The Transportation Equity Network is a national grassroots organization that fights for transportation equity. We organize to transform federal transportation and mass transit policy and funding to address the needs of the poor, the working class, the middle class, and people of color in regard to jobs, mass transit, and growth that is smart and equitable.

We mobilize affected people, local faith-based organizations, labor unions, and local and state governments in the home states and districts of key senators and House members, in coordination with DC-based advocacy on Capitol Hill.

Our Method

Unlike DC-centric national advocacy organizations, TEN's advocacy is 98% "field-based": we work in 22 states and hundreds of cities, in the home districts of senators and congressional representatives.

What We Want: The TEN Platform

1) Increased Access to Transportation-Related Jobs

• Require that 30% of work hours on large transportation-related projects be reserved for low-income people, ex-offenders, women, homeless people, and minorities.
• Double the federal highway dollars used for the recruitment, training, and retention of underrepresented workers in highway construction projects to a mandatory 1%, including transit and rail projects.
• Ensure quality job training opportunities by maximizing the use of registered apprentices on all transportation and transit projects.
• Require Community Workforce agreements to maximize the use of union labor.

2) Increased Funding for Mass Transit

• Provide transportation options for all by increasing support for mass transit.
• Allow public transit agencies to use part of their mass transit funding for operating expenses.

3) Increase Community Control over Transportation Planning and Funding

• Ensure that Metropolitan Planning Organizations and state Departments of Transportation, which make all local transportation/transit planning decisions and impact spending, are representative, responsive, and accountable to the public, and that they select projects with a goal of reaching equitable outcomes.

4) Require Smart AND Equitable Growth

Federal mass transit projects must be sustainable and address the needs of the poor, the working class, the middle class, and people of color by providing:

• Affordable and accessible mass transit that serves diverse communities;
• Affordable housing, particularly in "transit villages" – communities built around transportation hubs;
• Development that minimalizes demolition and relocation; and
• Development that connects with and improves existing mass transit.

What We Want from Congress and the Presidential Administration

1) Congress should pass the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2010.

2) Congress should pass a Funding Year 2010 Transportation Appropriation that includes transportation equity policies and sufficient funding.

3) The presidential administration should include transportation equity policies and sufficient funding in its 2011 Department of Transportation and Highway Trust Fund budget request.