A broad coalition of environmental, civil rights and community organizations announced today that they have been engaged in a dialogue with federal officials about the non-compliance of the MBTA with a key Civil Rights law and that they intend to file a formal federal administrative complaint with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. Secretary Slater, who will be in Cambridge on January 18 for a conference on livable communities, has stated that one of his highest priorities is addressing violations of civil rights laws by local agencies that receive federal transportation funds. Boston Branch President Leonard C. Alkins. The experiences of communities of color and low-income communities in Greater Boston strongly suggest that this mandate is not being met in the distribution of public transit. Communities like Roxbury, Dorchester and Chelsea are dependent on buses for transportation.
Service is unreliable at best.
Buses are overcrowded and often late, and they pollute the air with dirty diesel exhaust in neighborhoods where the asthma hospitalization rates are five to six times the state average. They are ready to let decision-makers know that they are sick and tired of waiting in the cold rain, without shelter for late, overcrowded dirty diesel buses. They are ready to fight the transit racism which has left them out in the cold. In light of the lack of an FTA decision to immediately commence a formal investigation of the MBTA's Title VI record the coalition now intends to file a formal administrative complaint with FTA's boss, Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. When the MBTA fails our communities of color by providing them with inadequate service and papers over this failure with deficient reports to the federal government, and the responsible federal agency does not immediately launch an investigation, we must go to a higher level and file a complaint with Secretary Slater.