Transportation

BLET Engineers Unanimously Endorse Strike At NJ Transit

September 12, 2023 Progressive Railroading. Resist! New Jersey (NJ), Railroads, Strikes, Transportation, Unions, Worker Rights

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) members who work at New Jersey Transit last week voted unanimously to authorize a strike. Five hundred locomotive engineers employed by NJ Transit received strike ballots in August. Voting results show 81% of the eligible 494 union members cast ballots and all of them favor a strike, BLET officials said in a press release. NJ Transit recently announced plans to spend more than $440 million to lease luxury office space, which has infuriated many BLET members, they said. “The agency has millions for penthouse views, but not a dime for train crews who kept the trains running throughout the worst days of the pandemic, and haven’t had a raise since 2019," said BLET National President Eddie Hall.

Driving Economic Justice: The Public Option

August 29, 2023 Udayan Tandon, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, History, Public ownership, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Taxi workers in the late 1960s and through the 1970s struggled against the transformation of their industry from regulated and unionized jobs to deregulated independent contracting work. This meant the loss of collective bargaining rights for taxi workers and a sharp rise in precarious working conditions as employers were able to shift business risk onto workers, cut expenses on benefits, and increase profits in-turn. In a spirited response, taxi workers self-organized and sustained union-like alt labor groups, for example the New York Taxi Workers Alliance in New York and United Taxicab Workers in San Francisco, that fought for better working conditions for taxi workers through municipal and city regulations.

Lessons From San Francisco About Overcoming Our Transit Deficit

August 27, 2023 Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Next City. Create! Cities, Public transportation, San Francisco, Transportation

Many a scholar and policy analyst has lamented the United States’ dependence on cars and the corresponding lack of federal investment in public transportation throughout the latter decades of the 20th century. But as I show in my new book, “The Great American Transit Disaster,” our transit networks are bad for a very simple reason: We wanted it this way. Focusing on Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and San Francisco, I trace the overwhelming evidence that transit disinvestment was a choice rather than destiny. There were a few exceptions to this mostly distressing story – such as San Francisco, where the publicly-owned Municipal Railway, or Muni, offers positive lessons for contemporary policymakers, politicians and voters.

PDX Maintenance Workers ‘Sit Down! Fight Back!’

July 2, 2023 Lyn Neeley, Workers World. Resist! Oregon, Portland, Sit-In, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Portland Airport (PDX) wheelchair attendants, baggage and service workers, cabin cleaners and janitors held a militant picket and sit-down protest June 28 on the United Airlines departures roadway. PDX maintenance workers are fighting for the right to sit down between tasks on the job. They are demanding respect, the right to a union at United, health insurance and more. A Passenger Service Agent told demonstrators: “Our jobs involve hard physical repetitive labor that puts us at risk of workplace injuries. We are also at risk of contagious diseases. Our public health care is insufficient, and workers comp is so complicated, we need a lawyer to use it.”

Intolerable Conditions Drive ‘Shortages,’ Transit Workers Say

June 20, 2023 Sultana Adams and Richard Marcantonio, Labor Notes. Resist! Bus Drivers, California, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Why are public transit operators struggling to retain workers and hire new ones? Workers at AC Transit say one major factor is intolerable working conditions—overwork, inadequate breaks, safety hazards, and a pervasive culture of disrespect. And these problems affect not only workers, but also bus riders across California’s East Bay. Every week many scheduled runs are canceled without notice when there’s no backup for an operator who is out sick. At a transit board meeting in March, riders asked the agency to restore service on the 80, a route that had been cut when Covid struck. Management’s response: we don’t have enough workers to run it.

The Case For A (Mostly) Car-Free World

June 12, 2023 Anthony Leong, Canadian Dimension. Create! Canada, Car-Free Community, climate crisis, Transportation

I grew up in Los Angeles, one of the most sprawling, car-dependent cities in the world. It’s easy to find highway-sized lanes in residential areas and signposts right in the middle of tiny sidewalks in my hometown. Although I regularly cycled and took public transit right up until I was 18 and moved away, the state of my city and the way people moved through it was normal to me, a mundane fact of life—I didn’t see that it could be another way. I also didn’t understand just how systemically marginalized pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit users were until I watched a video about “stroads” by the YouTuber Not Just Bikes.

What If We Owned The Tracks?

April 1, 2023 Jason Clifford, CleanTechnica. Create! Public ownership, Railroads, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

When it comes to energy efficient transportation in America, no transportation option is better than the railroads. They have been the freight transportation backbone of America for nearly 200 years, which is why all the recent news about train derailments and union strikes deserves our attention. While more profitable then they have ever been for investors, the railroads are moving less freight and employing fewer workers now then they did in 2006. After underinvesting in their labor force, rolling stock, and tracks for decades, are America’s railroads entering a state of decline, and if so, should we start discussing the pitfalls and possibilities of public rail ownership?

Massive Anti-Government Protests Sweep Greece

March 31, 2023 Christos Avramidis, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Greece, Mass Action, Neoliberalism, Railroads, Transportation

On Feb. 28, 2023, two trains traveling along the same track collided in Greece, killing 57 people—many of them students in their teens and 20s returning home from university in Athens. The deaths of 11 workers in the crash sparked two 24-hour strikes from the railway unions, followed by demonstrations across the country that have lasted for weeks and mobilized tens of thousands of people. Workers blame the crash on a lack of properly functioning safety and communication systems, as well as severe understaffing and underfunding of the railways—all originating from “Troika” (EU, IMF, and ECB) structural adjustment imposed on Greece in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

On Monday, Germany Will Experience A ‘Mega-Strike’

March 26, 2023 Nathaniel Flakin, Left Voice. Resist! Germany, National Strike, Transportation, Worker Rights

France is currently in flames. Millions have been taking to the streets to protest against the government’s anti-democratic measure to raise the retirement age. Across the Rhine, Germany — where there tend to be far fewer strikes — is also set to experience a historic strike. Starting on Monday at midnight and lasting for 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of workers will be on strike. This is set to be the biggest strike in Germany in more than 30 years. It represents a convergence of different struggles in progress. On the one hand, the railway workers’ union EVG (not the same as the train drivers’ union GDL) is demanding a 12 percent raise for their members.

