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Transportation Justice Program

YES on Measure V V

Keep AC Transit Affordable For Youth & Seniors
  • Preserve affordable bus passes
  • Help kids get to school and after-school activities
  • Allow seniors and the disabled to live independently
Today, 60,000 youth will ride AC Transit to get to school and after-school jobs and activities.

Today, 13,500 seniors will ride AC Transit to see their families, doctors, and buy groceries and other essential needs.
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AC Transit 2008 Parcel Tax Background and Basics

History

AC transit is facing a cut of $19 million from the Governor’s May budget revise. In addition, rising fuel and health care costs are putting in

creasing pressure on AC Transit’s budget. More importantly, AC transit, and bus service for low income communities, communities of color and the transit-dependent across the Bay Area, face chronic operating shortfalls as a result of racist, classist and pro-developer funding decisions made by the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization known as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC). Combined, these forces have created a hole in AC Transit’s budget of over $20 million in FY 2009/10 alone.

In January 2008, to deal with its budget gap, AC Transit staff recommended a fare increase for ALL riders. The staff-recommended proposal would increase the adult pass by 14%, the senior/disabled pass by 40% and the youth pass by 87%. Seniors would have had to pay $28, rather than $20 a month and youth would have had to pay $28 rather than $15 per month.

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Measure V V: Keep AC Transit Affordable for All

YES on Measure V V

Keep AC Transit Affordable For Youth & Seniors

  • Preserve affordable bus passes
  • Help kids get to school and after-school activities
  • Allow seniors and the disabled to live independently
Today, 60,000 youth will ride AC Transit to get to school and after-school jobs and activities.  

Today, 13,500 seniors will ride AC Transit to see their families, doctors, and buy groceries and other essential needs.
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San Leandro's Crossings Project: Benefits for the Community

Background
The Crossings is the first project in San Leandro’s Downtown TOD Plan.  When it is completed it will cover about 8 acres around the Downtown BART Station.  It will include 700 units of housing – of which at least 100 will be affordable rental housing for families – as well as some retail, BART parking, and other community amenities.  The City will also use this development opportunity to make needed improvements to the walkability and bikeability of surrounding streets, including enhanced green spaces in and around the development.

San Leandro Needs Housing for Working Families

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AC Transit to place Parcel Tax on November Ballot rather than raise fares

In January 2008, AC Transit staff recommended a fare increase for ALL riders. The proposal would have increased the adult pass by 14%, the senior/disabled pass by 40% and the youth pass by 87%.

Community and coalition organizing, a rally, and public outcry pressured the AC Transit Board to explore other ways to fund their service without raising fares. AC Transit’s Board heeded the calls and chose to place a parcel tax on November’s ballot that will raise as much as $14 million a year.

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No More Excuses by Juliet Ellis

Dateline: 
07/07/2008

This Opinion piece appeared in The Independent, a weekly newspaper serving the Pleasanton area. Urban Habitat is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city for it's failure to build the amount of affordable housing as required by law. In response to a City Attorney's comments, Executive Director Juliet Ellis wrote the following Letter to the Editor which appeared in the Independent's July 3, 2008 Edition.

Given his statements last week (Affordable Housing Lawsuit Back in Play, June 26, 2008) Pleasanton City Attorney Michael Roush apparently needs to study up on his basic arithmetic.

As stated in the article, the City has reneged on its promise in the last Housing Element to rezone enough land for some 800 units of lower-income housing by June 2004. An additional 3,277 new units were allocated this month for the next planning period. For Mr. Roush’s benefit, that’s more than 4,000 units now needed, significantly more than the 2,755 units remaining under the 29,000-unit Housing Cap according to the City’s own staff report.

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Appeals Court Rules Affordable Housing Suit May Proceed Against Pleasanton

Dateline: 
06/23/2008
Pleasanton, CA — The California Court of Appeal has reinstated a 2006 lawsuit by affordable housing advocates against the City of Pleasanton, ruling that it was improperly dismissed. “Without question,” the Court wrote, “the City’s duty to enforce the shortage of affordable housing is sharp and the public’s need for such housing is weighty.”

The decision by the three judge appeals panel will let plaintiffs Urban Habitat and low-income teacher and mother Sandra De Gregorio pursue their claims that the City has failed to meet its affordable housing obligations. In a 20-page opinion issued late Friday, the Court reinstated the October 2006 challenge to a range of exclusionary housing measures such as Pleasanton’s Housing Cap and Growth Management Ordinance. The Court also allowed the plaintiffs to go forward with a claim to require the City to zone land for affordable housing and two other claims alleging that the City’s land-use policies unlawfully discriminate against families with children.
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Report: Lifeline Program Falls Short After 3 Years

Urban Habitat has released Filling the Gaps: Ensuring Lifeline Service in all of the Bay Area’s Low-Income Communities (PDF, 100 KB), an independent evaluation which has found the Lifeline Transportation Program- the only Bay Area wide program aimed at improving transit for low-income communities- has fallen far short of its original goals.

In 2001, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) staff identified gaps in the Lifeline Transportation Network (LTN), the system of buses and trains that low-income, transit-dependent communities use to get to jobs, school and other essential destinations. The MTC created the Lifeline Transportation Program to fund projects to close these gaps, but Urban Habitat’s analysis shows that only 5 of the 39 funded Lifeline projects have actually increased regular transit service to further connect the network.

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AC Transit Board Bows to Community Pressure: Fare Hike Delayed

AC Transit’s Board unanimously voted to postpone a fare hike until after November’s elections on June 11, 2008. They also unanimously approved a staff recommendation to place a parcel tax on the November ballot (details below).

Your phone calls, rallies, and public comment worked!

AC TRANSIT HAS NOT GUARANTEED THAT IT WON’T RAISE FARES (even if the parcel tax passes in November).

We must secure a commitment from AC Transit to keeping youth and senior/disabled fares low if the parcel tax passes.

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Unprecedented Win in San Leandro

Dateline: 
04/24/2008

Community fills the City Council ChambersDevelopers Required to Meet with Community First

For the first time, a City Council is requiring Developers to hold public meetings that are open to community members, labor representatives, business leaders and other stakeholders before beginning the development process. This will give the public the opportunity to have a say in what the final project will look like.

Thanks to the hard work of Urban Habitat and coalition partners Congregations Organizing for Renewal and the Building Trades of Alameda County, San Leandro’s City Council unanimously voted in favor of adding an amendment to the Exclusive Negotiating Agreement between the City’s Redevelopment Agency, BART and developer/landowner Westlake Development Partners LLC. Westlake is the Master Developer for the first major development in the downtown TOD area, called The Crossings.

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