Keep the Lowcountry Working, Protect Public Transit and Affordable Housing

Save Lowcountry Transit & Affordable housing, Contact Your Representatives

Charleston, SC, USA- Starting in February 4, (the Birthday of Rosa Parks, Feb. 4) we will  mobilize workers and employers in the region to motivate our representatives in the US House and Senate to protect local public transit service and future plans like the LCRT and associated Transit Oriented Development efforts to build transit serviced affordable housing within our urban core. This effort is essential to the long term survival of the Lowcountry's Tourism, Hospitality, F&B, Educational and Medical Care (including elder care) economic sectors.

Image, Right, Remount Road & Rivers Station on the planned LCRT

In January Donald Trump and Elon Musk attempted to cut the federal grant funding which keeps CARTA, LINK and Tel-A-Ride operating.

Please call your federal representatives today and demand that Lowcountry Public Transit be funded and protected in Trump and Musk's "big bill."

Rep. Nancy Mace (202) 225-3176 Mace website contact page

Rep. James Clyburn (202) 225-3315 Clyburn website contact page

Sen. Lindsey Graham (202) 224-5972 Graham website contact page

Sen. Tim Scott Phone (202) 224-6121 Scott website contact page

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Mobility, Housing and Prosperity for a Future Lowcountry

Map of Planned Lowcountry Rapid Transit System

Image, left - Current route plan for the Lowcountry Rapid Transit System (LCRT) See  a video on the LCRT

Trumps same cuts would end plans for the Lowcountry Rapid Transit System and affordable housing efforts. The courts temporarily ordered Trump not to shut down funding previously approved by Congress. Trump and Musk are determined to implement these cuts, called for in the project 2025 document. Given the chaotic nature of breakneck national politics, we'll have to refer you to the news for what is happening today. 

This report from Transportation for America has a map showing possible cuts by state and congressional district with over 146 million dollars in cuts expected in SC. https://t4america.org/2025/02/05/unflooding-the-zone-what-do-the-trump-administrations-latest-actions-signal-for-transportation/

All these sectors have and will continue to need large numbers of service workers who struggle with a rising cost of living here, bottomed on skyrocketing prices for housing within our urban core. Downtown Charleston, Mount Pleasant and North Charleston once housed many of these workers within walking distance or a very short bus ride from their jobs. Gentrification is rapidly consuming the affordable housing left within walking distance of our centers of employment. The most affordable areas to live in the Lowcountry are currently Ladson and Goose Creek, currently two hours or more from the downtown tourism district and medical center by Transit. Parking in our employment centers is still disappearing, while demand increases. 

When CARTA almost completely shut down due to a funding failure 22 years ago for two years, the impact was drastic. Employers and workers struggled, but that was a region where downtown, North Charleston and Mount Pleasant still houses many of our service workers. Hardships during that shutdown destroyed lives and even resulted in deaths as workers were killed walking or biking to work along inadequate infrastructure and at least one suicide when a worker found their bicycle stolen, lost his job and was abandoned by his family. 

This time the impact of losing our transit and failing to address our rising lack of affordable workforce housing will be much worse. We have a vastly larger tourism sector now. We also have an aging population and a falling local birthrate. Most of the people moving to the Lowcountry are coming to retire, not to work.  Many will move into nursing homes and assisted living as they age. They need services. These elderly residents won't be producing them. Flush with wealth accumulated in areas with more robust economies, these seniors are prepared to outbid our hotels, restaurants and hospitals for service labor. 

Image, Right, Best Friends of Lowcoutry Transit members fought for 7 years to successful return public transit to Charleston's Beaches, with service returning to the Isle of Palms in August 2020. 2018, Memorial Weekend, Folly Beach

Compounding this problem is the effort to deport undocumented immigrant labor, which composes a significant part of the workers in these sectors now, as well as local agriculture and construction. As immigrants are forced out of the area, the pressure on the local service labor market will increase. The costs of employment will rise. The struggle to staff existing business will grow more challenging. 

These are known problems. Local governments and organizations like the Chamber of Commerce have known about this looming problem for over a decade. However, a long standing determination to maintain plantation derived social power structures inhibits them from engaging the workers they depend on. Anything which might inform workers that they are valuable parts of the community, increases labor power and exposes the vulnerability of those in control. 