Transit Agencies Are Taking Small Steps Toward Family-Friendly Systems

February 28, 2023 H. Jiahong Pan, Next City. Create! Buses, Immigrants, Transportation, Women

In 2006, a transit agency serving the communities adjacent the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta claimed to be the first in the U.S. to provide a dedicated space for people to park strollers as they rode a bus. Tri Delta Transit, which serves northeastern Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area, created the zone because it noticed more families riding with strollers. “We recognized the difficulty they encounter when required to fold their strollers and felt there was more we could do to make their experience easier and more enjoyable,” said the agency’s outgoing CEO Jeanne Krieg, herself a parent, in a press release issued that year.

Major Immigrant Rights Victory: ‘Drivers Licenses For All’ Bill Passes

February 25, 2023 Brad Sigal, Fight Back News. Create! Driver's License, Immigrant Rights, Minnesota, Transportation, Victory

Saint Paul, Minnesota - Despite a snowstorm of historic proportions, hundreds of immigrants and supporters packed the State Capitol February 21 as the Senate debated Senate File 27, the Drivers Licenses for All bill which would allow Minnesotans to get a driver's license regardless of immigration status. After more than six hours of debating hostile Republican amendments, the Senate voted to pass the bill around 2:00 a.m. on a party-line vote, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting against. The bill previously passed the House, and Governor Tim Walz already indicated he will sign it, so the Senate vote seals the victory for this major priority for immigrant communities and the immigrant rights movement.

How To Build A Better Bike-Share Program

February 20, 2023 Gabriela Aoun Angueira, Next City. Create! Bike-Share, Biking, Community Control, New Orleans, Transportation

New Orleans, Louisiana - Geoff Coats still remembers how he felt when, in May 2020, all 1,350 bicycles in New Orleans’s popular bike-share program vanished. “It was horrible,” says Coats, who managed the service, called Blue Bikes, for its owner, Uber. “For a lot of people, it was a little bit of PTSD from Hurricane Katrina, when the national chains could have reopened weeks after the storm but stayed away. It felt like, once again, when we’re down, we get kicked.” Blue Bikes, which New Orleans launched in 2017 to reduce emissions and offer reliable transportation to low-income residents, was flourishing before COVID shut down the city.

Transit Workers Have Been On Strike For Three Weeks; No Agreement Reached

February 3, 2023 Tom Roussey, ABC7. Resist! Strike, Transportation, Virginia, Worker Rights

A strike by transit workers in Loudoun County is now in its third week with no clear end in sight. A county spokesperson said service for Loudoun County Transit began being affected by the strike on January 11. As of Friday, commuter buses that travel between various parts of Loudoun County and D.C. and Arlington, Va. had not been running for more than two weeks. “We have prioritized transit services to optimize any available drivers daily, prioritizing paratransit services, local bus routes serving the Leesburg and Sterling areas, and Silver Line bus routes ahead of commuter bus service at this time,” Loudoun County spokesperson Glen Barbour wrote in an email to 7News. “The impact to bus routes and transit services continues to be updated regularly on our website at www.loudoun.gov/buschanges. Subscribers to our notifications are also receiving the updates directly (sign up at loudoun.gov/busbiz).”

Designing A US Transit System With Smaller, Fewer Cars Could Cut Lithium Demand And Mining Harms Of EV

January 25, 2023 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Create! Energy, Environment, Lithium, Transportation

One of the less sustainable aspects of the drive to transition from gas to electric vehicles (EVs) is that building them requires metals and minerals that must be mined from the Earth, an activity that raises both ecological and environmental justice concerns. In fact, a new report from the Climate and Community Project and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), found that, if current trends for EV demand hold through 2050, the U.S. alone will require three times the amount of lithium that is now available on the market globally. However, replacing every gas-powered car with an EV isn’t the only way to decarbonize transit. Alternative steps including designing a less car-intensive transportation system, reducing the size of EV batteries and encouraging lithium recycling could reduce lithium demand by up to 92 percent from the worst-case scenario, according to The Guardian.

The Zero-Fare Public Transit Movement Is Picking Up Momentum

January 21, 2023 Rebecca Picciotto, Portside. Create! Pandemic, Transportation, Washington D.C., Zero Fare

Washington, D.C. - Washington, D.C., is on the verge of eliminating bus fares for city residents, joining other U.S. cities that are working to make metro bus and rail systems free to ride. Already, Boston, San Francisco and Denver are experimenting with zero fare. In late 2019, Kansas City, Missouri, became the first major U.S. city to approve a fare-free public transit system. The “zero-fare” movement has garnered support among business groups, environmental advocates, Democratic leaders and others who say that public transit boosts local economies, mitigates climate change and is a basic necessity for many individuals. The idea gained traction during the pandemic, which underscored the critical role public transit plays for essential workers who don’t have the luxury of working from home. But despite the zero-fare movement’s growing popularity, it has drawn political pushback in some areas where the policy doesn’t easily fit in with budgets or local laws.

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