Class, climate, and the need for free transit

December is wet and bone-chilling in Seattle. So, imagine climbing from bed two hours early to catch three busses to work. Welcome to the reality of commuting in the wake of public transit cuts. In the dark of an early morning commute, a bus rider told me this horror story as I drove my electric trolley up Beacon Hill, where she works. “It could get worse,” she lamented. Her commuter train is a candidate for elimination because it’s “not profitable.”

I shake my head in dismay, yet we both know her plight isn’t unique. Public transit is in a world of hurt. Here, in Puget Sound, service to the north runs one-third the levels of 2008. And south, the service for blue-collar Tacoma is endangered. In King County, home of Microsoft billionaires and Amazon tax evaders, Metro yanks bus stops, eliminates routes, and cuts rest breaks for drivers to balance its budget.

Like public transit agencies across the U.S., Metro survives on regressive sales taxes, which plummet along with workers’ paychecks. Fares are 80 percent higher than before the Great Recession. Wealthy employers give their workers free passes or service on Wifi-equipped private busses. But Walmart associates and other low-wagers pay $2.50. The poorer you are, the more you pay.

Seattle pretends a liberal, green reputation. The Ride Free Area, covering the central business district, lent credence to that image. Until recently, homeless people rode free, alongside bankers, tourists, and baristas. The “RFA” reduced traffic jams and boarding the bus was a breeze. Then, in Sept. 2012, local officials axed the RFA. Supposedly this was to save money. I think it was more about privatization and the nationwide push to run public services like a business. Pricey security mushroomed. So did slick ad campaigns to promote bus-riding. The transit bureaucracy is growing, as are lines of stressed-out commuters waiting to board the “pay-as-you-enter” bus. Traffic is jammed. Tempers, road rage and car exhaust fumes are worse now that the RFA is gone.

Sadly, this is turning many taxpayers against public transit. The formula is familiar to those who work at public schools or the Post Office. If a public system works, break it through funding cuts and mismanagement.

Here in Seattle, the privatization and cuts tsunami is just hitting. From riders — er, customers — I hear it’s far worse elsewhere. Whole stretches of the U.S. have no public bus service at all. As bus coverage thins, so does the ridership of homeless, elderly and wheelchair-bound people. Where are they? Locked down at home or under a bridge? For the working poor, a change in jobs becomes a nightmare or a return to the old gas-guzzler, if that’s an option.


In short, society is hurtling backward, both economically and environmentally, at a time when forward motion is desperately needed. Heat-trapping pollution rose 3 percent last year and scientists are abandoning hope of limiting the rise in the earth’s temperature to 2 degrees Celsius — believed necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. Rising sea levels are drowning island countries like Tuvalu. Such facts call out for dramatic action, like massively expanding public transit and making it free. How to pay for it? For starters, nationalize the oil industry under workers control!

Some call this pie in the sky. But the dreamers are those who think society can continue on its present course. Imagine the pocketbook relief that free transit would give the working class. And the millions of tons of carbon dioxide it would eliminate.

Some counter that Americans won’t abandon their cars. But in 2008, before cuts and fare hikes shredded public transit, people gladly parked their cars as gas prices soared. Most people, given a choice, would rather save paradise and not put up another parking lot!

This isn't to suggest that free, expanded transit can be won without a radical mass movement. Such a project requires mobilizing millions of climate and class-conscious people to demand that politicians sacrifice the profits of energy goliaths, rather than the planet. It would mean calling out labor officials who refuse to dump the Democrats. For example, the Amalgamated Transit Union endorsed President Obama after he signed legislation the union called a “death blow” to public transit! This has to stop.

As the globe heats up and people scramble to pay their bills, the call for free, expanded transit will gain ground, especially if radicals raise the banner. Let transit workers and riders lead the way. For the sake of the planet and all people, it’s an idea whose time has come.