Image, Right - Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit's Transit Complete the Penny Campaign delivered the margin of victory to obtain local funding for construction of the LCRT in 2016. 

The Lowcountry can't indulge its delusions any longer. We already have commercial spaces sitting empty downtown because business operators can't find the staff to open. If businesses can't operate profitably, the value of the real estate they lease can't be maintained. The effort to staff tourism connected businesses this Spring will be exceptionally challenging. Other cities have been actively recruiting prime service labor here for years, offering better transit, a lower cost of living and superior schools to young, healthy capable workers. 

We can continue to operate and improve our transit and build affordable housing in the Lowcountry. We should be doing a better job. However without federal funding, these efforts will end.

 You must call your Federal Representatives today, or better yet visit their local offices and let them know you can't hire people, earn income, pay rent or pay taxes without workers. 

For More Information 

about Best Friends and our 15 year effort to build, fund and protect better public transit in the SC Lowcountry

• Call Executive Director William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299 or email him at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com
• Follow us on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/wjhamilton29464.bsky.social
• Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BFLowcountryTransit

Remember Rosa Parks and Don't Give up Your Seat for Lowcountry Transit Feb. 2025

 

Don't Give Up Your Seat in Feb. Remember Rosa on Transit Equity Day Charleston, SC, USA- This year's Transit Equity Day (Feb. 4)  is important because we know a major effort to defund public transit in the United States is on the way. The MAGA agenda is anti urban and destroying the quality of life in our cities is a central tactic. Nothing robs people of their freedom more effectively than rendering them immobile. Charleston's excruciatingly slow progress towards construction of the LCRT might end if the Trump administration manages to defund Transit. Like Rosa Parks, we need your help to prepare to hold on to our seat, our place, our dignity and our rights.  Project 2025's anti transit agenda Update- Our report on Congresswoman Nancy Mace, the location of her new office off the transit system on Daniel Island and our effort to sensitize her to the importance of Transit on Feb. 4. Read the Report on Nancy Mace and Transit. Help Inform the Public Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will begin our effort with a public information campaign on Martin  Luther King Weekend promoting our local effort to the Lowcountry Progressive Community. its important that people wanting to be involved step forward so we can promote their contributions to this effort. Local media is no longer strong or effective enough to help us, so we need to reach our own people and activate the community.  Join a Carolina Transit Regional Conference on Feb. 4 Public Transit in the Carolinas will be the subject of a regional town hall on Feb. 4, Transit Equity Day from 12 noon to 2 pm in which Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit will participate with a live meeting linked to the electronic one at the Charleston County Library at 68 Calhoun St, Charleston, SC, US, 29401, on the CARTA DASH 210 Bus Route. The local meeting will be linked to a regional zoom conference with participants from Columbia, SC; Charlotte, NC and the Research Triangle expected.  Issues to be discussed will include sustaining progress made in Charlotte, continuing to advance towards construction of the LCRT in Charleston and resisting attempts to defund public transit as planned in the Project 2025 plan connected to members of the Trump administration. This regional meeting is one of several being run that day across the United States for Transit Equity Day by the Labor Network for Sustainability, an annual observance on the Birthday of Transit Equity and Civil Rights Heroine, Rosa Parks.  You can also participate in the regional conference online from your home or office. We'll post a link to the meeting here closer to the date.  Ride with Rosa That week We'll be putting posters honoring Rosa on selected CARTA buses. You can sponsor this entire effort for $100.  Rise with Rosa Right, Social Media Banner Promoting Rosa Pancake Effort, from 2022.We'll also be doing several pancake breakfast efforts that week to connect the community with the memory of Rosa's struggle with our own Civil Rights Hero, Louise Brown. If your church, organization or business wants to serve the pancakes, we'll provide PDF versions of posters and handbills to drive participation and raise awareness not only of Rosa, but also Charleston's own Mary Bowers and Esau Jenkins, Charleston's Transit Equity Heroes. We can be present with multimedia content to empower your members or customers.  If you would like to help, now is the time. We'll soon be involved in a fight to save the millions of opportunities to ride transit provided by CARTA and Tri County Link. A little organization now, will prepare us for a much stronger effort later. We're not going to give up our seat and the opposition will learn that, however if we're strong at the start, the damage the conflict will cause can be reduces and get us to a better future sooner.  We'll be announcing the effort at next week's CARTA Board Meeting, so anyone who can pitch in now will really help. If you can help, reply to this message or Contact William Hamilton at 843-870-5299 or wjhamiton29464@gmail.com

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Century Forward- City of New Charleston

North Charleston was founded on June 12, 1972. City of New Charleston will depart from the Lowcountry’s obsession with the past to imagine the possibilities of a Transit enabled, future adapted North Charleston at its centennial, fifty years ahead of now. 

