotional journey to put an end to HB-2281.

So why is it important to know your rights?

Throughout the week of October 1-8, 2011, thousands of parents, youth, and educators are taking part in student-led actions and events in 27 cities to expose the school pushout crisis in our nation and advocate for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. 

During the past two years, the Los Angeles City Council in conjunction with the LAPD, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), County courts, other regional government agencies and community groups including: Public Counsel, ACLU of Southern California and the Community Rights Campaign, have been collaborating to revise existing LAPD procedures aimed at reducing the number of daytime curfew tickets issued. Cárdenas' motion seeks to amend Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) Section 45.04, which imposes a daytime curfew on youth under the age of 18.

It looks like a school assembly except that sitting in the auditorium are 200 LA School Police officers, and on the stage is a panel of community organizers who are giving the police officers a workshop in how to treat students more fairly.

On Tuesday, September 20th the Bus Riders Union and Transit Riders for Public Transportation, joined with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) to send a call to local allies and advocates in 13 cities around the country. Together we sent a message to President Obama and Congress, that protecting the funding for public transportation should be a national priority.

On Tuesday, September 20th the Bus Riders Union joined in the APTA National Day of Action to urge President Obama and Congress to protect funding for transit. Joined by transit riders, transit and environmental advocates, and community organizations, the BRU, using the slogan "Put Yourself in our Shoes!" gathered on the corner of Wilshire and Vermont.

Youth Justice Coalition has been fighting hard to reform the law that determines youth sentencing. The YJC feels that it is a basic human right not to sentence a youth to a life sentence. While they feel very disappointed in the difficulty in passing this small reform to the bill, it now stands that they are one vote away! It is a small reform, which allows the right to petition after 15 years served. This matter will come up to another vote at the beginning of September.

On August 23rd, the Community Rights Campaign was featured in the newest California Endowment Foundation article written by Annette Fuentes, a journalist and author of the recently published book about punitive school discipline and security policies, "Lockdown High: When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse." Ms. Fuentes recounts the testimony of parents, students and school administrators to the Los Angeles County Educational Coordinating Council's Truancy Task Force at a recent Community Hearing hosted by the Community Rights Campaign and presided by Judge Nash of the Juvenile Informal Court.

In Los Angeles County, during the years of 2005 to 2009, there were over 47,000 youth cited under the "Daytime Curfew Law" Municipal Code 45.04. 88% of the youth cited were Black and Latino students yet they only made up 74% of the school age population. For the first time, Community Rights brought together students, their families and administrators to hear the private impact of the ongoing criminalization of tardiness and truancy.

With a federal review of MTA's civil rights record still in progress, a standing room only-crowd of over 200 and an all-star panel exposed LA MTA's civil rights crisis at the Transit Justice Town Hall meeting Saturday. Overo 100 bus riders people gave three hours of testimony on the harms caused by deep cuts in bus service, inadequate bus service, increases in fares - all of which will be used for a report on the crisis to be released in September. The event was organized by the Bus Riders Union and sponsored by a city-wide multi-racial coalition of 35 organizations.

Saturday August 20th, the BRU and members of over 30 ally organizations packed Parish Hall at Immanuel Presbyterian Church with over 250 members and allies for our Transit Justice Town Hall!

 Over 100 people gave compelling testimony on the adverse and disparate impacts that the elimination of critical bus lifelines have had. The expert panel spoke amazingly of the intersections of race/the environment/gender/ public health and public transportation.

On August 20th, the Bus Riders Union will be hosting a Community Forum on Civil Rights and transit to access the real impacts of the MTA's bus service policy. The event will be held at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church at 3300 Wilshire, starting at 9:30 am.

Today at the MTA board Mayor Villaragoisa and the MTA board passed a motion calling
for a suspension of cuts in Tier 1 bus service and for a report on
expanding Bus Rapid Transit improvements throughout the county.

With the MTA subject of a civil rights compliance review by the Federal Transit Administrations, a new pamphlet report from the Bus Riders Union exposes the policy and human sides of the crisis created by MTA slashing bus service and raising fares. 

On July 4th, the New York times ran an article highlighting the impacts of service cuts on daily riders. Using the Line 305 as a example, the article tells some of the stories of riders whose line is targeted for elimination.

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Friday, June 24th the Bus Riders Union, Unite Service Workers West representative Marx Guitterez, and Xiomara Corpeño, Organizer Director with CHIRLA, gathered on the steps of the Los Angeles regional office for the Federal Transit Administration

After six years of campaigning, the BRU scored a major environmental victory today: the Wilshire Boulevard Bus-Only Lanes won the resounding approval from the LA City Council and cleared the last major political hurdle for it to become reality

After six years of campaigning, the Wilshire Boulevard Bus-Only Lanes
project took an important step forward, with the Los Angeles City
Council voting to approve the project and move it forward.

