Dispatch from a[n LA] conference on transportation and justice

Ansje Miller sends a dispatch from a conference on transportation and justice |
Grist Magazine | Dispatches | 21 Feb 2005: "...In the afternoon, BRU unveiled its plan for the future of transportation in Los Angeles. The plan creates an integrated three-tier bus network for fast, reliable, countywide access that includes a freeway bus network, metro rapid bus, and expanded neighborhood and general services. This plan will create 576 new buses, 50 shuttles, and -- impressively -- 2,351,000 new bus in-service hours each year.

Clayton Thomas-Mueller, the Indigenous Environmental Network's oil-and-gas campaigner, taught us how switching to compressed or liquid natural gas was destroying indigenous communities where the gas is extracted. Thomas-Mueller pointed out that 'indigenous peoples are hit first and hit the hardest.' As many environmentalists are supporting a move to this form of powering transportation, this is an important lesson in our struggle to save not only our own communities, but communities across the planet.

And that, I believe, is one of the ways that this conference was different from so many gatherings on the fate of our planet. As Eric Mann, director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center pointed out, 'The mainstream environmental movement wants less pollution in Iraq, less pollution in white communities.' Hopefully, the vision from this conference will create health, transportation, and economic justice for all of our communities. [...]"