Upcoming Events- We do more than talk about the future

See our Facebook Transit Events page for upcoming transit oriented events in this effort. 

See our Lowcountry Up is Good page for events involving the Schools, Affordable Housing, and the Living wage efforts. 

Sponsors and Background

Image, Left- Community Shrine Gazebo Bus Stop Shelter in Chicora Community Garden, North Charleston.

Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. & Lowcountry Up Is Good, PAC, Inc. have now been working towards a transit enabled North Charleston with many other organizations for 10 years. 

Marvin Pendarvis has been a partner in our efforts since he stepped on the #11 Dorchester Airport bus during his first campaign. He was impressed by the number of people riding in N. Charleston and shocked at how long and slow their bus trips were. From that moment, he's joined us in working for something better. So have many other officials and organizations focused on planning, affordable housing, human needs and education. 

Best Friends helped win the Transit Complete the Penny Campaign to fund construction of the LCRT in 2016. We worked with Rep. Marvin Pendarvis to obtain the SCDOT’s commitment to a complete streets policy in 2019 and are currently working with him to pass his Transit Oriented Development bill, no pending in the SC Legislature. In 2017 we canvassed every business we could reach along the full length of Rivers Ave. with information on the voter approved rapid transit project, helping start the ongoing transit planning process. In 2016 we build and deployed the Tiny House Fit for a King as part of what ultimately became a short lived tiny house village of five residences attached to a group home on Carner Ave. We’ve worked to improve the quality of life of residents in North Charleston with demonstrations and political actions to win the living wage and defend the independence of the community’s public schools. 

While we continue to work in other Lowcountry Communities and have dedicated projects on the Sea Islands, in Mt. Pleasant, in Lincolnville, Summerville and Ridgeville, we have always seen North Charleston as the Lowcountry’s essential hub. It still has functional communities focused on the needs of its own people. It has a magnificent store of installed infrastructure and will have the state’s first Rapid Transit System. While it struggles with problems and a sprawling, diverse landscape it has the potential for greatness as a home for the varied families of the future. 

The City of Charleston, while still essential to the region, has gentrified its urban care out of relevance to the future. It has largely become a tourist-oriented city of the past. It’s decision to accept having no portion of the planned rapid transit line within its boundaries, but instead to merely have LCRT buses operating in traffic south of Reynolds Ave. in N. Charleston is conclusive proof that while the future will happen to Charleston, the pressures of sea level rise and the need to accommodate competing for tourism income will shape its future.

A Year Long Effort Has Started 

Citadel Cadets and North Charleston Citizen, North Charleston Public School Teacher Jennifer Saunders planning a transit system for the Lowcountry at Park Circle Creamery in N. Charleston in October 2016 as  part of the Transit Complete the Penny Campaign. 

City of New Charleston will be a year long effort to imagine the transit enabled community of tomorrow which can grow up along and within one walkable mile of the LCRT line. 

The effort began on Feb. 23, 2023 when SC State Representative Marvin Pendarvis (D-CHS) introduced bill H. 4013 in the SC House of Representatives to amend Title 6 of the S. C. Code by adding Chapter 39 regarding Transit-Oriented Development Projects.

On March 1st. a lobbying, outreach team from Best Friends and Midland's Transit Riders went to the SC Statehouse to help build support for the Transit Oriented Bill, talking to over 250 people, including 50 members of the SC Legislature and SC DOT Transit office about the bill and planning a SC transit enabled future. We also made contact with over a dozen organizations representing the disabled, the Governor of SC, the University of SC and attended and leafleted a reception for all the State's transit agencies at the Columbia Convention Center. Co sponsors began signing on to the TOD bill by the end of the day. 

