Pittsburghers for Public Transit

THE PPT TRANSIT BILL OF RIGHTS

We believe that public transit is a human right. Bus lines are lifelines, creating healthy neighborhoods that are connected to affordable housing, employment, food, healthcare, and education. Transit is also a public good that is fundamental to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of our region. 

The public must be part of public transit. This means that we insist on democratic decision-making by transit riders and workers, and that public ownership of the service is critical. We are facing the threat of privatization of our public agencies and our public spaces. Privatization takes away resources necessary to address community needs, and reduces public accountability, transparency and participation.

We have a right to a public mass transit system that includes:

1. Safe, reliable, environmentally-sustainable, and affordable transit that is accessible to all.
2. Living wages, benefits, safe working conditions, and union rights for transit workers
3. Dedicated and sustainable funding for public transit.
4. Equitable distribution of transit costs with corporations paying their fair share.
5. Governance by transit riders and transit workers, with decision-making processes that center those that have the most at stake.
6. Transit that meets the needs of each community with no communities left out.

Pittsburghers for Public Transit is a transit rider and worker-led organization. We are creating a better transit system for everybody, for our city and our region, by organizing together as poor and working class people in a multi-racial movement for transit justice. 

The goals of Pittsburghers for Public Transit are:

1. To win tangible policy changes to materially improve people’s lives.
2. To develop a strong analysis of the broader political and economic systems that impact transit riders and workers. 
3. To build power and community across race and class lines by organizing for visionary and achievable solutions.

We believe that investing in public transit is essential to addressing our most pressing concerns around economic, environmental, and racial injustice. However, these investments must be thoughtful and conceived of through meaningful engagement with its primary constituents—the riders and transit operators. Process matters, because process informs outcomes, and transit planning from the top- down has long exacerbated existing inequalities. When we instead design a system that starts with transit riders and workers, we create outcomes that benefit everybody. Our lived experiences both using and running transit position us to best identify the problems and solutions that would meet our transportation needs. As an organization, PPT provides tools for us to collectively imagine and develop solutions to confront barriers, and then supports the organizing for these solutions. 

We build our member base by bus stop canvassing, through surveys of transit rider needs, and through engagement with community-based organizations, food pantries, churches and other community gathering spaces. Our members, who meet in weekly subcommittees, discuss and define our campaign goals, our strategy, and lead the implementation of much of our campaign work. Members vote for and fill the seats on our democratically-elected Board of Directors, which sets PPT's staff priorities, budget, and strategic plan. 

Pittsburghers for Public Transit has an access-centered culture founded on disability justice principles, and PPT staff and members are committed to an ongoing process of dismantling barriers to access and participation. We use a non-hierarchical, popular educational model, in which all members are teachers and learners, and in which all learners make decisions about what we learn and how we develop our shared learning. We also work closely with academics and other technical skills experts to develop research to support community-generated solutions.