Meta D and the Duke go to Harrisburg

We went to the rally yesterday in Harrisburg. The Pennsylvania Transit coalition did a great job organizing; although the turnout was heavily union. Meta D believes we were profiled into being on a lobbying team, since we were the only skinny white guys with glasses on the train. When we got to the capital, we found the Republicans conveniently scheduled a "caucus" to avoid us. We did manage to get in to see this man, a state rep for counties we'd never heard of. The first thing he asked us of course was "are you from my district?" He agreed to talk to us anyway even though we weren't. Our mission was to find out his position. He said he was for dedicated funding, as long as no one in his district had to pay for it. Meta D then launched into a eloquent sermon on federalism and highway funding, but this did not move him. His argument was that everyone uses the highways at one time or another, but people in his district never use mass transit. Another more senior member of our lobby team brought up mass transit policies in Europe and our dependence on foreign oil. We didn't think this went over too well. Even though I disagreed with him, I felt he was cordial and straight with us.

Overall we thought it was a useful exercise for us personally, since we learned a bit about the political process and got some useful experience. From a political standpoint, however, I'm not sure it was very effective. PTC will have to try to build on this somehow. According to the activist books, now we are supposed to send a thank you note to this person and continue to build a relationship. Since we aren't in his district, however, I'm not sure how worthwhile that would be.

Meta D proposed an ACT-UP style protest he called "Schuylkill Slowdown" in which everyone who rides mass transit gets on the expressway and clogs it up, showing people what traffic would be like without mass transit. Hmmm.

I think what needs to happen now is more proposals for dedicated funding that will get support. We'll see.

Here's some links.
dailypennsylvanian.com - Transit rally attracts hundreds

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