City of New Charleston will continue by organizing and funding a youth driven visioning project for the City’s future involving College and High School students across the state of South Carolina. These young citizens will be charged with imagining what the city could best become by its North Charleston centennial in 2072 and South Carolina’s Quadro Centennially in 2070. The students will use the internet and wireless technologies which have been integral to their life experience to share their work with the people of South Carolina, beginning with a preliminary statement of scope and goals before the end of the Spring, 2023 school term. 

An informal group discussion of the project is planned for Sunday Afternoon at Emergence, the burning may style event outside Summerville in April. 

There will be events sharing parts of the work with the community throughout the summer and early fall. Online and real world conferences, meetings and workshops will be held to both formulate detailed plans and to develop the real world capacity of these young people to lead the state towards a future which rewards its citizens with mobility, prosperity and the gifts of creative patrimony. 

North Charleston resident, the late Mary Smith, appearing as our Transit Fairy at the Atlanta International Transit Exhibition in 2018

The initial effort will conclude in late Fall of 2023 with the New Charleston Future Festival, where to the extent that we can, we’ll share all that they have learned and dreamed with the community and the entire state with participatory activities which will extend the creative process of shaping the future to everyone willing to join the effort. 

Once we have begun the future with the Festival, we’ll continue to support our young planners and visionaries as they join the traditional, often challenging effort to drive government controlled planning efforts towards the future they dream of, in N. Charleston an d across the state. 

The target for funding this effort is Eight Thousand, Five Hundred Dollars ($8,500.00) in cash funding, and an additional contribution in kind support of supplies, facilities and transportation services. Fifteen hundred dollars has already been raised by a grant of support from Marvin Pendarvis and the project can launch as soon as we have Twenty five hundred dollars committed, which will be sufficient to fund the largest visioning unit composed of undergraduates at one of the State’s Colleges or Universities for the first half of the project. 

More Information

Support and Contact Us

• You can support our continuing efforts for better transit by making a contribution online on Act Blue
• Contact State Rep. Maving Pendarvis through his office at the State Legislature in Columbia
• You can reach us by emailing executive director William Hamilton at wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or by calling 843-870-5299.

Transit Equity Demands for the SC Lowcountry, Feb. 4, 2022

Transit Equity Demands for the SC Lowcountry, Feb. 4, 2022

Our upcoming actions to push transit progress in the Lowcountry Forward are listed on our BFLT Facebook Events Page. 

Bus Stop- Mt. Pleasant, SC Town Hall

Goals for 2022

1. Extend the existing CARTA #10 Bus Line Northwest from its current terminus at the Health South Hospital on Highway 78, up Highway 78 through Ladson and Lincolnville to Summerville. SC before May 4, 2022 using the recent 800k grant from the US Dpt. of Transpiration. See details on this proposal. 
2. Secure another year of bus service to the beach. Double ridership. (Approve by CARTA Board at January meeting.) See detailed information  on bus service to the Beach. 
3. Increase CARTA Ridership by 30%. Get more middle school aged students on transit. We've already begun work on our Park Pleasantly Play Downtown effort in Mt. Pleasant.  CARTA's board voted in April to make May a fare free month as part of rebuilding ridership with our commitment to support the effort. CARTA Ridership is now up 13% over March 2021 to March 2022.
4. Push the future Lowcountry Rapid Transit line terminus back North to Lincolnville, near the Charleston County line, walking distance from downtown Summerville. Details on returning the line to Summerville.
5. LCRT before I526- Fight to get the promised Lowcountry Rapid Transit line operational before work begins on widening I526. Read our blogpost Transit First, 8 Lane Gridlock Later on this issue. Read the statement by Dana Beach founder of the Coastal Conservation League on why enlarging I526 will make congestion worse. 
6. Obtain 10 more lighted & sheltered bus stops on the CARTA system, 2 on the Sea Islands & 2 in Summerville. One great new stop on Houston Northcutt (image above) in Mt. Pleasant shows was a fully realized stop which emphasizes pedestrian safety on a busy road looks like, including a center island waiting area for pedestrians with lighting. 

Daniel Dewald has also compiled a list of problems and possible solutions for the failure to get functional transit operating in Dorchester and Berkeley Counties. Read Dewald's one page bullet list. 

Elections

We're also trying to help the needs of Lowcountry Transit Riders be heard during this year's elections b getting candidates to ride the bus and provide answers to our questions about local transit.  See our page on the Congressional election. We don't endorse candidates. 

