By Bakari Height, LNS Transit Organizer

Earlier this month, LNS wrapped up one of LNS’s most visible events — Transit Equity Day. Transit Equity Day is a national day-of-action where many local transit advocates, environmental justice organizations, and labor unions come together to increase awareness of the vast amount of transit inequities within their transit system – as well as their solutions. The LNS website featured over 30 actions across the nation for the February 4th event, which is the birthday of Rosa Parks, the fearless leader who stood up to the segregation bussing laws in the 1950s. LNS has added its own spin on it within recent years with a two-hour livestream on YouTube. The replay can be played here.

This year’s live stream featured many groups from every part of the country such as California, Texas, New York, and even Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  One conversation with a local ATU member detailed an ongoing strike in suburban DC and how the public can support their campaign. Additional livestream topics included disability rights, Equity on Amtrak, school bus transportation, and a new threat to public transit known as “Predatory Microtransit”. We even featured a reel from a transit equity group in Australia!

These conversations fuel even more project ideas and methods of building support for climate justice through focusing on one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions – tailpipes from gasoline-powered vehicles.  Public transportation is severely underfunded, but could be the great solution to decreasing carbon emissions, alleviating traffic congestion, providing jobs for many building trades and transit workers, and serving as the setting for affordable housing. There are many intersections that public transit can make, and the Transit Equity Network will explore those through upcoming panels and livestream discussions on their new YouTube channel – Transit Equity Network.