January 15, 2010

BOSTON, MA – JANUARY 20, 2010 – Local band, Hot Molasses, is making waves with its music and its politics. Named after an environmental disaster that killed 21 people in Boston’s North End, the Molasses Flood of 1919, Hot Molasses does more than empty sloganeering. With the release of their Hot Molasses EP, this band puts its money where its mouth is.

December 17, 2009

Affected Communities Deliver Letter to US Embassy Demanding Real Solutions to Climate Crisis

COPENHAGEN – On the eve of President Obama’s arrival in Copenhagen to attend the fifteenth United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties, organizations representing communities affected by climate change from around the United States delivered a letter urging President Obama to put a stop to the United States acting as a major barrier to real solutions to climate change, and instead to actively advance the concerns of vulnerable and impacted communities in the Global South and at home in the United States. “Global South” is a term often used to describe the G77 + China, or developing countries, including India, Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, Kenya, and the Small Island Nations.

December 16, 2009

When: Thursday December 17, 2009, 12 noon, Copenhagen time
Where: American Embassy, Copenhagen, Dag Hammarskjolds Alle 24, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

Who: North American indigenous Delegation, Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, along with other grassroots groups from the United States will deliver a letter to President Barack Obama demanding that the United States take real, rights-based approaches to climate change and ecological debt.

December 15, 2009

BOSTON - Environmental and public interest groups across the continent applauded the announcement that a new Massachusetts waste plan will retain and strengthen the moratorium on increased incineration of municipal solid waste, and introduce new measures to reduce waste dramatically.

September 9, 2009

On the eve of the new school year, Boston-area youth have achieved a major improvement to public transportation by working with the Secretary of Transportation to extend the MBTA Student Pass from 8 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

July 2, 2009

Boston, MA – T Riders and advocates rallied before the MBTA Board Meeting today, asking the legislature to fully invest in a sustainable public transportation system. Despite approximately $160 million of new revenue through a sales tax increase, the MBTA is planning another round of fare increases and service cuts, the fourth since 2000.

“The MBTA's budget is like a leaking ship. The transportation reorganization bill and sales tax increase will fill some gaps, but if we don't plug all the holes, the T will still sink,” said T Riders Union (TRU) member Taisha O’Bryant.

March 9, 2009

Transit Advocates Look To Prevent Looming Fare Hikes and Service Cuts

Boston—With massive MBTA fare hikes and service cuts proposed for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), public transit advocates rallied in front of the State House to highlight the need for increased investments in public transportation.

Staging a "Bake Sale for the T," activists with the T Riders Union, MASSPIRG, the On The Move coalition, and other organizations hope to draw attention to the MBTA’s $8 billion debt and estimated $165 million budget deficit by selling cookies, brownies, muffins and other baked goods.

"We’re clearly not going to sell $165 million dollars worth of cookies," said Lee Matsueda of the T Riders Union. "But we hope to engage the public and lawmakers in why we need to address the T’s unsustainable finances."

Do MBTA bus improvements make their way on to the MBTA board of directors’ agenda? The T Riders Union (TRU) and the On the Move (OTM) Greater Boston Transportation Justice Coalition says not often enough. The group testified at today's MBTA board meeting to present five agenda items for board “approval”. Although only MBTA senior staff is supposedly able to propose agenda items for MBTA board meetings, TRU/OTM asked for more investment in bus service improvements.

ACE joined with a diverse group of environmental, planning, transportation, community, labor, business, industry and other advocacy organizations to form a Massachusetts Transportation Investment Coalition in response to the alarming findings recently released by the state’s Transportation Finance Commission.