Help Support Our Continued Push for Better Transit

Contribute to us through Act Blue (Tax Deductible)

For more information about Transit Equity Day

 See www.bfltransit.com or call William Hamilton at (843) 870-5299. 

 

Jackson Traction helps build Transit efforts across America

 Chris Jackson- Together We Go Forward- Transcontinental Launches in North Charleston, SC on Friday, Feb. 4

North Charleston, SC- Now that life over the road has settled down, Chris Jackson is ready to connect struggling transit advocacy efforts across the United States. He will launch the national effort on Feb. 4th. Transit Equity Day at the Rosa Parks Pay it Forward Pancake Breakfast at Mini Sue Sue’s Kitchen at 3910 Rivers Ave, N. Charleston, SC 29405, ph (843) 718-1278, on #10 Bus Line. Look for the gold pop up tent at the edge of the parking lot. 

The breakfast is one of several across the SC Lowcountry and US serving pancakes made with Rosa Parks’ personal recipe. Each breakfast purchased helps a locally owned business and generates an additional pay it forward morning meal for the homeless. 

Image, above, Christopher D. Jackson (In Red) with pickup load of Christmas supplies for Charleston, SC’s homeless and Donna Gill, Dec. 2020

Transit activist and community organizer Chris Jackson earned a CDL during the pandemic and left the comforts of life in Charleston and working with Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit to mount his massive Tractor Truck and begin pulling 80 thousand pounds of cargo over the mountains and across the icy roads of a stricken nation. Chris is the supply chain. Sometimes we call him Action Jackson. 

Chris has a crock pot powered by the tractor's massive APU to assure a warm dinner and sleeps in its homey cab. The sleeper cab of his 405 horsepower Kenworth T680 has everything needed to sustain life on the road. He's Bluetooth connected to his truck and the world. Now he's ready to take the skills and strength he brought to six years of leadership of the legendary lightning crew in your community, In Charleston, SC. Chris helped win the 640 million dollar transit referendum and return transit service back to the beach after 8 years of Lowcountry Transit riders being landlocked. Chris will  encourage and connect our growing constellation of people ready to hammer the infrastructure money about to drop from DC into transit systems and better service across America. 

While Transit riders like regular schedules  and plans, Chris isn't in a position to know when he is going to be there far in advance. His destinations change with every load, keeping the shelves of our stores stocked with what we need. When those shelves are empty, that is where he goes.

Chris will work with our national leadership to identify new and growing efforts to improve transit along the way. During his mandatory breaks and time off driving, he'll meet with transit organizers and try to help encourage new efforts. He'll collect mementos of our national effort to help people move towards better transit and drop them off in another. If you see a Bay Area Transit Rider's T-shirt on the back of a hard working bus route improvement activist in rural Alabama, you will know Chris was there. If you feed him a home cooked meal or help him do laundry, he'll appreciate the favor. If you are sleeping under a bridge, maybe he'll dip into his crock pot and give you some stew. 

Jackson doing street outreach in N. Chs. 2021

You can follow Christopher  D. Jackson on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ElderCJackson

Chris' effort kicks off on Transit Equity Day, Feb. 4, 2022, the Birthday of Rosa Parks. Whereas Rosa Park’s feet were tired, Chris's foot is heavy. He's rolling now. Watch your texts and listen for your phone. A nation of transit advocates rises. Get ready. Together, We Go  Forward!

To be put on the list of places Chris may be able to visit in the future, contact Chris @ 843 277 7958. Be sure to provide a physical address with zip code, email address and voice phone number. 

Rise, Ride and Remember with Rosa, Transit Equity Day in Charleston and the SC Lowcountry

Transit Equity Day on Friday, Feb. 4 in Charleston and the SC Lowcountry will offer supporters of better public transit an opportunity to rise for a pancake breakfast, ride and remember Rosa Parks on her birthday. Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. will work with transit advocacy groups in Columbia, SC, Atlanta and around the World to renew the right to ride Rosa refused to surrender on that dark bus in Montgomery.