Planners from UCLA, USC and across the city weigh in on Bus-Only Lanes debate with a clear message: the complete 8.7 mile project is clearly the best choice.

Tomorrow, our six-year campaign for Bus-Only Lanes on Wilshire Boulevard will finally face a vote at the Los Angeles City Council. We are close to sealing the deal on this important project, but not before overcoming continued efforts to cut down the project at the behest of wealthy West Side homeowner groups.

For me as a youth of color, Power Shift 2011 was an inspiring and
effective space for two major reasons: it gave me a chance to really
start to build with youth from other grassroots organizations, and it
allowed me to gain insight into the Environmental Justice movement as a
whole.

With the battle lines drawn, the 5-member committee could not agree on any option and ended the meeting taking no action at all.

We need a strong showing from the broad coalition we have built for this project to come out tomorrow, Wednesday, June 8th at 2PM at the City Council Room 1010.

"Tammy is an example of the new generation of leaders in American communities whose connections to other countries offer the progressive movement a wider world view," Liberty Hill writes.

I was pumped and rejuvenated to see the next generation of warriors stand and fight back for a transformative and revolutionary educational system.

While the Bus Riders Union believes that the full 8.7 mile alternative is the best project and should be adopted by the city council, we see yesterday’s vote at the MTA board as a key advance in defeating the worst case alternative 5.4 mile option that the Brentwood homeowners have been pushing for and in moving the Wilshire Bus Only-Lanes project one step forward to reality.

Tuesday in West Los Angeles we rallied in support of the Bus Only Lane. This project will substantially improve service for 35,000 transit
riders on Wilshire Boulevard, saving as many as 30 minutes of travel
time each day, totaling 130 hours of travel time savings for each rider
over the course of a year. If an estimated 10% of drivers on Wilshire
leave their cars at home and switch to the bus (2,000 cars during rush
hour!), we will reduce 22,000 tons of carbon emissions and 2,500 tons of criteria pollutants annually.

Missed the April MTA board meeting? Get the update and watch the highlights on video here. Watch BRU member Crystal McMillan tell the board, "empty seats on a train to Antelope Valley don't replace lost buses in Koreatown!" 

The fate of the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project will be determined this
May at the Los Angeles City Council and the Metro Board. We need you
all to raise hell that LA should not compromise this decade long
transportation project and the federal funding that we fought so hard to
get.

We've been gaining a lot of momentum pushing back against the MTA's staff claims that the 305,000 hours of service cuts that they have proposed for June 2011, are to address service duplications, and that these cuts will make the system more "efficient".

The fate of the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project will be determined this May at the Los Angeles City Council and the Metro Board. We need you all to raise hell that LA should not compromise this decade long transportation project and the federal funding that w

Reason #8 Union meetings are rough and tumble but a real exciting place to go.  Some local unions are run by a clique but the members have the right to vote them out. Some union meetings are run top down but the workers have the right to yell out their ideas and get the floor. Some local unions—like the one I was in, UAW Local 645 in Van Nuys California—were hotbeds of political discussion where...

"The Los Angeles Police Department has agreed to avoid ticketing tardy students who are on their way to school, lawyers and advocates for students announced Thursday."

As news of our "truancy" ticket victory rolled through local and national media. the Community Rights Campaign carried the momentum of our coalition into City Hall on Monday, where Councilmember Cardenas presided over an unprecedented meeting where community voices were heard, and councilmembers were moved.

"Criminalize kids early and often? What’s next? Truancy – the new
gateway crime? While this effort may generate short term statistical
‘success’, it is a jaw droppingly wrong headed, counter-productive way
to treat kids," writes Home Education Magazine.

LA Times columnist David Lazarus fights against bus cuts and advocates for designated bus lanes, commuter routes, and a commitment to public transit in order to ease street congestion.

Saturday, April 2nd 2011: Join us for an interactive and participatory citywide meeting to pave the way toward ending school push out and transforming our schools into healthy, enriching, and sustainable learning communities!

On Thursday, March 24th 2011, the MTA Board met to vote on the first
part of the proposal to cut 600,000 hours of bus service. The meeting
and its decision brought on a slew of press coverage.

The BRU was in the news in the wake of Thursday's announcement of the Federal Transit Administration's upcoming investigation of the Los Angeles MTA. Los Angeles, along with Atlanta, Georgia will be investigated for compliance with Federal Civil Rights statutes.

When Univision reporter asked BRU Lead organizer Esperanza Martinez "So what are you protesting today?" Martinez responded, "Primarily we are here today not in protest, but to celebrate an important tactical victory in the fight against the MTA's proposed Bus Service Cuts. This signficant move was triggered by an administrative complaint submitted last fall by the BRU, LACAN, and KIWA to the Federal Transit Administration who will now be conducting a comprehensive on-site civil rights review of the MTA."

Breaking News - (Los Angeles, CA, March 14, 2011) - The Federal Transit Administration specified, in a letter in response to the Bus Riders Union (BRU) Administrative Complaint submitted in the fall of 2010, that it "plans on conducting an on-site compliance review of LA MTA this year. The decision to perform this compliance review was based, in part, on your (BRU) complaint submitted to the FTA Office of Civil Rights."

Chevron continues to get away with large-scale environmental pollution in Ecuador as a U.S. judge has just granted a halt in the enforcement of a $18 billion judgement with complete evidence to back-up. This has been an 18-year battle to receive justice for the environmental crimes of this oil corporation.

"Clearly, I’ve missed an important lesson in logic as it totally
blew my mind that students could be fined for coming to school," writes Rachel Ferreira, a student at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Van Nuys, sharing her own experience receiving a truancy ticket.

Today the BRU Street Theater presented a piece on the impacts of two sets of MTA Bus Service Cuts on bus riders. The piece 'Francisca y la muerte/Death
Searching Francisca' invites you, the spectator to become an actor and call
Sup. Mark-Ridley Thomas asking him to take a stand to stop the
cuts.

See video here and learn how to take action here

As MTA prepares to cut another set of over 300,000 hours of bus service, the Bus Riders Union has been on the offensive. Read on to see how despite how MTA slices it, their proposed service cuts and recent fare increases are rolling back Civil Rights!

As Congressman Mica holds his field hearings across the country, he has
not opened the hearings to spoken comments from the public. So one day ahead of the February 23 hearing in West Los Angeles, the BRU held its own People's Hearing on the corner of Wilshire Blvd and Western.

What: People's Field Hearing

Who: Transit riders, The Bus Riders Union, Transit Riders for Public Transportation national campaign, community allies including unions and community organizations
Where: Wilshire Blvd and Western Ave.

When: Tuesday, February 22 at 10:30 am

Let me share with you a story of a courageous and fierce Black mother. Her persistence to have her children do more than merely "survive" or "make it" and commitment to justice took her on a truly transformative journey that has inspired us all.

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Report on Feb. 1st All Region Hearing on the bus service cuts

Let's be clear: the MTA has declared war on a half million Black, Brown, Asian and working class bus riders.

Just one and a half months after this last round of devastating bus service cuts, the MTA has aimed their battle axe at another 27 lines- 11 being proposed for elimination and another 16 to be reduced...

At today's City Council, the 6-year campaign for Wilshire Bus Only Lanes returned to City Hall. We made an excellent showing and came away with a mixed result...

Here's the press release for today's action, "Star Wars Episode I: The Westside Menace" where we re-cast the events surrounding the fate of the Wilshire Bus-Only Lane project to the theme of the forces of Good and Evil in the Star Wars universe. The Bus-Only Lanes Jedi Council, consisting of Bus Riders Union, environmentalists, transportation advocates, and students, held a press conference, action and street theatre this morning in front of the County Supervisors Building...

On Wednesday, January 12, our allies mobilized and demanded that Councilmember Rosendahl not exempt the Westside from the BOL project plan. We put on a united front in support of BOL while only 3 Westside residents voiced their opposition to BOL. Read the words of our allies!

This is a further chipping away of the gains that were made in the last 6 years. This new proposal can compromise the entire funding ($23.5 million) from the FTA-they were generous with the Condo Canyon exemption but most likely this will bring other repercussions...

MTA is Proposing to Cut 13 Bus Lines & Reduce Weekend & Night Service on 16 others!

Westside bus-only lanes threaten to be cut even more as Bill Rosendahl moves to exempt the 1.8 mile section in Brentwood. Read this LA Streetsblog article outlining the meeting process and the repercussions of this exemption.

From Cancún this year, it was clear that many nations would rather compromise the lives of citizens around the world than take action to curb carbon emissions. Read for more in-depth reasoning for why Bolivia, the only voice of dissent, was against the final U.N. climate agreements from the COP16.

Results from Cancún were disappointing, not requiring developed nations to take action to solve this current climate crisis. Bolivia stood out as a dissenting voice from accepting the inadequate document, but was not enough to make an impact. Read this blog from Climate Connections for more analysis.

Watch these segments from DemocracyNow! from the COP16 climate negotiations in Cancún. These are highlights of the actions and activism around the conference and how civil society was shut out of this supposedly democratic conference

After a 5-year struggle - MTA Approves Final EIR for the Wilshire BOL:

Project to bring substantial transit & environmental benefits to LA County!

Yesterday's MTA Board vote was a historic one for the 500,000 Black, Latino and working class bus riders of Los Angeles who will soon enough benefit from the time savings and reduction air pollution and green house gas emissions projected by the implementation of the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes project.  The project is projected to get at least 2000 people out of their cars onto the bus!

