Author: Dan Yablonsky

Strong policies are needed at the county level to tie great transit to quality affordable housing. Take three minutes to fill out Allegheny County’s Annual Action Plan survey to elevate transit/housing as a priority. More from the survey:

Allegheny County is undertaking the development of its FY 2019 Annual Action Plan (AAP), as required by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to determine the types of projects that will benefit County residents. Part of the AAP planning process involves outreach to community stakeholders and units of local government for input on housing, economic development, and community development needs across the County. Your responses are important and will help to determine the County’s investment of federal grant funds to address housing, economic development, and community development needs during the period from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. Should you need assistance or have questions regarding the survey, contact Karen Brean at 412.977.0271 or karen@breanassociates.com.
Please respond no later than March 15th.

Finally, after months of private negotiations over billions of public dollars, Amazon has announced it will pass on Pittsburgh as the location for its second headquarters. It is reported that Pittsburgh’s bid would have given enormous tax incentives and decision-making power over where their tax-dollars would be spent. All without any public input or transparency. That’s not how taxes work. That’s not how we create equity.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit led the call with a number of other community organizations and news outlets for more transparency and public process around the bid. We continue to assert that the Amazon bid does not measure up to goals outlined in the Mayor’s own p4 guidelines for equitable development.

At this point, we are relieved that some of our region’s most pressing issues (like our shortage of affordable housing, and access to quality transit) will not be exacerbated by Amazon’s arrival and the billions in public subsidies that would have been given to them. However, Pittsburgh’s Amazon HQ2 bid continues to be most egregious example of our City & County administrations actively choosing to stifle a public process in favor of backroom deals.

What we need now is for PGH HQ2 bid to be made public in order to rebuild community trust in this administration, and begin creating truly democratic processes that allow residents to identify collective priorities and spend shared resources.

Check these stories below with PPT quotes about Amazon’s November 2018 announcement:

• WPXI: What did Pittsburgh offer Amazon? City’s HQ2 proposal revealed
• WESA: Pennsylvania Was Prepared To Offer Amazon More Than $4B
  
• Incline: Pittsburgh is not Amazon’s HQ2 site
• Next Pittsburgh: After months of refusal, Pittsburgh’s Amazon HQ2 bid is released. Read it here.

Check our ‘Amazon ≠ p4’ campaign webpage for background on PPT’s organizing.

Follow us on twitter for PPT updates!

Labor day is an important holiday in Pittsburgh. It is a reminder to those in power that it is people like us who keep the city and county running. Thousands of union members from all over the area marched together in celebration of fights won and in preparation for fights to come. When riders’ unions like ours join hands with labor and service unions there isn’t a boss or company we can’t take on and beat. ATU local 85 members have been absolutely instrumental in many of our fights. They have testified in support of riders at Port Authority board meetings, they connect us with riders who are in need of expanded transit, and they show up at many of our rallies. PPT will continue to ensure that riders and transit workers are unified in the fight for a growing, equitable, sustainable transit system that pays living wages and benefits to its workers.

Good news that riders give the Port Authority high marks! But this is important too:

“Price seems to be such a sensitive issue for riders that TransPro recommended that the agency do everything it can to avoid raising fares over the next few years. Last year, the agency switched to a flat $2.50 fare for ConnectCard users and $2.75 for cash instead of fare zones based on distance traveled, which reduced fares for about 26 percent of riders.”

Fares are too high. Join the fight for Fare Equity in the Riders’ Vision for Public Transit! Sign up here:https://www.ppt-test.jimkeener.com/riders-vision-c…/

On October 23rd Pittsburghers for Public Transit came together with Put People First!- PA for a great event to learn the history of Dr. Martin Luther Kings Poor Peoples Campaign, the last campaign he worked on before his assassination. Put People First! PA is an organization committed to fighting for universal healthcare in PA.

The Poor Peoples Campaign brought together people of every race to fight against poverty. Dr. King realized that it wasn’t enough to just be able to vote or integrate schools or lunch counters or public transit. As long as we saw the poor of each race as different than one another we would never succeed in ending poverty. He is quoted as saying “We have moved from the era of civil rights to an era of human rights.”

Organizations like PPT and Put People First all over the country are working in collaboration with the New Poor Peoples Campaign to achieve the equitable future that Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned. Thank you to Put People First and all the PPT members that joined the discussion: we look forward to future collaboration!

“Jonah McAllister-Erickson of Pittsburghers for Public Transit said, ‘We probably could use better public transit, but this is not the solution. Micro transit projects have been a complete flop’ in other cities, with low ridership and high operating costs.”

http://www.post-gazette.com/…/Proteste…/stories/201807300043

An article was written by Margaret J. Krauss published by WESA entitled “How Fare-Capping Could Make Transit More Equitable”. It did an incredible job of describing the ways Port Authority’s current fare system cost low-income folks more for access the same transit as their more wealthy counterparts.
“‘A lot of people can’t shell out the cash up front for a pass, and often end up paying more than it’s worth’, said Emily Cleath of Just Harvest, a nonprofit organization which addresses hunger through economic disparity. Cleath spoke at a recent meeting of transit riders in Rankin.
‘Instead of having to ration their rides or pay more than other people for the same service, a fare-capping system would ensure that our lowest income riders are not paying more for the system, simply because they can’t afford a pass.’”

you can find the article here.

On July 25 a group of incredible Brookline transit riders and a bus operator presented over 550 petition signatures and resident testimony to the Port Authority board, requesting additional Saturday service hours and the restoration of Sunday bus service on the 39. Those same transit riders and operator will be meeting with Councilman Anthony Coghill on August 28th with the hope that he will help encourage Port Authority to restore this vital weekend service to his thriving business district.

Of the many service request asked of port authority, the restoration of the 39 weekend service would be among the cheapest to implement while still providing maximum benefit to the residents and businesses of Brookline. We are hoping for a pilot implementation to establish ridership, and then as long ridership is high we believe that the route should be restored permanently. PPT would like to thank Tom Conroy, Nora Kelly, Sheron Duff, Tish Newman, Bob and Jackie Cohn and Pat DeSimone for their contributions to getting this route back on the road!