[IMAGE]MARTA-2.jpg[/IMAGE]To say that 2010 has not been a kind year to transit would be an understatement. With all the state budget cuts, from California to Missouri to New York, it hasn't appeared that many elected officials are sympathetic to, or aware of, the surge in demand for public transportation — nearly paralleling the onset of the recession, with funding shrinking all the while.

Industry professionals have countless stories about budgets being obliterated and crucial services going away, with the future of transit funding seeming pretty dire at the beginning of the year.

Still, supporters fought harder than ever to keep public transportation going. The recession has brought about a standout year for transit advocacy groups, with rallies across the U.S. this spring. The biggest success story this year was found in St. Louis.

A victory for transit

Dianne Williams, director of communications, Metro St. Louis (Metro), says that transit advocacy groups were crucial to the win in April on St. Louis County's Proposition A - the half-cent sales tax for public transit — because they were able to take tactics that Metro legally couldn't, such as shore up support for taxes or tell citizens how to vote.

Advocates were not as lucky in November 2008, when a similar measure failed. This time, though, there was a groundswell of support when the city was faced with profound service cuts.

"I think the community's need for transit became very apparent and, for many, reached a critical place where they felt like they had to do something," Williams says. "For those who sat on the side and watched last time, I think more people said, 'I must be involved.'"

Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT), an organization that leads advocacy efforts to expand light rail in the St. Louis region, began its mission to introduce Metro to the St. Louis metropolitan area more than a decade ago. The organization helped other communities set up similar grassroots organizations, and partnered with labor, church and student organizations. "Together, they really did a good job of involving their audiences," Williams says.

"The public was aware that their votes [for service cuts] had real negative consequences on the region," says Tom Shrout, CMT executive ­director.

The service cuts that had to be made, at nearly 40 percent, were staggering. Bus lines serving the outer ring suburbs received substantially less service, and train headways on each line went from 10 minutes to 15 minutes, which resulted in jammed trains and over-crowding, Shrout says.

What was critical to CMT's success was that non-riders suddenly realized they were affected. Many employers hadn't been aware of how many of their employees commuted by transit and how the cuts impeded their ability to get to work.

Shrout points to John Nations, the Mayor of Chesterfield, a St. Louis suburb, who oversaw the day-to-day operation of the campaign. Nations recognized that his community, an outer ring suburb, would potentially be negatively affected if transit service went away. "It wasn't so much his constituency getting to jobs in town as it was people getting to jobs in his community from the more urban parts of the city," Shrout says.

CMT launched a grassroots education campaign. "Advance St. Louis" was the campaign created to ask for citizens' votes.

Because of CMT's not-for-profit status as a charitable organization, its campaign couldn't say 'vote yes,' but it talked about the benefits of transit. That resonated with St. Louis County voters, Shrout says. CMT also formed a coalition of organizations called the Greater St. Louis Transit Alliance, comprised of about 50 environmental, business, labor, religious and community groups, and college students. "They provided the bulk of the volunteers. Ninety-five percent of the phone banking and door-to-door outreach was done by [them]," Shrout explains.

CMT conducted a $450,000, four-week educational campaign using television, radio, and bus shelter ads and billboards for six weeks ahead of the vote. The theme was, "Some of us ride it. All of us need it," and said to voters, "A lot of people that you may not think about use transit, even if you haven't been on a bus or train for several years," Shrout says.

The Advance St. Louis campaign did all the "Vote Yes" advertising. Additionally, Metro did a lot of public outreach about long-range plans, letting the public know what could happen if they voted yes, including restoration of service, a possible expansion of the light rail system and the potential for bus rapid transit routes.

Many agency workers volunteered their vacation time to take part in the campaign. Along with them, other organizers used their off time to make phone calls using the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) phone bank. Organizers distributed flyers and canvassed neighborhoods on weekends. "I took a day off and went to a school [with] a table of information. When I got there, there were kids walking around with buttons that said, 'Support Metro,'" Williams says.