We also wanted to share with you the letter we just sent to the MTA Board urging them not to cave to the white, wealthy NIMBYs in Condo Canyon and to maintain the full 8.7 mile Bus-Only. We scoured MTA's EIR on the project and the private study paid for by the Condo Canyon NIMBYs...

Here's a quick update. As you know, the MTA is considering compromising the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes project by caving to the demand of wealthy homeowners in Condo Canyon to remove their section of Wilshire from the BOL plan. Other groups of wealthy Westside residents have gotten word of this and gone on the offensive against the bus-only lanes.

We are at a critical stage in the long struggle to win a Bus-Only
Lane (BOL) on Wilshire Boulevard. Let's be clear: In spite of the speculative numbers being put out by
Supervisor Yaroslavsky, there is no hard evidence that supports the removal of this section from the BOL route -
the traffic impacts of the BOL are the same as anywhere else along the route; the
only difference is who is being
impacted.

Top 10 reasons to come out and support the BRU & LA Human Right to Housing Collective March & Concert on December 1st:

In the first successful action of its kind in the nation, Bay Area
members of Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT), Public
Advocates and Urban Habitat, filed a civil rights complaint to stop
$70M in stimulus funds from being allocated to the $500-billion
boondoggle rail project, the Oakland Airport Connector project (OAC). 

We need your help! Come to the next MTA meeting or call LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to support the bus-only lanes and not exempt the Condo Canyon section!

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TRPT members, WEACT and UPROSE, are part of the New York State Transportation Equity Alliance (NYSTEA). The alliance created a survey, which asked crucial questions about transportation and equity that was circulated amongst New York State candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. The survey included questions like "what does the term transportation equity mean to you?" and "What are your top legislative priorities for the federal transportation bill that specifically address environmental justice and civil rights?"

Little Village for Environmental Justice starts local fight with a multi-year effort to restore bus service to 31st Street.

The service to this area, which connects transit dependent Latino's, African-Americans, Chinese-Americans,
working class whites, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities to
jobs, schools, hospitals, and recreational areas has become the focus of their fight to restore local bus service. 

Little Village also building an alliance to start a worker managed transit cooperative

The Final Environmental Impact Report is out!! This is the final stretch before the project can break ground and we need all the support we can get.

The Community Rights Campaign sent their statement letter to LAUSD Superintendent Cortines and the Board Members on November 12th, 2010 in response to Mr. Cortines announcement of the selection of the newly appointed LASPD Chief, Steven Zipperman, which involved virtually no community participation in the selection process.  

The Clean Air Campaign's plan is to make sure that we, communities of color, the working class, the third world, the Indigenous, and the whole movement for a better environment have a big presence at the climate conference in Cancun to push back on the Obama administration to drop the Copenhagen Accord and adopt the Cochabamba People’s Protocol on Climate Change.

From our view point, the AIC will serve as "truancy detention" centers rather than a space that has the actual resources and services to implement successful forms of prevention and intervention to address the underlying reasons for the student's tardiness/truancy. Thus, the Community Rights Campaign is urging the LAUSD Board to rollback and re-conceptualize the Attendance Improvement Centers.

On October 2nd 2010 the Labor Community Strategy's Center's Community Rights Campaign erected a "School to Prison" pipeline Walking Maze & Resistance Art Exhibit. This innovative art piece displayed a day in the life of a high school student at a LAUSD school. The exhibit was not only a viewing of art, but also a theater piece that encapsulated the experiences that a student faces when attempting to get to school on a poor y run and expensive bus system and the police harassment they encounter when they finally arrive to campus.

California's Proposition 19 has raised some interesting debates around defining the thin line between substance abuse and "criminal activity" under our current legal system. Previous to these heated exchanges, I agreed that the use of marijuana needed to be decriminalized, because in my opinion it was no more addictive or harmful than other "legalized" substances, such as alcohol, caffeine or tobacco, but what was thought provoking for me was that it should be treated as a health issue.

Here is a letter that Barbara and I at the BRU sent to the MTA last week on October 19th.  We sent this to MTA as part of the formal public comment process on the Westside Subway Extension. Also known as the "subway to the sea," Mayor Villaraigosa's pet boondoggle project could have a $9 billion price tag that could result in massive civil rights violations of bus riders in particular, the potential disparate impact on hundreds of thousands of low income people of color who ride the bus as the sole or primary means of transportation.

Many of us have been carefully watching the administration's moves on infrastructure investment ever since he announced his "Roads, Railways and Runways" plan in September and started talking about a permanent Infrastructure Bank.