Jenkins (in blue) Training BFLT Interns 

In Memory of Abe Jenkins- We will be dedicating this year's observance of Transit Equity day to the Memory of Abe Jenkins, who volunteered with our organization from time to time, supporting our work on the Sea Islands and mentoring some of our teenaged interns. Abe brought solid wisdom to our training sessions and attempted to persuade Jack to yell at the kids less. We will miss Abe greatly. Abe was the grandson of Civil Rights Leader Esau Jenkins who operated a private rural transportation system predominately used by African Americans. Abe knew Rosa Parks and many great leaders of that time. He carried the lessons learned from them in the midst of the great liberating struggle two decades into the 21st. Century.

Relevant Rosa

Mary Smith, dresssd as Syphide, at CHS Pride

In a time when the very survival of American democracy is threatened, opponents of Civil Rights understand destroying transit neutralizes people who might reinforce the continuing struggle for human dignity here in Charleston. Deciding our planned rapid Transit line doesn't reach Summerville and Lincolnville robs people who need transit there of their power to make choices about their employment, healthcare and political rights. As their lives become harder, gentrification can be accelerated to that a citizens, white and black are so imprisoned by traffic congestion and time lost on the roads that those purchasing control of government can do what they like.

As CAJM has noted, Frequency is Freedom. On her birthday, Rosa Parks reminds us we must be brave, strategic and dramatic in our Transit Equity freedom struggle. We've set major goals from improved transit service, better bus stops and restoration of more of the I26 alt plan for the Lowcountry Rapid Transit line for this year. That fight for freedom starts at breakfast on Feb. 4.

Rise with Rosa Pancake Breakfast

We'll be asking some local diners and cafe's near our major bus lines to make and serve Rosa's own special pancake recipe, Rosa Parks's Featherlight Peanut Butter Pancakes for breakfast that morning. Well be livestreaming breakfast from outside Mini See See's Kitchen, sharing online pancakes and breakfast transit thoughts of the community with the world. Due to a scheduling conflict, JA Moore will hold the Berkeley County Rosa Parks Pancake Brunch on Saturday. 

The price of your Rosa Parks Pay it Forward Pancake Breakfast includes a breakfast care package which will be delivered to local housing insecure persons, elderly and disabled people by our volunteers over the following weekend. We'll also be distributing some bus passes to those struggling, truely an empowering gift of freedom and dignity.

Mini Sue Sue's Kitchen

North Charleston- Mini See See's Kitchen on River's Ave. will be serving Rosa Parks Pancakes from 8 am to 11 am. from their takeout kitchen at 3910 Rivers Ave, N. Charleston, ph (843) 718-1278. Left side of Rivers Ave, North of Cosgrove Ave., on the #10 Bus Line. They're new and eager to build stronger connections to the community. This location is right on the main secton of the long promised and much delayed Lowcountry Rapid Transit Line. Facebook signup for breakfast at Mini Sue Sue's Kitchen.  Chris Jackson's Together, We Go Forward Transcontinental effort launches at this location at 10 am. 

Market St. Deli

Downtown- The Market Street Deli 76 N Market St, Charleston, SC 29401, (843) 577-8830 in  will also be serving a pay it forward breakfast. It's located just a block from two stops on the DASH 211 Bus Line and the #20 upper King. Both buses are fare free. it's a delightful spot for both breakfast and lunch with a local owner and friendly, transit riding staff. Facebook signup for breakfast at Marketplace Deli.  

Breakfast for the Mayor of Summerville

A special pancake breakfast will be delivered to the Mayor of Summerville at his office at Town Hall at 10:00 am by Linda Saylor, with side orders of sausage, juice and demands for return of the planned Lowcountry Rapid Transit Line to Downtown Summerville and a Freedom of Information Request about the Town’s lack of effort to retain their transit connection to the planned system and related issues. The breakfast will be delivered by Summerville Juneteenth and the Alston Heritage Foundation and the Dorchester Unit of Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit, Inc. 

Return here for additional restaurants, food trucks and cafes all over the area. Get your pancakes. You are going to need the energy. It's going to be a big Friday and Brunch on Saturday Too

Ride with Rosa

Chris Jackson with Ride with Rosa Poster

We'll be asking CARTA to reserve a seat so local Transit passengers can ride with Rosa, as they did last year, marking a seat on some buses with a sign and a rose to remind our fellow transit riders of the significance of that special day.