Typically, the April vote for St. Louis County would receive a turnout of about 15 percent, Shrout says. The group's efforts — in particular, those of college students who did the bulk of the voter registration drives — bumped it up to slightly more than 20 percent. The fact that advocates had lost very narrowly on similar measures in 1997 and 2008, and the previous transit tax ballot initiative was passed nearly two decades ago in 1994, made it a major victory.

Before October, CMT did polling, which showed about 53 percent of voters supported the proposition. Experts claimed that support wasn't high enough to win a tax referendum campaign, since 'yes' voters tend to fall away as the campaign progresses, Shrout recalls. During the seven-week campaign, it picked up 10 points, winning by 63 percent. The 2008 campaign started in the same spot, and ended up with 48 percent.

As a result, service is currently being restored. In June, about 20 bus routes were enhanced. As of August, 53 additional routes either gained more frequency or were extended. "We got a temporary, one-time emergency appropriation from the state of Missouri and a lot of service came back then," Williams explains.

Had Proposition A not passed, the system would probably be half the size it had been in 2008. The routes that were completely cut came back with state money. However, they would've gone away again last August, possibly for good, without the aid of the new sales tax, which is expected to generate about $75 million per year in St. Louis County. "I don't think anybody would have tried again," Williams says. "When the measure in 2008 failed, very few people thought that there was any chance of it coming back 18 months later. But the folks who decided they wanted to be part of this just took up the banner and said, 'Let's try to get it done,'" Williams says.

Shrout adds, "It was a unique campaign for St. Louis because normally, when campaigns have been waged in the past, [members of the] business community would write checks and hire professionals, and everyone else would sit back and see what happens. That certainly wasn't the model this time. It won because a lot of non-traditional volunteers got involved."

[PAGEBREAK]Action taken nationwide

April was a good month for making elected officials and the public wake up to the realities of transit's need for support, with Transportation Equity Network (TEN) being crucial to that effort. Started with 10 groups approximately 10 years ago, the St. Louis-based organizers have since grown into a grassroots network of more than 350 community organizations - faith-based, transit, senior citizens, smart growth groups, disability rights, civil rights and environmental justice groups — in 41 states with six part-time and full-time employees on staff. The network's mission places an emphasis on looking out for lower income people and civil rights and takes on transportation issues with that focus.

TEN held a "Save Transit!" day of action on April 20. During the week of April 20 to 28, hundreds of members of the TEN and their allies in 11 cities held a series of memorial services, rallies and other actions in hopes of resurrecting public transit in their ­communities.

In Atlanta, on April 20, red Xs were placed on Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) buses and trains to illustrate how drastically service would be reduced without swift action. In Washington, D.C., the Partnership for Renewal in Southern and Central Maryland and local Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) members held a pray-in with personal testimonies and songs about the need for transit.

Los Angeles' Bus Riders Union, Move L.A., the California Public Interest Research Group and the Natural Resources Defense Council rallied for federal transit operations funding.

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., members of ISAIAH, a non-profit coalition of 90 congregations, conducted a phone-a-thon asking their congressional representatives to support emergency transit funding.

The Week of Action continued through April 28, with rallies by TEN member groups in San Francisco; St. Louis; and Kansas City, Mo. The groups pledged their participation in a nationwide effort to restore service and avoid future cuts and fare hikes by supporting federal legislation, S. 3189, which would provide hundreds of millions of dollars for transit operations around the U.S.

Laura Barrett, executive director, says that many of TEN's members looked at the impending reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU, and thought it was time to let policy makers know about some of the group's local work and its plans to take its successful local models to the national level.

"It got national attention and was really exciting. The cities...all had the same message: Our transit systems are going broke. They have to be funded at the federal level," Barrett says.

Because many of the organizations in TEN's network are faith-based, they chose the theme of "resurrecting transit" and staging the actions near the Easter holiday.

"We've been concerned about more money for transit systems, knowing what a lot of them are going through, and increasing the civil rights protections for low-income bus riders, making sure that where there's transit or highways built that they are considered," Barrett adds.

Since the "Save Transit!" Week of Action, TEN has built relationships with key Congress members, including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.), among others. In particular, Barrett says, Rep. Carnahan has been interested in ensuring adequate funds to operate the St. Louis Metrolink. Rep. Cummings is focusing on workforce development for the impending Maryland MTA Red Line light rail project.