On Wednesday September 29th a band of BRU members entered the final Subway to the Sea Public hearing on the draft EIR and set the tone for the fight to come against MTA’s latest politically motivated boondoggle. This was less than week after they had witnessed the MTA vote to cute 388,000 hours of bus service...

Five years after Hurricane Katrina and six months after the BP oil spill along the Gulf Coast, residents of New Orleans still have not been able to return home. The fishing economy that many depended on for a livelihood has flatlined and homes and schools have not been rebuilt. Watch these two videos that include personal accounts of those affected by these two disasters to understand how these communities continue to be ignored by the federal government.

For the past two months, the proposals in our Solutions for Los Angeles Schools Police Department document have been part of a successful organizing and advocacy effort. We are now in a strong enough position to move them into actual policy changes. Please continue reading to get the details around our School Police reform platform to reverse the impacts of the school-to-prison pipeline! 

With such great reviews and high level of community participation & discussion we have brought back our "school-to-prison" pipeline maze for a second showing! Last Saturday, over 150 students, teachers, parents, and community members from various Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) schools and social & educational justice organizations joined the Community Rights Campaign at our Caps & Gowns NOT Jail Cell Bound event!

On 10/10/10 join the fight against the oil and coal industry in Los Angeles! L.A. has one of the largest collections of oil refineries in the state,
dumping loads of pollution into our air. It’s time to change all this, by getting fossil fuels out of our local energy mix! We don’t want
to power our homes with coal-fired electricity. Meet at City Hall to rally with community members and groups from all over L.A. and then march through the city for CicLAvia!

Transportation Equity Network (TEN) gathered members from all over the country for a Washington D.C. fly-in to advocate for flexible transit operations funding, job creation and the inclusion of civil rights in transportation policy. TEN's theme for the two day conference is that improvements to transit policy can be a unifying force for advocates, unions and policy makers.

We're planning a night of dancing, costumes and fun to fundraise for the Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign. Come to the First Unitarian Church of LA on Friday, October 29 at 7 pm to support our campaign to improve public transit and create healthier communities!

The MTA Board approved yesterday a package of bus service cuts that will be the biggest single reduction in bus service in Los Angeles County in more than 15 years. A total reduction of 387,000 bus service hours this year - 5% of the entire system - will include the elimination of 5 rapid lines 5 other local lines and partial elimination of service on other lines. What does this mean? It will mean longer waits, more overcrowding, and more transfers that will result in an added financial burden to already struggling bus riders.

Proposed Bus Line Elimination or Service Reduction - by region
Los Angeles County MTA Proposal, August 2010

The Bus Riders Union (BRU) and community allies held a press conference at a LA Unemployment Office in conjunction with the Transportation Equity Network and labor and environmental leaders across the country to strongly urge the use of Federal Infrastructure spending to strengthen transit and create more jobs.

Lissett Lazo, SYOA Alumni '07 and Community Rights Organizer, reflects on the highlights and breakthroughs of this year's Summer Youth Organizing Academy class. She looks back to her own experience as a SYOA student as a pivotal point in her own growth and transformation as an organizer and young Salvadoreña, Hondureña, Nucaraguense womyn.

30/10 will gut the bus system, the backbone of public transit in LA. Read the BRU's letter to congress memebers asking them for a no vote to reject Mayor Villaraigosa's 30/10 initiative.

While transportation advocates struggle in Washington to derail the priorities that have shaped transit spending for the last 50 years, it is also important to understand how federal funding is only the first part of the transit pie.

Karla Chavez is a member and volunteer for the Community Rights Campaign.  She is our volunteer photographer for the Summer Youth Organizing Academy.  She blogs about her role in helping build a movement to end the criminalization of our people and the importance of documenting our work through photography. 

Junior Summer Youth Organizing Academy, participant Lamont Harrell, writes about his reasons for coming back to the junior SYOA Program.Hi my name Lamont Harrell and I'm in Junior SYOA . I was in SYOA last year but I decided to come back for 3 reasons. Reason 1: I wanted to learn more about campaigns and I like to organize.

Durante los últimos 4 semanas he organizado para educar y recaudar apoyo sobre el proyecto de carril solo para autobuses de la calle Wilshire.

The Community Rights Campaign has created a new map to track the geographical areas and the break down of the race and gender composition of students that have received Daytime Curfew "Truancy" Tickets under the Los Angeles Municipal Code 45.04. This map is an important tool in making the legal case that "truancy" tickets violate the civil and educational rights of the 90% Black and Latino students that attend LAUSD schools....

Citing lower ridership and civil rights violations after 20 years and $8 billion spent on Metro Rail, the Bus Riders Union renews call for bus-centered, low-cost transit system in LA County.

This new publication lays out 10 principles for creating sustainable cities. Urbanist Jan Gehl and Walter Hook, Executive Director of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) compile the main qualities of livable cities, citing examples from around the world in which transit has been integrated into urban design.

