Fight for the 31st STREET BUS + CTA Board Meeting

It's been a year since we won a feasibility study - the first step toward getting a bus to connect our communities, and give us access to food, hospitals, beaches, family, and so on. The recommendations to the CTA board as a result of the study are due at the OCTOBER 9th board meeting. This is big! People are important! Show the CTA we care and we mean it and we won't stop the fight!

 How you can help: 

Get on the bus - We will be gathering at Benton House (3052 S Gratten Ave) at 8:45 AM on the morning of the October 9th to take a bus to the CTA Headquarters. The bus leaves at 9:00. We will pack the CTA board room, and hold a press conference after the meeting. Then the bus will return to Benton House. Facebook Event Page Here 

Come to the meeting - If you don't want to join us on the bus you can still attend the meeting. Arrive at CTA Headquarters, 567 W. Lake Street, by 10 AM on the morning of October 9. Facebook Event Page Here 

Write a letter - Please see our blog post below for a sample to send to friends, family, elected officials and any other contacts you can think of!

Make signs - we will be gathering at First Trinity (31st and Lowe) on Tuesday, October 8, 6:30 - 8:00 ish to make signs and do something cool with the photo petitions. BYOS (Bring Your Own Scissors!)

Distribute Fliers - Fliers are attached. Please, print, post, share!  Contact info@bridgeportalliance.org for a pdf copy.

Social Media - Share the Facebook Event Page, use the Twitter Handle @31stStreetBus and @BridgeportAlly and Hashtag #31stStreetBus. Tell your friends!!!

 Questions? info@bridgeportalliance.org

Bike/Roll the 31st Street Bus Route

Bike/Roll the 31st Street Bus Route Join the 31st Street Bus Cross-Town Coalition 

Sat Aug 24th 

Bike/Skate Ride 

down the 31st Street Proposed Bus Route 

and help our Communities fight for 

"Our Right to Our Route" for this needed bus route. 

We will be riding from Little Village through McKinley Park, Bridgeport, and Bronzeville to the 31st Street Beach.
Ride begins at 10am in Little Village. Hop on the "Bus" in your neighborhood!

•  Bus Stop #1: Location TBA (Little Village) 
• Bus Stop #2: The Video Strip (3307 S Archer Ave, McKinley Park) 
• Bus Stop#3: Jackalope Coffee & Tea House (755 W 32nd Street, Bridgeport) There will be a 15% off for being a part of the ride. 
• Bus Stop#4: TBA (Bronzeville) 
• Final Stop and Press Conference: 31st Street Beach! 
• 12:30PM - PRESS CONFERENCE and PACE CARS ARRIVE AT THE BEACH. 

After the ride we'll party and swim at the beach.
More info to come! Please share this event on facebook and twitter. #31stStreetBus

31st Street Bus Photo Petitions

Tell us where the 31st Street Bus can take you

And collect one of these sweet pins!

Stop by 31st and Lowe

Tuesday, July 16 - 5:00 - 7:00 

Friday, July 19 - 10:00 - Noon

Saturday, July 20 - 9:00 - 2:00

Check Out The Photos Here!

BRIDGEPORT ALLIANCE, COMMUNITY ACTION STOPS CLOSURE OF SOUTH SIDE SCHOOLS

BRIDGEPORT ALLIANCE

Contact: Maureen Sullivan
Tel: (773) 719-6655
maureen@southloopdigital.com

March 21, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BRIDGEPORT ALLIANCE, COMMUNITY ACTION STOPS CLOSURE OF SOUTH SIDE SCHOOLS

Bridgeport Alliance has learned that the Chicago Public Schools have decided to reverse their earlier decision and to keep Libby, Hendricks, Dewey, McClellan, Armour and Graham schools open.

While there are other schools in the affected neighborhoods that deserve to stay open, and all the information is not in yet, Bridgeport Alliance celebrates today's decision by CPS as a victory of community activism in the face of bureaucratic indifference to economically hard-hit South
Side neighborhoods.

Earlier in the year, Bridgeport Alliance reached out to neighboring Bronzeville, Back Of The Yards, Fuller Park, Chinatown and Canaryville and found lots of concern among parents about announced closures of schools but little to no organization against efforts to close neighborhood schools.