Show, don't tell

In the Atlanta region, various organizations have been looking for years to expand regional transit and gain more transportation funding. They came closer to that goal with the state legislature this past April after participating in TEN's national "Save Transit!" rally.

Like St. Louis Metro, Dr. Beverly Scott, MARTA's GM/CEO, says turning to advocacy groups was crucial to convey the agency's situation to the public and get support. "I can do an awful lot in terms of information and education, but I can't be the one to run a campaign," Scott says. "A [transit agency] can be extremely helpful and proactive, but these are public tax dollars. It is not the business of a public agency to run a campaign for a referendum." However, she points out that an agency can be a catalyst and gather local and regional support.

Like many transit agencies, MARTA had financial sustainability issues for years before the economic downturn. "The local sales tax is key to us and, when I walked in the door here three years ago, my projections from the city of Atlanta would have been $411 million for last year. That dropped [by] $186 million. When you start having revenues that are off by $100-some billion on an annualized basis and there's no big relief in sight, you've got a problem," Scott says.

MARTA started on the road to advocacy work nearly two years ago when the agency was awarded a grant from American Public Transportation Association (APTA) to participate in a boot camp on transit advocacy coalition building. MARTA pulled together a wide range of business, community, clergy and traditional transit advocacy groups. "In Atlanta, you have a lot of different groups, — environmental, transit advocacy, disability, business — but most of the time there's not a connecting of the dots. [We united] many voices," Scott says. Over a four-month period, several different organizations met in the MARTA board room and banded together under umbrella group ACT NOW!

The group gathered resources and began working together. "Meanwhile, we didn't even know about TEN. Here we were, talking about what we were trying to do in Atlanta, only to find that we knew other people that were having the same issues," Scott says. TEN also had connections with ABLE, an Atlanta area, faith-based coalition. "Most of it is about organization and lack thereof. We don't talk to each other. Everyone thinks they have to start their own, brand-new [group]," Scott adds. "Add that to being in an industry that's always been so infrastructure-driven that we haven't put the dollars into marketing, imaging and messaging, because that's [considered] wasteful."

Scott recalls last year, when elected officials were telling her that people would not understand the gravity of MARTA's financial picture until the agency shut down. "That is not a responsible public measure to take," Scott says. "I'm looking at the faces of thousands of people that have come to our public meetings, saying 'If there's no MARTA service, I don't have a job.'"

At that point, Scott realized that MARTA needed to find the most impactful image to give riders a visual of what it would mean if 33 percent of bus service and 20 percent of rail service was cut, which still wouldn't even balance the budget. At a low cost, volunteers from its partners, including T4America and Rail-Volution, Reconnecting America, APTA, management and labor, and the ATU worked on the messaging effort.

On April 20, MARTA painted red Xs on one-third of its buses and trains to illustrate what would disappear. Supporters and employees marched on the state capitol to demand assistance. No pay or overtime was offered for participating. ACT NOW! distributed material at the rally. Rev. Jesse Jackson joined the rally as part of ATU's work with keepamericamoving.org.

The timing of the rally was serendipitous: During the last week of the Georgia state legislative session, which typically concludes at the end of April, MARTA found out about TEN's plans for the National Day of Action.

Afterward, during the last week of the session, MARTA ended up winning key legislation, Georgia SB 277, The Transportation Investment Act of 2010. For the first time in state history, it calls for a one-percent statewide tax for transportation, and includes transit eligibility for capital and operations, Scott explains. The vote will take place in July 2012. "We asked for that flexibility on financial restrictions unique to MARTA for years," she adds.

The legislation gave MARTA the ability to make roughly half the cuts that the board originally thought would be needed. Still, that's not without pain, Scott concedes. "We still reduced some 700 positions. We cut $80 billion in costs. We've still got furloughs, we don't give raises, but the bottom line is, we have been able to lay out a three-year plan." She believes the agency can make it to the July 2012 election without having to announce that it's getting ready to close its doors.