The Community Rights Campaign recently provided a "Know Your Rights" training where students, parents and organizers came out from around the city. We focused on the daytime curfew restrictions (informally known as "truancy tickets") the court process and we covered legal rights on police and school searches. As a group, we analyzed the ways in which the police, the schools and the courts interact with students and communities.

Summer Youth Organizing Academy, participant Desirae Monique Duncan, writes about her first day of organizing in buses. "People that are heavily impacted by the prison system need to be organized because if they share their experiences it will open our eyes to the conditions we're all exposed to and how unjust they really are...."

Summer Youth Organizing Academy participant, Damien Romero, shares his lessons and experiences of organizing with the Community Rights Campaign for the first time. "Organizing for the first time was a very moving experience. Even though I was a bit nervous to be placed into conversation with strangers, the fact that I was able to carry them out was very reassuring as the day went on...."

For the past two weeks Bus Riders Union members and volunteers have
been going out on the 720 buses and asking people to write comments of
support for the bus only lanes.  Find out what people have been saying!

"If buses are moving well, and carrying more people than the car
lanes, the bus lane looks empty most of the time. Only a failing or
obstructed bus lane looks like it's full of buses. That's why bus
lanes such a hard sell in cities run by motorists who want to do the
green thing but still form their impressions from behind the wheel."

The draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project has been released for public review! Over the next month until July 26th, MTA will be taking in public comments online and via mail to be included in the official Environmental Impact Report.

In Detroit Michigan from June 22nd-June 26th, TRPT gathered with more than 15, 000 people for the U.S. Social Forum. Described not as a conference, but a political process to align and strengthen our communities, the Social Forum embarked with the motto: Another World is Possible, another U.S. is Necessary, another Detroit is happening.

The BRU's campaign to defeat MTA's racist fare increase reached a fever pitch on Thursday, May 27, when 150 BRU members and allies shut down the MTA Board.

According the the LA Times, "Demonstrators effectively shut down the meeting and interrupted a hearing involving the 710 before authorities ordered union members to clear the room." Glendale News Press and La Opinion also recognized the BRU. Pasadena Star News and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune ran the same story, which quoted...[Read on for links and more media]

After months of campaigning and an intensive week of fasting and organizing at the Rosa Parks Tent City, 150 BRU members and allies shut down the MTA Board. We were left with no choice but to stop business as usual. We brought the MTA Board meeting to a halt for the better part of 4 hours. In the process, two of our organizers, Sunyoung Yang and Gabriel Strachota, were arrested in an act of civil disobedience. Here's a recap of the day...

The hunger fasters have been using their facebook page to blog, give live updates, and post pics and videos from each day's actions and happenings. After the first night at the Rosa Parks Tent City, Manuel Criollo, BRU member, testifies, "We greeted the morning with the help of a mexica indigenous saumadora with the sweet and earthy scent of copal. In an act of solidarity, Rosa Miranda, one of the BRU fasters for justice, goes to LA City Council to..."

On the morning of Day 5 of the Hunger Fast for Justice the BRU was joined by guest speaker Dolores Huerta.

Interviews with two of the BRU hunger fasters. Rosa Miranda, inmigrante mexicano, lives in Westlake, mother of 3, a bus rider. Staci Williams, unemployed, lives in South LA, mother of 2, a bus rider.

On May 19th in front of the MTA Budget Committee, Esperanza Martinez,
lead organizer for the Bus Riders Union, announced the beginning of the
Hunger Fast for Justice. The Bus Riders Union, wanting to graphically
illustrate the true cost of the MTA's fare increase will begin a hunger
fast on May 20th.

On April 19, over 30,000 activists, grassroots social movements, academics, students, indigenous delegates, and government representatives convened in Cochabamba, Bolivia for the first-ever World People´s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. I along with 21 other organizers and activists participated in the events as part of the US Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and Indigenous Environmental Network Delegation. 

Yesterday on the front page of their local news section, the LA Times ran a strong story on our fight to stop MTA's racist fare hikes. We also saw excellent coverage in La Opinion, by radio and on television (so far we have confirmed coverage on Channel 7, NBC Channel 4). The Times article quoted BRU Co-Chair Barbara Lott-Holland and lead organizer Esperanza Martinez talking...

Housing and Civil Rights advocates gathered to attend a special meeting of the LA City Council for Housing, Community and Economic Development committee. Giving testimony in front of a panel chaired by Councilmember Herb Wesson, residents of public housing and renters from all over Los Angeles county gathered to address the housing crisis.  Speakers covered the pending descruction of public housing and down sized workers unable to keep up with annual rent increases.

