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Join us on February 411, 2022!
(In view of the weather, we have decided to postpone Transit Equity Day by a week. We hope you can attend the event on Friday, February 11. Same time, same place!)
Rhode Island’s public transit system is a crucial vehicle for economic opportunity, community vitality, ecological health, and racial equity. Join us and the George Wiley Center for a speaking program and press conference on Rosa Parks’ birthday, February 4, at 2:00pm in front of the Department of Administration on Smith Street, near the State House. We’ll hear from community members and leaders at BLM RI PAC, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, the General Assembly, RIPTA, and more.
We will honor Rosa Parks and other civil rights activists for their role in ensuring that good public transit is available to everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, or physical ability, and we will announce the commitment by the community to construct a Rosa Parks commemorative bus shelter in the vicinity of the State House. We will thank RIPTA for maintaining full bus service and its drivers for risking their own health to transport Rhode Islanders to work and medical appointments throughout the pandemic.
We cannot rest on our achievements so far, though. Rhode Island has a long way to go to achieve transit equity. Too often, bus transit is overlooked in terms of its outsized role in closing transportation equity gaps and reducing climate emissions. Rhode Island plows roads and bridges for the convenience of motorists but neglects to shovel sidewalks. The state is eliminating the car tax but not bus fares. Clearly, the job’s not done in reaching transit equity, and speakers will be highlighting what’s left to do.
Groups around the nation will celebrate Transit Equity on February 4!
Event organized by RI Transit Riders and George Wiley Center, with assistance from Labor 4 Sustainability. Also on February 4th, national transit and labor groups will be releasing a new report showing how investments in the public transit workforce are needed to reverse service cuts in cities and states across the country. The report is being released as more than 40 events are being held across 20 states for Transit Equity Day. The report highlights how working people and people of color are most impacted by these cuts, and how investments in the public transit workforce — in addition to providing better service — boost local economies, expand opportunity and racial equity, and increase environmental sustainability. The Report calls on transit agencies to work with their employees’ union representatives to prioritize workforce investments.”
RHODE ISLAND SPEAKS OUT ON TRANSIT EQUITY
Here’s how some of our partners and allies interpret transit equity:
Everyone deserves the opportunity and dignity to live in a safe, healthy neighborhood with transportation and housing options that are affordable.
~ Grow Smart RI
Public transportation should be affordable, accessible, and reliant for the riders who depend upon it the most.
~ RI Organizing Project
The Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition understands that the future of transportation is multi-modal. For RI Bike, transit equity means each and every resident has access to a safe, practical, dependable and cost effective transit system that meshes with other modes of travel to provide people real choices for going to work, school, to shop, and participate in civic life or the arts. The Rhode Island Bicycle Coalition supports transit equity because it extends bicyclists’ range and allows more people to choose bicycling more of the time. ~RI Bicycle Coalition
Transit equity means connecting all Rhode Islanders, regardless of age, race, physical ability and income, to life’s essentials quickly, conveniently, and affordably. For the State of Rhode Island to achieve transit equity, it must commit the same level of commitment to every means of public and active transportation as it does roads and bridges. ~ RI Transit Riders
We must make sure that our elected officials and governing bodies listen to and respect the people who most need public transit as they plan and implement public transit improvements and equitable service decisions. We must invest in public transportation in ways that ensure those who regularly use public transit have the opportunity to care for themselves and their families. Those in power must ensure full inclusion with such decisions, including the right to public transit and connections to basic needs.
~South Providence Neighborhood Association
Transit equity is the idea that all people have the right to an affordable, reliable, and zero-emissions mode of travel. In practice, it means improving service for bus riders, taking riders’ expertise seriously in decision-making, and replacing diesel-burning buses with electric buses, especially in communities disproportionately impacted by pollution. ~Green Energy Consumers Alliance
Failure to invest in public transportation is a failure to invest in people. Rhode Island has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the inequities that have for decades overburdened communities with harmful air pollution and a lack of mobility options. Policymakers have a clear choice: prioritize transit-oriented development connected to a robust, multimodal, sustainable public transportation network that supports access to good jobs, educational opportunities, and vital healthcare services, or…continue to focus investment on the polluting, inequitable, car-centric status quo. ~Acadia Center
Our streets and transportation systems are the veins and arteries that pump our community, economy, and family life. We believe that everyone has the right to safe, affordable, and convenient transportation, no matter how they travel, their identity or lived experience. Transit equity means acknowledging the racist past of transportation planning and fighting every day for a more inclusive and just mobility future. ~Providence Streets Coalition
As a coalition, Climate Jobs Rhode Island understands transit equity is multi-faceted. It means, access to reliable transportation creates bridges not barriers to healthcare, employement, civic engagement opportunities, and basic needs, for All Rhode Islanders. It means, all walkers, riders, cyclists, and transit workers are safe, no matter the transit system they’re utilizing or operating. It means, as we improve and expand transit service we start with the communites that have been historically underserved and overburdened by public transit and carbon emissions. Every Rhode Islander deserves access to reliable, safe, and affordable transportation. ~Climate Jobs Rhode Island
The Rhode Island Committee on Occupational Safety and Health supports the principles on transit equity set forth in the editorial submitted by RI Transit Rider Rochelle Lee and George Wiley Center’s Camilo Viveiros and published in the Providence Journal on February 3, 2022.
~RICOSH
Rhode Island Transit Riders 