Join us on MONday, Feb. 5, 2024,
Rosa Parks’ birthday, as we

EDUCATE. AGITATE. ORGANIZE!

and recognize transit equity as a civil right.

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Transit Equity

Public Transit provides basic mobility for many in our communities. It is also essential urban infrastructure–just like roads, bridges, tunnels and utilities–that is crucial to the economic, social and environmental well-being of all our regions.

Everyone has a right to a public mass transit system that includes:

  1. Safe, reliable, environmentally-sustainable and affordable transit that is accessible to all, regardless of income, national origin, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religion, or ability.
  2. An affordable public transit system that reliably connects people in all communities to the places we need to travel: home, work, school, places of worship, shopping, health, and recreation, in as efficient, and timely a manner as possible. We must ensure that all communities have access to transit; no community should be left behind. Public transit in rural, less densely populated communities should be provided in any master transportation plan despite the special challenges that may present.
  3. Living wages, benefits, safe working conditions, and union rights for transit workers, including those who manufacture transit equipment, and access to family-sustaining transit jobs and training opportunities for people from underserved communities.
  4. A just transition for workers and communities who are dependent on our current automobile and highway-centered transportation system, to ensure that no one is left behind as we transition to a more public, accessible, and cleaner transit-based system.
  5. Rapid transition of our transit and school bus systems to electric, non-polluting buses powered by electricity from renewables.
  6. Safe, healthy and livable neighborhoods that are connected by public transportation and by bicycle pathways and sidewalks, and that are planned to expand safe access to transit and reduce single occupancy vehicle miles traveled.
  7. Dedicated and sustainable public funding for public transit.

SEE THE INTERACTIVE TIMELINE

This is our sixth year running!

In February 2018, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) partnered with the Labor Network for Sustainability to launch Transit Equity Day in honor of Rosa Parks’ birthday, which is on February 4. We chose to honor Rosa Parks for the role she played in the civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat at the front of the bus and, in doing so, lift up transit as a workers’ rights, civil rights, and climate-justice issue.

Since its launch, Transit Equity Day has grown each year. In 2022, there were nearly 50 events across the country and a social media explosion that brought attention to transit equity beyond just the participating locations. Just as important, a Transit Equity Network emerged through the process. Consisting largely of grassroots advocates, the network has grown and relationships have deepened both locally and nationally.

After the success of Transit Equity Day 2020, participants were ready to work together on a national initiative. We wanted to develop a stronger sense of unity and shared values. We sought to shape a broad vision of what we wanted from our transit systems across the nation. But rather than creating a vision document ourselves, the Transit Equity Network leaders wanted first to hear directly and collectively from transit stakeholders—riders, workers, families reliant on transit, and community activists—about their needs, frustrations, and hopes

Read the report: Community Hearing on Transit Equity

Check out the Transit Equity Day events from years past: 

TED 2023 | TED 2022 | TED 2021 | TED 2020 | TED 2019 | TED 2018

 

Resources: