Research & Reading List: Transportation Is a Human Right

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Season 1, Episode 116:  Transportation Is a Human Right

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Description: The U.S. transportation system has long been rife with inequality, making it more difficult for low-income people, people of color, and people with disabilities to get where they need to go. When Covid19 hit, ticket revenues shrank, workers got sick, and services were cut, even as low-income “essential workers” disproportionately depended on public transit to get to work as other Americans did, to get to grocery stores, food pantries and health services. In rural communities where public transit was already sparse and unreliable, owning a car literally became a matter of life and death. In this episode, Laura considers the history; a century ago, fears of a communicable disease helped turn the tide against public transportation for decades. Today the climate crisis requires that we not brand public transport unsafe for another generation. What alternatives exist? And what if we consider not just new ‘modes’ of transport and new infrastructure, but the principle of “mobility”. Could new technology and better information sharing solve our transportation challenges? Laura looks at existing models.

Guests:

• Sajaa Ahmed, Director, Ulster County, NY Department of Transportation UCAT

• Román Partida-López, Environmental Equity Legal Counsel, The Greenlining Institute

• Lateefah Simon, President, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors

• Darryl Young, Director, Summit Foundation's Sustainable Cities Program

• John Conway, Sullivan County, NY Historian

• Tim Wright, Train Conductor, The Stourbridge Line, Honesdale, Pennsylvania

• Peggy Wright, Train Conductor, The Stourbridge Line, Honesdale, Pennsylvania

Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:

• Climate Strike / Auto Strike: Same Struggle, Same Fight

• Designing a Future Where Everyone Counts, Jutta Treviranus

• Extreme Cities: Ground Zero for Climate Change

• Felix Kreuzig Comments on New York Cities New Mode of Transportation

Related Articles and Resources:

• An Equity-First Approach to Congestion Pricing by Hana Creger, GreenLining.org

• Transit system service cuts proposed in Congress's backyard elicit calls for more funding by Justin George, Lori Aratani & Meagan Flynn,  Washington Post

• Cleaning New York Subways, Immigrant Workers Find Abuse by Luis Feliz Leon, The New American Prospect

• Over 30 members of Congress support equal funding for public transit and highways in a resolution led by Reps. García, Pressley, and Jeffries by Jenna Fortunati,  t4America.org

• Stimulus Funding Needed for Mass Transit Systems Nationwide to Avoid Service Cuts by Scott Reeves, News Week

• ‘Existential Peril’: Mass Transit Faces Huge Service Cuts Across U.S. by Christina Goldbaum & Will Wright, New York Times

Featured ‘Music in the Middle’ of the Podcast:

“Ride Ride” by Alexis P. Suter Band from their compilation “Hat Trick, The Essential Recordings” Listen and Read More