"Some of the same people in organizations that we deal with, fledgling, local groups like ABLE, were part of the TEN, but we are all typically focused on what we're doing in our own little fishing hole," Scott observes. "That's much different now. That network is doing a lot of connecting and facilitating."

Scott adds that the key to helping transit advocates be successful is getting information out in ways that the public can grasp. Show them what it will do for them in terms of economic, community, environmental and educational development, she advises.

[PAGEBREAK]T4America survey: Americans willing to buy more transit

In March, Washington, D.C.-based Transportation for America (T4America), a campaign that gathers resources and like-minded groups to organize for better transportation options, released survey results that showed overwhelming American support for increased access to public transportation and safe walking and biking.

Integral to the poll's findings was strong support for increased transportation options and accountability for future spending across geographic areas and political lines. Eighty-two percent of voters agreed with the statement "The United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system that includes rail and buses." This view is held by an overwhelming majority of voters in every part of the country. Even in rural America, 79 percent of voters agreed with the statement, despite much lower use of public transportation compared to urban Americans.

 A strong majority of voters indicated that current funding levels for public transportation are insufficient, with 58 percent saying more should be allocated toward bus, rail and other services. The desire to increase the amount of funding allocated to options beyond roads and highways was shared across demographic, geographic and political lines.

The survey also found that Americans of every political affiliation and income level believe that an expanded system of reliable public transportation is needed to ensure that everyone - regardless of age or income - has access to jobs and necessities.

The survey was conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates, a Democratic firm, and Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The survey was co-released with Washington, D.C.'s Smart Growth America.

The survey reflects heavy interest in getting more public transit and a willingness to concentrate more spending on that over highways, and spending more than in the past. So, how do we still have this disconnect between Americans wanting more transportation spending and how the funds are actually spent?

A large part of the problem concerning spending at the federal level is inertia, says David Goldberg, senior communications manager, T4America. "The federal transportation program was really created in 1956 to build the interstate highway system, and transit came as an add-on later. It's astonishing how many people still call it the 'Highway Bill'," he says. "Transportation is very rarely ranked at the federal level as a top tier issue with national security, the economy, the deficit and health care."

Additionally, as Goldberg sees it, people haven't had much opportunity to raise their voices. "There has been a divide that spoils the process. Those that feel they have a stake in the bill - primarily the industry folks - pay careful attention and lobby hard to keep the proportions that they have. One of the reasons we're organizing [is to] convey to Congress: 'Hold on, you should check with the people and see what the needs really are in 21st century America, before reauthorizing along the same policies.'"

Still, T4America has found it easy to organize people on behalf of transit reform. Goldberg says that 2010 has been a year of mixed blessings for transit supporters. The dire financial situation facing transit systems across the U.S. has led to an organizing surge unlike any seen in a while, he says.

 "There's a hunger out there for people to be a voice for transit. When we send out alerts to our network and ask them to contact  legislators or elected officials, we get a very strong response," Goldberg adds. "We are especially seeing this among younger riders, which I think bodes well for the future."

[PAGEBREAK]

Chicago Bike advocates strike BRT alliance

Over the last two years, Chicago's Active Transportation Alliance, a 25 year-old, 6,000-member, non-profit advocacy organization working to improve conditions for bicycling, walking and transit, has expanded its mission to embrace walking and transit in addition to bicycling and changed its name from the Chicago Bicycle Federation.

The organization is still new to the transit world, but in the past two years, has forged closer relationships with local transit partners, Chicago Regional Transportation Authority, Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Pace and Metra. Its "Chicagoland Car-Free Day" campaign, held in September, was one of its biggest transit efforts and partnerships to date.

The Active Transportation board of directors charged recently hired executive director, Ron Burk, with the task of plotting the organization's path for its transit work, says Ethan Spotts, director of marketing, Active Transportation Alliance.

The organization recently received $55,000 in funding from Chicago's The Boeing Co. as a grant to work on bus rapid transit (BRT) advocacy efforts. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and CTA also have received funding for BRT projects in Chicago. "Originally, our grant was scoped out to convince decision makers to bring BRT to Chicago, but because that money came in, it looks more likely that it's going to happen. We're revising the scope of the grant, but we want to partner with CTA and CDOT on marketing, promoting and educating elected officials about BRT and engaging the communities that the projects will be happening in once that's determined," Spotts explains.