Bridgeport Alliance hosted its Public Education Forum on February 6th 2013, bringing over 80 activists by bus to the CPS public forum in Fuller Park to add to the chorus against singling out the schools in the city's most economically vulnerable areas.  Later Bridgeport Alliance school forums and meetings with Fuller Park concentrated nearly 300 activists in opposition to the CPS closure plan.

Targeted schools remain open.  Community activism works.  But the fight is not over.

Public education as a whole is in serious danger from misguided attempts to address the effects of poverty without addressing its causes.  School performance is driven by a neighborhood's economic health, not the other way around.  Neighborhoods across the South Side have served notice that
we will not let CPS,  The Board Of Education and City Hall get this wrong

If you'd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Maureen Sullivan, please call Mary Welter at (312) 339-4369 or email Bridgeport Alliance at mvawelter@gmail.com

SOUL - Martin Luther King Day 2013

Sunday, January 13, 2013
2:30pm - 4:30pm
 3566 S. Cottage Grove.
West Point Missionary Baptist Church

This is the time each year when we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King and continue his work through community organizing. Some of the issues we will address include funding for an arts & recreation center in Bronzeville, restoring bus service on 31st Street, closing state corporate tax loopholes so we can avoid massive budget cuts to Medicaid and education, and addressing the vacant property epidemic through a land bank that will create both affordable housing and jobs.

We will be asking elected officials to make commitments on issues affecting our communities. We need to show our elected officials that their constituents are watching and that people care about these issues.

Please come out and bring your friends, neighbors, and fellow congregants!

Musical celebration and sign-in will take place from 2:30 - 3:00, with the public meeting starting promptly at 3:00.

Bridgeport Alliance will have two buses leaving Benton House. Boarding at 2PM. Refreshments will be served starting at 1PM. Rides will be given to Benton House from First Trinity Lutheran after 10:30AM worship. We will have 100 folks from Bridgeport, so get there early if you don't want just scraps.

Call CTA President Forrest Claypool and Demand a 31st St. Bus!

Call Forrest Claypool for a 31st St. Bus!
Call 312-681-5001
After fifteen years without service, transit dependent riders in Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Little Village, Chinatown, Bronzeville and Armour Park remain without an East-West bus route along 31st St. Bringing back the 31st St. bus would help students safely reach schools, open up countless new job opportunities and offer a much needed economic boost for businesses along the route.
The federal government has offered half the funds necessary to bring the route back, and now we need to tell the CTA President Forrest Claypool that the community needs this bus route!
Here is a sample script to help you plan your phone call:

Hello,

My name is ___________, and I would like to ask Forrest Claypool to fully fund the 31st St. Bus from Cicero to the Lakefront. As a resident of _________________ (neighborhood), I will be able to use the bus to

(Choose one)

□ take the bus to Mercy Hospital
□ take the bus to school
□ take the bus to work
□ take the bus to shop
□ take the bus to the new 31 St. beach

Our community needs this bus! Thank you.

          
email bridgeportalliance@gmail.com and let us know how your call goes!

Bike/Roll the 31st Street Bus Route

The 31st Street Bus Cross-Town Coalition is back in action, fighting for a 31st Street bus route from Little Village through McKinley Park, Bridgeport, and Bronzeville. We are already making significant progress, and we need YOUR support for this campaign restart action.

SATURDAY 6/30 10AM-12:30PM join us as we bike the ROUTE.
(seniors will be taking PACE CARS to the beach!)

Hop on the "Bus" in your neighborhood!

Ride begins at LITTLE VILLAGE HIGH SCHOOL, 10AM.

• Bus Stop #2: The Video Strip, McKinley Park
• Bus Stop#3: First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, Bridgeport
• Bus Stop#4: Christ the Mediator Church, Bronzeville
• Final Stop and Press Conference: 31st Street Beach!

12:30PM - PRESS CONFERENCE and PACE CARS ARRIVE AT THE BEACH.

Followed by a party and swimming at the beach.

Invite everybody! Let's get this bus!

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