During the weekend Christopher Jackson will launch a nationally sanctioned effort to help connect Transit Advocacy efforts across the US with the help of the Labor Network for Sustainability. While working as an over the road Truck Driver he'll cross the continent helping establish and encourage transit building efforts across the continental US, operating from bases in Charleston, DC, New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. The effort will begin at the Mini Sue Sue's Kitchen pancake breakfast on Rivers Ave. (See above) at 10 am.

Raise Awareness with Rosa

During the day, we'll be doing socially distanced transit outreach at bus stops about our goals for better transit in the Lowcountry this year. We'll also be moving our ideas and demands for equity into the physical reality of the Lowcountry. Things will be done. Things will be made and happen which can be touched, felt and used. This is not just about words and ideas. You can't go anyone on those.

We're planning an action to challenge transit inequity in the Summerville, Lincolnville & Ladson area at 1 pm. The exact location will be announced at 6 am on the morning of Transit Equity Day. 

These are our current goals for the 2022:

• Secure another year of bus service to the beach. Double ridership.

• Support increasing CARTA Ridership by 30%. Get more middle school aged students on transit.

• 

  Improved Bus Stop in Mt. Pleasant

  Push the Lowcountry Rapid Transit line terminus back North to Lincolnville, near the Charleston County line, walking distance from Summerville. Read the details.

• Obtain at least 10 more lighted and sheltered bus stops on the CARTA system, 2 on the Sea Island LINK system and 2 in Summerville.

• Support Christopher Jackson, now a long haul truck driver, in a continental effort to connect transit advocacy organizations across the nation is a “Together We Go Forward.” campaign starting that day somewhere out on the American road.

• Fight to force local governments to build the promised Lowcountry Rapid Transit line and have it operational before work begins on widening I526. Details on this Issue and options for action.

Revel with Rosa Birthday Party

Finally, we'll hold an evening birthday party for Rosa Parks at The Blackstone Restaurant on Rivers Ave. where you'll be able to buy a commemorative dinner supporting our efforts and have some of a special birthday cake made for the occasion, provided in a way which is safe in current pandemic conditions. This effort will honor the Food and Beverage workers who ride transit and have supported our local hospitality economy through the pandemic. Your host will be SC State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis.

We'll try to have drumming, music and spoken word performances focusing on social and economic justice starting at 6:30 pm. Everyone participating in our effort should be masked, vaccinated or recently tested and maintain social distance. We have a Facebook Event signup page for this event online. 

We recognize a large indoor gathering with sit down dinner may not be possible. We'll do the best we can under the circumstances.

Remembering Rosa & The Lowcountry's Own Transit Heroes

Rosa Parks is most remembered as the woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery Alabama, igniting the Montgomery Bus Boycott and launching the career of Civil Rights Titan, Martin Luther King. However her dedication to human dignity began long before that event and transcends the idealized fairy tale of a humble woman who was too tired to stand disseminated about her at the time. She was a battle hardened, trained activist who investigated lynching's in backwoods towns in the deep south, often working alone for the NAACP. She was an exceptional communicator, skilled at talking people down from anger and up from apathy. She was a successful seamstress. She was fashionable, creative and smart.

Rosa Parks wasn't the first woman to refuse to surrender her seat on Southern public transit. African American women had been fighting for Transit Equity since 1867 when women like Mary Bowers in Charleston fought for and won their right to ride horse drawn streetcars. Other women in Montgomery has already been arrested. Parks brought nerve, a capacity for calculation and the ability to sustain a strategy to the fight for freedom. Her skills allowed her to survive the conflict at great personal cost. Other women, equally worthy, were nearly destroyed in similar circumstances. Sarah May Fleming fought for Transit Equity in Columbia, SC, won her court case but paid a terrible personal price for her stand. 

Rosa reminds us that we must all fight, win and survive in our struggle for human dignity. Sacrifice alone is not enough. 

Don't Give Up Your Seat, Together, We Go Forward!

Completing this effort while keeping everyone safe needs your input and support. We'll update this blogpost with links to the particular events. Feel free to contact William Hamilton wjhamilton29464@gmail.com or (843) 870-5299 with your input. Complete information on all our activities can be found at www.bfltransit.com. 

Tax deductible contributions to support this effort and better Transit in the Lowcountry can be made on Act Blue at https://secure.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/87568