Public Transit Lobbying Post #4

"Congressman Joe Sestak,

My classmate and I are working on lobbying the affordability and reliability of our local means of transportation, SETPA. We are both high school students that attend Science Leadership Academy in Central Philadelphia therefore we ride SEPTA quite often. Besides this, we are also traveling to sports games our friend’s houses so we’ve experienced almost every aspect of SEPTA whether bus, trolley, train or el. which requires us to rely heavily on the idea that SEPTA will consistently be a means by which we can travel effectively and at the same time not destroy our pockets. (we have very low budgets) Which means we have been practically taking SEPTA for some part of our lives.

In those few years of experience, several things have changed since then. November 2009, Septa protested because of their disagreement with their current budget. It wasn’t until March 2010 when they went on strike to fight for their compromise. Many Philadelphians were greatly impacted by this because many students and adults weren’t able to go to school or work. Now with Septa’s spiking budget and Philadelphia’s debt along with it, SEPTA have sold the rights to the name of Pattison Station to AT&T for 5 million dollars. This is a definite reflection of the amount of debt that they are in because they are willing to sell and sacrifice the dignity of their station name to a company for a resolution of about 3% of their debt.

These points are crucial to the success and endearment that the city of Philadelphia wants to allot this transportation association. Please we are asking if you can take this in consideration and give us feedback to improve the affordability and reliability of SEPTA.

 Sincerely,

Aimee Leong & Teila Allmond"

Above is the email Teila and I sent to Congressman Joe Sestak.

In this e-mail we introduced ourselves and what we were lobbying. We wanted to reach out to Congressman Joe Sestak to try and ensure that awareness would some way spread. We would like to discuss the possible techniques to reduce the price and increase SEPTA's dependability. Of course, Teila and I will take charge of other actions but this is what we was able to. We have yet to hear a response.