Jeanette Charles, Strategy Center member and co-coordinator of the 2010 Spring Break Take Action, blogs about the most impactful lessons the group experienced and the inspiration she gained witnessing the youth take leaps and bounds in their own organizing skills and expanding their understanding of our histories in this country as...

Last Friday. we achieved a City Council resolution that urges a public hearing for the MTA fare hikes. Sunyoung put the gears in motion in the meeting she led with Councilmembers Rosendahl and La Bonge, both members of the council's Transportation Committee.
The resolution acknowledges the economic hardship that...

Streetsblog has been highlighting exciting innovations in New York City that parallel our Clean Air efforts in L.A.: bus-only lanes, bus-centered transit and a car-free Times Square! It's exciting to see these projects developing simultaneously across the country.

We met with councilmembers Labonge and Rosendahl because their continued leadership is crucial to making sure the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes project is finalized with final EIR approval by the end of this year. Both councilmembers are on the city council's Transportation Committee. Committee Chair Rosendahl assured us that he will work to consolidate the rest of...

UPDATE 4/22: On Thursday, April 15, Mayor Villaraigosa introduced Motion #49 to the MTA Board, with L.A. DOT General Manger Rita Robinson and L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The motion proposes an informational briefing to announce the fare increase and listen to “comments”; this is not a public hearing and not...

Jorge Lopez, social activist in East Los Angeles and world history teacher at Roosevelt High School, recently got involved with our "No to Pre-Prisons" Campaign. After feeling frustrated and angry at the increased ticketing of his students he began referring his students to us for legal services and support. Questioning the real intentions about the "truancy" sweeps at his school he writes in his blog: "I believe that if the Mayor had no interest in ticketing our students, there would not be one of his point persons overseeing the operation, and LAPD...."

The BRU rallies after our Press Conference at MTA Headquarters to demand a stop to MTA's racist fare increase. BRU calls public attention to MTA's staff attempt to silence the public by denying them their rightful opportunity to speak on the impacts that another fare increase will have on the lives of half a million Black, Latino and Asian working class bus riders!

Members of Transit Riders for Public Transportation, the Transportation Equity Network, Bus Riders Union, Urban Habitat, Public Advocates and WEACT led four workshops earlier this week (3/15-16) at the Transportation Equity Network's conference "A Seat at the Table."

The San Fernando Valley Sun has been raising a public debate between us, the principal of Cleveland High, and LA School Police Dept Interim Chief Bowman. They've already written 3 pieces in a series. We need you to send letters to the editors because...

Operations Service Cuts are crippling Mass Transit in Atlanta

Jazmin Martinez, a senior at Manual Arts High School, blogs about being searched in a round-up with an auditorium full of students for being tardy. She writes about the need to end the racialization of the "war on drugs" by creating forms of prevention, intervention and ultimately decriminalizing drug usage in her blog, Prevention Beyond Just "Say No".

After weeks of nervous speculation, a victory against a court system that fails time and time again to convict and sentence police officers for murder. For Black people in particular, this perpetual lack of legal re-dress for one of the oldest problems impacting our community has created deeply entrenched pain, fear and anger. No matter the social status, economic class or skin tone, almost every Black person in America has experienced a nervous moment whenever a cop came near. This is not because we are a community of cowards. rather it is because...

Just yesterday, CNN ran a top story in their legal news section that features our Community Rights work against truancy tickets and pre-prison conditions in schools: "But one thing is sure: Alexa's case isn't the first. At schools across the country, police are being asked to step in..."

Earlier this month, more than 40 people, representing 16 organizations
from across the state, piled into an AC Transit Bus and rode to
Sacramento to demand that our Legislators stop the fare hikes, service
cuts, and layoffs that have been devastating  California transit
operators and their riders.

Two new members were elected for their first time to the Planning Committee this year.  I asked them about their impressions of their first month.  What was it like at your first meeting?  What surprised you?  How has your perspective on our work changed?

This year we're working on raising $10,000 to build support around the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Campaign which is so close to victory. To kick off our fundraising effort, we had our first event on Saturday January 30th--Clean Air Campaign Yard Sale.

In January, the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) of Chicago was proud to take part in the TRPT's National Advocacy Day for Civil Rights. We met with the staff of Senator Durbin and Senator Burris, as well as the staff of Representatives Davis, Gutierrez, Jackson, Jr, Lipinski, and Quigley. Because senators’ number one priority right now is jobs, we stressed...

The first pre-trial hearing for Johannes Mehserle - the Ex-BART officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant on New Years Day 2009 - brought out a tapestry of emotion and activity. The Foltz Criminal Justice Center was abuzz with scores of brave protestors, media representatives, and agents of the legal system all taking part in the early morning rush.
It was an amazing scene considering that the hearing itself was rather basic and bland. The biggest developments of the day included...

