Keep America Moving Background

A New National Partnership to Save our Green, Affordable Mass Transit Systems TWU of America * Amalgamated Transit Union * TWU Local 100 of Greater New York

• The Transport Workers of America
• Amalgamated Transit Union,
• The United Transportation Union,
• The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers,
• The International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
• The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

And Our Coalition Partners

• The Rainbow PUSH Coalition
• Transportation for America
• Working Families Party
• Sierra Club NYC
• WEACT
• (list in formation).

America’s mass transportation systems are in deep crisis. Every major system in America – from New York to San Francisco, Chicago to Atlanta, Boston to Miami – is under severe financial stress. Thousands of transit jobs and essential service and stable fares to the public are at risk. It’s not just a big city problem either. Systems serving our major suburbs, as well as our commuter railroads are all in financial turmoil. Mass transit is at the core of solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems. Transit is an essential service like police, fire and sanitation, and it is integral to our quality of life.

• Transit is an economic engine that fuels the economies of every major American population center. It brings commuters to work and shoppers to Main Street. And transit provides good, green jobs for drivers, conductors, operators, mechanics, maintainers, cleaners, engineers, and a whole raft of .org associated professions.
• With a national 10 percent unemployment rate, our devastated industrial sector could benefit greatly from a targeted Made in America initiative to build buses and subway cars in America.
• Transit is essential to America’s environmental goals of reducing greenhouse gases.
• Transit is a critical component in America’s campaign to reduce and eventually end its dependence on foreign oil.

We cannot allow our transit systems to crumble from financial neglect.

It is a national crisis, and therefore needs a national solution.

That’s what our new coalition – Keep America Moving – is about. We are a coalition of transportation industry workers, environmentalists, advocates and political leaders, who share one common goal: to provide KeepAmericaMoving.org green, affordable mass transit to millions of Americans who depend on it every day of their lives.

Keep America Moving has the support of every major transportation union. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, has embraced the cause as his own. And environmentalists all over America are embracing it.

Public opinion surveys* reveal that the American people strongly favor more funding for mass transit. More than four-in-five voters (82 percent) say that “the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses.” Fully 79 percent of rural voters agreed with the statement, despite much lower use of public transportation compared to Americans in urban areas.

America’s transportation priorities are changing rapidly. When our interstate highway system was set up, oil was cheap and climate change was undreamt of. Today, America faces skyrocketing fuel costs and the knowledge that dangerous climate change is just around the corner if we do not change our habits. Mass transit not only is a powerful solution to climate change concerns; it also tackles traffic congestion and pollution.

82% of federal transportation funding goes to our interstate highway system. Keep America Moving believes that funding priorities must change, with a greater proportion of federal dollars going to mass transit systems, with a mandate to not only fund capital purchases but also ongoing operating expenses.

Yet funding for mass transit in America today is static or declining. In Atlanta, 25% of all service is being cut. In Detroit, 25% of transit workers have been laid off in the past year. In Chicago, 1,100 transit workers got pink slips. New York City faces at least 1,000 layoffs. Severe budget cuts in New Jersey will likely result in a similar number of layoffs there. Everywhere you look in our country, financially strapped public transit systems are canceling routes and cutting hours of operation, while raising fares.

Keep America Moving believes that ensuring funding for mass transit is a governmental obligation. Americans agree. Two-thirds of those polled say that they “would like more transportation options so they have the freedom to choose how to get where they need to go.”

Re-allocating federal transportation funding toward mass transit is an ideas whose time has come. For transit workers, riders, environmentalists, and KEEP economists who want to see more productivity, it’s a win-win solution. AMERICA Let’s keep our economy moving. Mass transit provides green jobs, and is the engine that drives commerce, MOVING .org reducing our environmental footprint into the bargain.

for more information, email us.

Transportation for America, Future of Transportation National Survey (2010), http://t4america.org/resources/2010survey/