Transportation Justice and Housing Program
Our Strategy
• Reframing the Debate
We bring a race and class analysis to forefront of the debate over transportation investments, and make sure that equity considerations are at the heart of the transportation movement.
• Equalizing Investments
We analyze transportation investments and projects and work to win a
greater share of funding for the basic transit service that low-income
people and people of color rely on every day.
• Building the Base
By increasing the capacity of communities that have historically lacked
political and economic power, we build a transportation movement that
centers the experience of those that depend on transit. [More]
Program Updates
Transit Breakthrough in Restoring Civil Rights
Title VI Complaint by San Francisco Bay Area Coalition Has National Implications
In the first successful action of its kind in the nation Urban Habitat, helped organize a coalition that filed a civil rights complaint to stop $70 million in stimulus funds from being allocated to a $500-billion boondoggle elevated “people-mover” known as the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC). The funds will be shifted to Bay Area transit agencies to help avert service cuts, fare hikes and layoffs that will affect hundreds of thousands of people, as the coalition recommended.
Obama Administration Denies BART $70M in Stimulus Funds Citing Civil Rights Failures
Dateline:
02/12/2010Source:
Public Advocates/Urban Habitat
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2010
Obama Administration Denies BART $70M in Stimulus Funds, Citing Civil Rights Failures Funds Shift to Bay Area Transit Operations
Federal Transit Administration Chief Peter Rogoff today [February 12] sent a letter to BART and MTC rejecting BART’s corrective action plan to address Title VI violations found in an investigation prompted by a complaint from civil rights, transportation and environmental advocates. Due to action taken by MTC at its January meeting, the funding will now be reallocated to transit projects across the Bay Area, where it is desperately needed to preserve jobs and transit service.
In the first action of its kind, the Obama Administration has pulled $70 million in federal stimulus funds from a proposed Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project due to multiple civil rights violations by the Bay Area Rapid Transit district (BART). The strong action underscores a recent promise made in the President’s State of the Union address to continue “prosecuting civil rights violations.”
State Transit Justice Organizing Update
New Statewide Coalition Comes Together to Demand California Legislators Keep Our Buses Running.
Earlier this month, more than 40 people, representing 16 organizations from across the state, piled into an AC Transit Bus and rode to Sacramento where we demanded that our Legislators stop the fare hikes, service cuts, and layoffs that have been devastating California transit operators and their riders.
Delegations from the Bay Area, Sacramento and L.A., representing transit riders, transit operators, transit unions, seniors, youth, disabled people, transit dependent people, and advocates united for the first time to build a strong statewide voice for transportation justice.
Our coalition met with 19 Legislators and their staff, including: Swanson, Blumenfield, Simitian, Skinner, Hill, Perez, Lowenthal (Bonnie), Lowenthal (Alan), Hyashi, Oropeza, DeSaulnier, Pavley, Leno, Eng, Hancock, Solorio, Feuer, Yee and Buchanan.
Related items:
FTA Denies BART $70 Mil For Oakland Airport Connector
Dateline:
02/12/2010Source:
Bay City News 
The Federal Transit Administration today denied BART $70 million
in federal stimulus money to fund its proposed elevated rail connector
between the Coliseum station and Oakland International Airport.
The FTA's decision comes after three advocate groups filed a complaint alleging that BART failed to evaluate whether the project would provide low-income and minority communities with a fair share of the project's benefits.
MTC hedges their bet on the Oakland Airport Connector
Dateline:
01/27/2010
BART given until February 16 to create civil rights action plan for Feds
Facing a triple-overflow crowd at the monthly meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission commissioners followed MTC Executive Director Steve Heminger's council to "hedge their bet." A growing minority of the commission is concerned that they could lose $70 Million in federal stimulus funds if BART continues to railroad the expensive and exclusive "sky tram" to the airport without adequate consideration to the equity of their plan. By an 11-5 vote the MTC approved a set of resolutions that gives BART until February 16th--12 working days--to come up with an equity action plan to meet the demands of the Federal Transit Administration who recently found BART in violation of their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. If BART can't meet the deadline, the money will be distributed to transit operators (BART, MUNI, AC Transit, VTA and others) for a broad variety of operations and maintence expenditures that will prevent layoffs and service cutbacks across the region.