In addition, Active Transportation aims to paint a bigger picture of what BRT could be in Chicago by finding out what elements will work best for the city. "We can [then] build excitement about creating a really robust system that includes priority signalization, designated bus lanes, pre-paid boarding and bike facilities that are incorporated into that system."

The group is looking to integrate the bike component into BRT systems in Chicago, as much as possible, Spotts adds. "The CTA has a pretty expansive train system. BRT in other cities has been used to help make additional connections in the train system by using a different prioritization for buses, and a different way of running them. That's why we're excited about BRT and also incorporating the bicycle facility element into it."

Currently, Active Transportation is working on the initial partnerships with CTA and CDOT. "We know they have a lot to figure out on what's possible and how this is going to happen. We're meeting with both agencies to find out where we can help," Spotts says. "We can help connect [our members] and the public with agencies like CDOT and CTA. We have a really exciting niche that we can fit into and hopefully add to BRT."

[PAGEBREAK]

Transportation Alternatives stirs up 'Rider Rebellion'

New York City's Transportation Alternatives (TA), founded in 1973, has been actively organizing transit since 2003. Wiley Norvell, communications director, says that the "Rider Rebellion" campaign urges transit passengers to speak up.

In August, organizers went to train and bus stations to get riders to sign a "Bill of Rights." At press time, more than 200 people signed the document. The Rider Rebellion campaign aims to mobilize and educate riders, and connect them to the people who hold the power and the purse strings and, ultimately, will be the ones to increase or decrease funding for the public transit system. By signing, riders call on their elected officials and candidates running for office to endorse it as well.

Included in the Bill of Rights' 10 points are: Equally reliable, affordable and efficient transit; fare hikes that are only enacted as a last resort when all other funding options have been exhausted; and stable funding for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) from the state and city in good economic times and bad.

Norvell explains that in the debate over public transit, several interests weigh in — workers, unions, real estate, developers, banks and politicians running for re-election. "In all that noise, the riders' voice is probably the meekest and least influential," Norvell says. "The day-to-day experiences of commuters and their needs often take a back seat."

Now, when governments are slashing spending across the board, transit riders can't afford to be quiet and put up with longer wait times or more expensive service. "If they don't stand up the same way teachers and parents [do] when a school closes, our transit system will continue to get the short end of the stick," Norvell says. "In a city like New York, where 7.5 million trips are made on public transit every day, that can be devastating."

TA hopes the campaign will make riders more aware, connected and politically-minded when they go to the ballot boxes in November. "They'll [have] public transportation on their mind. They'll respond to candidates that do well by the transit system and will be critical of those who short-change it," Norvell says.

 Additionally, Norvell acknowledges the challenges the MTA is dealing with and has harsh words for state politicians, who, as he sees it, exacerbate the problem. "There's a lot of chastising of the MTA and the management. In all honesty, they're doing fairly well with a very bad hand," he says.

He adds that despite the policy disagreements TA has with the MTA, the agency's $800 million deficit is not entirely of their own making. "We have elected officials in Albany who voted to rip $143 million out of the MTA budget, necessitating huge service cuts this past year — the biggest cuts in modern memory. If any new funding measures are going to come to our rescue, like congestion pricing, it has to happen in Albany. It's not within the MTA's breadth to see those measures enacted." Twice in the last three years, Norvell adds, similar measures have died in Albany.  "We recognize that there's a very important responsibility that state legislators have with respect to funding transit. We don't feel in all honesty they've been living up to [that]," Norvell says.

Norvell also points out that for people who've spent the last 20 years working to make the public transit system bigger and better, to have to figure out how to devote resources to diminishing it is difficult. "We respect a lot of our colleagues at the MTA. We're all ultimately working toward the same end," he says.

 

About the author
Nicole Schlosser

Nicole Schlosser

Former Executive Editor

Nicole was an editor and writer for School Bus Fleet. She previously worked as an editor and writer for Metro Magazine, School Bus Fleet's sister publication.

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