Coalition Calls on Metro to Disinvest in Policing and Invest in BIPOC Communities

The Los Angeles County Electric Bus and Truck Coalition’s mission and purpose is to collectively advocate for an electric future that prioritizes the environmental health and economic well-being of BIPOC and other communities that disproportionately suffer from fossil-fueled air pollution. We work on collective, holistic, structural solutions to the unequal distribution of clean air and family-sustaining jobs. Our specific campaigns have targeted transit, refuse, port truck, and school bus electrification, all with a foundational demand for community-based jobs and community-based emissions improvements.

Today, as we are witnessing a global groundswell of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and new societal acknowledgement of the unequal burdens inflicted on black communities, we want to be clear on where our Coalition stands: we stand with the advocates who are demanding actionable, structural change from the institutions that uphold white supremacy. We stand with them in this fight for restorative justice and we want to ensure that our environmental and economic justice campaigns achieve actionable, structural, change for black people, as well as other indigenous and people of color.

Our electrification work means we have long engaged in fights for better transit overall; so today, we are using our personal tools and strengths to advocate for transit justice in ways that meet the needs of this current moment. In the last several weeks, Metro engaged in active harm by cutting off basic service while also supporting LAPD’s arrest and transport of protesters. As a first step, we have submitted the following letter to the Metro Board, and we are looking for ways to ensure there is real change that meets the real needs of Metro’s ridership and broader community.