The report looks at how punitive discipline and testing policies and practices have combined to turn many schools into hostile and alienating environments that drive youth out of school and toward the juvenile and criminal justice systems. 
We highly encourage our members and supporters to read this important
document.  

In actions at Manual Arts, Westchester, and Cleveland High Schools,  LAUSD students from our Community Rights Campaign weathered the rain to launch a new initiative for greater accountability from the Los Angeles School Police Department. 
They reached out to students, teachers and community members to support CRC's 5 new policy recommendations for creating new policies and procedures that restrict the use of force and role of police in our schools to protect the civil/human rights of all.

As all good organizers do, we begin the year looking back to the lessons and breakthroughs of 2009 that will inform the character of the work of the Bus Riders Union in 2010. The year presented many challenges for the BRU in securing the 20% of Measure R funds that were promised for bus system improvements.  We knew we would have to fight to ensure those funds be used for the much needed expansion of LA's bus system and its primarily working-class, immigrant, Black, Asian and Latina/o riders.

2009 marks an important harvest of our last 5 years of hard work
organizing bus riders, local businesses, public health and community
allies and the local elected officials like former councilmember Wendy
Greuel and Bill Rosendahl, Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard. With the full $23.3 million of federal funding secured, the tide has turned to move the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project into reality.

It has been both a tough and exciting first year for our civil rights and environmental justice campaign to influence the second largest federal bill: the $500 billion federal surface transportation act. Over the past two weeks, I had the opportunity to step back and reflect on my eventful year as lead coordinator of Transit Riders for Public Transportation.

Many of the key lessons of the environmental justice movement from the 80s and 90s fighting market driven policies in local campaigns can illuminate how we can re-shape the discussions around climate solutions in Congress this year.

Ever heard of cap and trade or carbon trading? Here's a helpful animated video to help you navigate the basics of market driven false solutions like cap and trade  and why ithey should be rejected as a climate change policy.

Lead Organizer and National Coordinator of the Transit Riders for Public Transportation (TRPT), Francisca Porchas discusses the battle for climate justice in the re-authorization of the $500 billion Federal Surface Transportation Act in this winter's issue of Race, Poverty, & the Environment themed "Climate Change: Catalyst or Catastrophe?"

18 year-old BRU Bryan Mauricio member blogs on his experience in transformative organizing.

Where is the global justice movement 10 years after its birth in the Battle of Seattle?  In a radio interview, the Strategy Center's Tammy Bang Luu remembers being "a young kid" on the streets, and being arrested in the protests.  She draws connections between what happened then and where the global justice movement is today as it heads into the second US Social Forum in Detroit in 2010. 

Bolivian Climate Change Ambassador Pablo Erick Solon Romero Oroza speaks about an environmental justice platform that Bolivia and many Latin American nations are demanding for as real solutions on climate change.

BRU member Crystal McMillan reports on BRU's commemoration of the 54th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts."To use the example of the Boycott, we have to move forward with determination and we have to harness the will of the people. We will come together to stop the 2010 fare increase. We will use the Clean Air and Economic Justice plan to gain true mobility and a healthy environment. We will build an empowered and creative movement that can shape the Long Range Transportation Plan into a document that doesn't use fare increases and service cuts to fund our transit system."

A recent decision to move the criminal trial of Johannes Mehserle – the former BART officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant on New Years Day – to Los Angeles has again once thrust the city to the forefront of controversy involving police abuse and murder.

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." 

I don't normally write to newspaper columnists but, over the past few weeks, Bob Herbert at the New York Times has been writing some really sharp OpEd columns that have caught my attention. What hooked me was a column where he put his finger on a question that's been bothering many of us: where is the anger, the outrage, the action? where is the hope for changing the world? 

There is an excellent 7-minute film that travels to Bogotá, Colombia to show you how the city runs a bus-centered transit system that is modern, inexpensive and efficiently moves 1.3 million people a day, integrating bicycles and auto free zones--and all without relying on rail or subways.

"Pre-Prison Diaries" is a series from the Community Rights Campaign in which organizers, students and parents share stories and observations about truancy tickets, police in schools, zero tolerance, and other "pre-prison" conditions and experiences. Jackie Hill, current freshmen at Dominguez Hills, shares how the recent budget crisis and the increased spending on prisons in the last 25 years have impacted her life as a young Black woman. 

Last weekend, the Honduran political crisis entered a new stage when US
diplomats brokered an agreement between the coup government led by
Roberto Micheletti and the ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Is the agreement a victory for Zelaya and popular forces in Honduras
and across Latin America or is it a triumph of a sophisticated strategy
of US imperial manipulation? Manuel Criollo comments.

On Tuesday October 13th, the last of the four public scoping meetings was held regarding the Wilshire Bus-Only Lanes Project to hear from the public around their thoughts and concerns around this project.