Transportation Equity

a tale of two cities

Definition

Racism: the “socially organized set of attitudes, ideas and practices that deny African Americans and other people of color the dignity, opportunities, freedoms, and rewards that this nation offers to white Americans.”

The Campaign for Transportation Equity

• Disparate outcomes (impact) in planning, operation, and maintenance of infrastructure development and transit services

• Inequalities that exacerbate racial disparity include: – the isolation of communities – inequitable distribution of pollution and

environmental nuisances– availability and condition of transit

stations

3 Analytical Categories

1. Procedural Inequity: Asks whether decisions about infrastructure and transit services made in a democratic way? Are the rules applied equally?

2. Geographic Inequity: Asks whether transportation systems disproportionately favor one community or region over another?

3. Social Inequity: Asks whether the benefits and burdens of transportation systems distributed equally across social groups?

MLK“Urban transit systems in most American cities [are] a genuine civil rights issue because the layout of rapid-transit systems determines the accessibility of jobs to the black community. If transit…could be laid out so as to provide an opportunity for poor people to get to meaningful employment, they could move into the mainstream of American life.”

Federal Laws

•Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations (1994)

•Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964•National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

•Federal Aid Highway Act of 1970

Some Tactics for Challenging Transportation Racism

•Research: “Follow the money” Who gets the money for transportation? How “invested” are politicians in construction?

•Process: Speaking out and demanding to participate in decision-making processes about the spending of public money

•Legal action: Filing lawsuits against state and local government to challenge decision-making processes and disparate impact

•Non-violent civil disobedience: Picketing meetings and blocking the destruction of homes and construction of freeways

• Mass transportation first built for suburbs•Roland Park and North Baltimore•Restrictive Covenants & Residential Zoning created segregated neighborhoods

Segregated Neighborhoods

• 1910: Baltimore invents residential zoning for racial segregation

• 1913: City introduces restrictive covenants prohibiting African Americans (& others) from owning or occupying homes in particular neighborhoods

Strategy& Tactics

Defeated de jure residential segregation through

•Litigation: Appealed to federal courts •Decision based Property Rights, not on 14th Amendment

City responded with de facto segregation using zoning

Public Transportation“Streetcar Suburbs”Permitted escape from

the industrial city for a “fleeting taste of the country”

North Baltimore areasBrookland and Garrett

Park for D.C. peopleInner city residents

also made weekend trips

Residential Zoning

• Coincided with commercial sale of automobiles

• 1918 Annexation of Balto. County land tripled city’s size

• Master Plan 1923 “to classify the population and to segregate the classes according to their stations in life”

Black Baltimore

• African Americans confined to “ring of blight”• WPA projects tore down but did not replace housing • By 1950: 225,000 living in area built for 100,000

1971 Subway Plan

Anne Arundel opposition to subway plan

• Concerns about “undesirable elements”

• knick-named “LOOT rail”

The Racial Politics of Transportation and Transit

“In cities and metropolitan

regions across the country,

inadequate or nonexistent

suburban transit serves as invisible

‘Keep out’ signs directed against

people of color and the poor.”

Metro 2006Subway continues to

favor Northern and NW suburban passengers at the expense of eastern and SW passengers

Ridership figures:Subway: 12.4 millionPublic transit total: 92 million

Transit Riders League

•Formed 1999 for more and better transit services in Baltimore

•Both an adversary and ally of Maryland Transit Administration

•Won two issue campaigns:–FairBox Reform: changing the formula required for “profit”

–Sunday Service: Re-establishing Sunday Metro and LightRail services

Washington, D.C.

• No Home Rule– No elected

representation– Treated at testing

grounds by Congress– Transportation

determined by Business – Government needs