Voices for Public Transportation
In 2018, Urban Habitat helped establish the Voices for Public Transportation (VPT), a coalition of over 50 labor groups, community-based organizations, and advocates fighting for investment in the Bay Area’s transportation system that is needed to achieve economic, racial, and climate justice.
VPT members came together to advance a game-changing regional transportation measure to invest in our transit system so that all Bay Area residents can get around affordably and easily while at the same reducing driving and greenhouse gas emissions. VPT represents the voices of transit-dependent communities, many of whom are people with disabilities, low-income communities, and communities of color, who are too often excluded from local and regional transportation decisions.
The consequences of failing to meet climate change mandates are clear. The transportation sector accounts for almost 43% of emissions in the Bay Area. The region was already struggling to meet our greenhouse gas reduction target before the pandemic. Dramatic reductions in transit service and fare increases will only increase driving and greenhouse gas emissions. We need a Green New Deal for Bay Area public transit to provide the mobility that youth, seniors, workers, and people with disabilities depend on. To achieve this, we need a generational investment to increase transit service and an infrastructure that takes transit out of traffic and prioritizes people over cars.
Our campaign goals for a regional transportation funding measure include:
- Funding from progressive taxation, not a regressive sales tax;
- Investing the revenue to achieve a “triple bottom line” by simultaneously providing great transit options while creating good-paying construction and operating jobs;
- Reducing carbon emissions, air pollution, and our dependence on cars; and
- Protecting vulnerable communities from displacement.
