Rediscover the DC Transportation Equity Network
The Blossom Bus! by Joe Flood licensed under Creative Commons.
The DC Transportation Equity Network (DC TEN) has a brand new homepage! The DC TEN’s new website will serve as a resource for coalition members, policymakers, transit riders, and other community organizations.
As the policy officer at GGWash, I coordinate the activities of the DC TEN in consultation with the TEN’s Steering Committee. Now that we have a home online, I’d like to share what we’ve been up to the last few years, and what to expect in the coming months.
In 2020, GGWash committed to do more to emphasize equity and sustainability in our work around land use, housing, and transportation issues. Early that same year, we joined several direct-service, advocacy, and labor organizations to create the DC Transportation Equity Network.
DC TEN logo. Design by Schuyler Mobley. 
Since then, the DC TEN has served as a forum for a cross-sector coalition of organizations to advocate for policies that rectify the misallocation of public goods in favor of personal automobiles over all other modes of transportation. This misallocation has been to the detriment of people with low incomes, Black and Brown communities, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. The TEN works to advance a vision of a connected city where everyone can reliably get to destinations affordably, safely, and in a dignified manner.
The strength of the DC TEN comes from its membership. Some of our member organizations are directly involved in the transportation space, including our newest member, ATU Local 689, which represents over 15,000 transit workers in the Washington region. Others are not directly connected to the transportation space. Together, we bring an intersectional perspective that centers District residents disproportionately harmed by a historic lack of reliable, frequent, and affordable transportation options.
Our membership includes:
- Washington Area Bicyclist Association
- DC Families for Safe Streets
- MedStar Washington Hospital Center
- DC Primary Care Association
- HIPS
- Washington Interfaith Network
- Disability Rights DC
- Friends of the DC Streetcar
- Citizens Climate Lobby DC
- ATU Local 689
- Greater Greater Washington
Through testimony and roundtable discussions with the DC Council’s Transportation and the Environment Committee, we supported the Metro for DC Amendment Act of 2021, the Electric Bicycle Rebate Program Amendment Act of 2023, and the STEER Amendment Act of 2023, just to name a few. We’re active in Metro’s Better Bus Network Redesign process and providing feedback to the Vision Zero Office on what we think needs to change to make DC’s dangerous roads safer. The TEN also coordinates with other transportation equity advocacy organizations around the country through the National Campaign for Transit Justice.
Benito Pérez, Transportation for America’s Policy Director, and Sarah Kline, Principal Director for the federal government on the WMATA Board of Directors, share how transit is funded in DC and the Washington region at the Transit Equity Day teach-in. Image by the author. 
On top of working with policymakers and transportation planners, the DC TEN organizes events and campaigns, too.
We organized DC’s participation in the first-ever National Week Without Driving, highlighting the experiences of nearly 38% of DC residents and roughly 9% of US households who don’t or can’t drive.
In honor of Transit Equity Day this year, we partnered with Transportation for America, Citizens Climate Lobby DC, and Sierra Club DC to host a teach-in on how transit is funded in our region, and the role the federal government does (or doesn’t) play in funding transit agencies like WMATA. The teach-in culminated in a letter-writing campaign to thank Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for cosponsoring the Stronger Communities Through Better Transit Act, which would provide $80 billion over four years in federal funding to improve frequency and reliability of transit services nationwide.
This year, we will continue growing our membership, connecting diverse sectors through advocacy on policies that advance transportation equity in DC. We will support policies that improve bus service and reliability, meaningfully advance Vision Zero goals, and overall prioritize dignity, convenience, and affordability for transit riders and active transportation users.
If you’re interested in learning more about our work, please check out the DC TEN’s new website, or get in touch with me at khall [at] ggwash [dot] org!