Originally published in the Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 34, No. 1, February-March 2013
www.socialism.com

Mobility is a human Right

Also appearing in the Freedom Socialist newspaper, Vol. 31, No. 3, June-September 2010

In 2008, when gas prices spiked, so did transit ridership, reaching 10.7 billion trips nationally. Hard times make this service even more essential to millions of people. So the U.S. government is expanding public transportation, right?
Wrong. Across the U.S., 80 percent of transit agencies are cutting service, hiking fares, or both. Moreover, cuts are hitting hardest the people with the least access to other ways of getting around.
New York City's transit system, the largest in the country, transports half the local populace every day. Faced with a $400 million shortfall, officials are raising fares, eliminating two subway routes and 34 bus lines, and cutting night-owl service, a lifeline to swing-shift workers. Students just beat back an attempt to eliminate free fares.
In Atlanta, where half of transit users don't own a car, authorities are cutting service 30 percent. The same is true in Milwaukee, where 70 percent of entry-level jobs are at least one hour away by bus from inner-city residents who need those jobs the most.
In San Francisco, senior, youth, and disabled passes are jumping from $5 to $20 per month. "It's unfair," says Terri Thorpe of fare hikes in Southern California. "They are going to stick it to the little blue-collar worker who can't afford a car."
But opposition to transit cuts is growing. In several cities, angry residents have packed public hearings; bus rider unions are escalating activity; transit worker unions are organizing protests.

Sticking it to the poor. Before the economy crashed, transit was already under-funded. But now, with state revenues plunging more than at any time since the Great Depression, matters are going from bad to catastrophic. Most big transit agencies are swimming in red ink.
A screwy federal funding formula is one big problem. For every transportation tax dollar, only 18 cents goes to transit. The other 82 cents goes to roads.
On top of this, rules dictate that agencies can use only 10 percent of federal funding for operations -- running the actual system. The other 90 percent must go to capital expenses -- construction of light rail lines, equipment purchases, etc. Who gains from this? Private for-profit companies that get the lucrative government contracts.
Another problem is regressive tax structures. Logically, big business should pay to fund a service that is so essential to the conduct of commerce. Transit gets labor to work, and frees up roads for freight.
But instead of being sufficiently taxed, Corporate America is getting a cheap ride. For example, many transit agencies generate extra money through "public-private partnerships," where service is designed around the needs of a specific private company or wealthy community.
Simultaneously, service is deteriorating for people who rely on transit most -- people of color, seniors, youth, people with disabilities, the unemployed and working poor. And thanks to a heavy reliance on regressive sales taxes to fund transit, those at the bottom of the economic ladder are paying more, while getting less.
On top of service cuts, agencies are saving money by cutting the pay and jobs of their ethnically diverse, highly unionized workforces. San Francisco officials want wage cuts. In New York, management is laying off workers. Similar scenarios are unfolding across the U.S.

Profits vs. people. So, if peaking ridership shows that people need public transit, why is government starving it? Because, like quality education, it doesn't generate profits. Indeed, a good transit system actually threatens the profits of GM, Shell, and other corporate heavyweights by offering an alternative to the single-occupancy vehicle.
Lip service to the "green economy" gets votes for politicians. But the deepening crisis of transit funding shows where their real allegiance rests -- squarely with big business. There's no point in looking for change from either Democrats or Republicans. Look for it where it has come from historically: a working class that is in motion, organizing for change.

Mobility is a human right. And public transit unions are stepping into leadership of the fight. Recently, in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities, the Amalgamated Transit Union, Transportation Workers Union, and United Transportation Union rallied to demand more funds for operations. These unions are also starting to ally with riders.
Los Angeles provided a model in 2000, when the Bus Riders Union representing mostly low-paid Latino service workers defended predominantly Black and Latino drivers striking over pay and conditions. By the strike's end, drivers were protesting fare hikes - a big issue for their riders.
This alliance broke the pattern of some transit workers viewing poor riders as "freeloading," and some riders blaming "high-paid" transit workers for fare hikes. These attitudes buy into the reactionary mindset that public services should pay for themselves, and let politicians off the hook. Public transit will never pay for itself at the farebox. And why should it? Transit is a public good and environmental necessity that frees up land and resources. This is how taxes should be used.
Transit unions have an historic opportunity to unite with riders and fight for transit as a human right that should be available and accessible to all.
For many people it is a service as essential to life as shelter. Yet as long as profits dictate priorities, it is in constant jeopardy. Fortunately, activism to save public transit is alive, and union muscle could give it legs.
In Portland, a riders' union is publicizing good alternatives to transit cuts. They include: thin the ranks of top-heavy management; redirect tax dollars from wars and bank bailouts to transit; tax the rich.
In Atlanta, protesters used creative tactics to oppose transit cuts, marking vehicles on reduced routes with large red X's. Imagine campaigns like these connecting with the fight to save public education and other basic services!
The U.S. can afford free quality transit for all. Winning it will require building a movement that leaves no passenger behind.

Linda Averill, a union bus driver in Seattle, WA, can be reached at LindaEAverill@peoplepc.com