Transportation can unite people and bring them closer together, but it can just as easily divide. Millions of Californians - over a third of the population - aren't licensed to drive and must rely on other means of transportation to serve as a lifeline for access to jobs, services and health care. Whether it's trying to get expanded transit service or simply making the streets safer for kids walking to school, the lowest income Californians typically face the biggest obstacles and spend the most time and money in simply getting from point A to point B.

Urban buses and trains are the workhorses of California's public transit systems. They account for the vast majority of all California's transit ridership and they are patronized largely by low income residents and people of color. Yet they also are the first services to get cut when a recession hits or budgets get squeezed. Read some interesting facts about the public transit and social equity. 

The Transportation and Land Use Coalition first gathered a unique collection of environmental and social equity groups together to campaign for increased transit funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in 1997. They won an additional $375 million in their first campaign and have since issued numerous studies and launched several efforts around transportation as a social justice issue.