Environmental Justice

The Federal Transit Administration recently issued $7.8 million in grants to 17 projects across the country via its Innovative Coordinated Access & Mobility or ICAM pilot program to help improve public transportation for people with disabilities, older adults, and low-income individuals.

[Above photo by MassDOT]

The agency said those grants support organizations that coordinate public transportation for underserved groups, allowing them to access healthcare, community services, education, and jobs by building partnerships among health, transportation, and human services providers.

“This program supports statewide and regional strategies to help ensure people who are especially challenged in accessing healthcare can reach those critical services,” noted FTA Acting Administrator Veronica Vanterpool in a statement. “We are pleased to provide resources that help reach into the sometimes-overlooked areas of our nation to ensure no one is left behind.”

Several projects overseen by state departments of transportation received grants from this round of FTA ICAM program funding:   

• The Illinois Department of Transportation received $1.8 million to design and implement an integrated technology system for trip scheduling and fare collection that will facilitate non-emergency medical transportation trips and interagency passenger transfers. The program will integrate technology enhancements to improve mobility for people in 20 rural counties in southern Illinois through Shawnee Mass Transit, Rides Mass Transit, South Central Mass Transit, and Monroe Randolph Mass Transit.
• The Iowa Department of Transportation received over $441,000 on behalf of Heart of Iowa Regional Transit Authority to upgrade its on-demand scheduling software, buy hybrid-electric vehicles, and hire a mobility manager.
• The Massachusetts Department of Transportation received over $360,000 to test a statewide mobility management program with agencies that lead and manage statewide aging and disability programs. The pilot program will improve the accessibility, efficiency, and availability of transportation services for state residents, with a focus on older adults, people with disabilities and people of low income.
• The Maine Department of Transportation, on behalf of Maine Community Action Corp, will receive $436,000 to establish a mobility management hub with a full-time mobility manager to facilitate coordination and provide technical assistance to develop a one-call, one-click service. That funding will also help the group launch a regional mobility network.
• The Michigan Department of Transportation, in cooperation with the Michigan Transportation Connection, Inc., received $480,000 to buy hybrid electric vehicles and charging stations in Delta, Ionia, Benzie, Clare and Mason counties to expand “wellness-coordinated transportation” for non-emergency medical needs.
• The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation received $925,000 to enhance its “Find My Ride” program, a web-based platform system designed to serve as a one stop shop for human services transportation in the state. The project incorporates mobility management tools and integrate the current system with the statewide PA 211 system.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials recently released a video about a knowledge session held at its 2023 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis that detailed ways transportation agencies are working to establish equity more firmly as a core operating principle.

[Above photo by AASHTO]

During that knowledge session, panelists from the Missouri Department of Transportation, Michigan Department of Transportation, Oregon Department of Transportation, Minnesota Department of Transportation, and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials discussed some of the tools, practices, and processes they used to partner and engage with underserved communities in order to understand their unique values, needs, and priorities.

They also discussed how they applied this knowledge early in the transportation planning process to inform decision-making, particularly related to the equitable allocation of transportation resources.

Tatum Lau, social value practice lead at consulting firm AECOM and the session’s moderator, noted that transportation infrastructure has the power to “uplift communities and improve lives,” so the focus of infrastructure construction going forward should be building a system that benefits everyone.

“Equity is not the destination,” she noted. “The shared outcome is for the transportation system to generate positive results for all citizens.”

Several of those panels also participated in the final episode of a four-part Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP podcast series, which interviews key transportation officials about the ways to make mobility systems across the United States more attractive, equitable, and inclusive for all users. To listen to this episode, click here.

The ETAP podcast – part of a technical service program for state departments of transportation provided by AASHTO – explores a wide array of environmental topics that affect transportation and infrastructure programs.

To listen to the first three episodes in this equity podcast series, click here, here, and here.

ReConnect Rondo, a local grassroots organization in St. Paul, MN, hosted the first “Reconnecting Communities Summit” on October 11-14, as part of a broader national effort to open a dialogue between transportation officials and community organizations seeking to leverage grants awarded through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s “Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods” pilot program.

[Above photo by AASHTO]

The AASHTO Center for Environmental Excellence – operated by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration – was thrilled to work with Reconnect Rondo and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) to sponsor the summit.

ReConnect Rondo is an organization with a mission to revitalize the Rondo community with a land bridge that reconnects the historic Rondo neighborhood that was divided by the construction of Interstate 94 during the post-World War II highway building boom.

ReConnect Rondo, COMTO, and the Center for Environmental Excellence hope to use the momentum of the summit as a springboard to the development of a “community of practice” for both recipients of the $185 million in grants issued via the first round of USDOT’s “Reconnecting” program as well as other organizations seeking future grant opportunities through it.

The summit featured a plenary session that included speeches from ReConnect Rondo Board Chair Marvin Roger Anderson, Congresswoman Betty McCollum (MN-4), and COMTO Minnesota Chapter President Tekia Jefferson. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter III also spoke at the meeting. The event’s diverse array of presentations and forums, along with question and answer panels, put a spotlight on equity in transportation and the importance of robust community engagement and outreach.

Concluding the summit were words from Keynote speaker Liz Ogbu, architect and author of numerous works tackling the challenges of cultural leadership and community building, as well as an address from U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).

In addition to helping sponsor the summit, the Center for Environmental Excellence is featuring interviews with summit participants on its Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP podcast as part of its four-part series on transportation equity.

A recent video produced by the Oregon Department of Transportation provides insights into the importance of “culturally modified trees” or CMTs and how states need to treat them, especially during post-wildfire recovery efforts.

[Above photo by the Oregon DOT]

For example, in September 2020, devastating wildfires burned nearly one million acres of forest across Oregon. During the removal of hazardous trees and debris following the fire, archeologists and tribal monitors recorded many archeological sites, including CMTs.

Several CMTs could not be avoided during tree removal so, as part of the mitigation effort for having to remove those CMTs, Oregon DOT created a training video with the assistance of Oregon tribes as well as other federal and state agencies.

That video – one of several produced by Oregon DOT in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Historical Research Associates, Inc., and consulting firm WSP USA – reinforces the importance of culturally-significant archeological sites and how transportation agencies and others should treat them.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials submitted a 32-page letter on July 22 to the U.S. Department of Transportation containing advice for the agency as to how it can best collect transportation equity data. That letter came in response to a USDOT “Request for Information” issued in May.

[Above photo by the Oregon DOT]

An important theme stressed by AASHTO in its letter is that – given the diversity of populations, norms, and expectations throughout the states and the country as a whole – “one size does not fit all.”

This includes “the many different federal agencies” that will be involved if USDOT adopts any “new or expanded transportation equity data collection program, tool, methodology development, or analytical methodology.”

AASHTO noted that, in general, to determine how well USDOT programs are affecting the safety and security of underserved people, “we first have to make sure we are collecting data in those areas that will help state departments of transportation make that determination.”

Armed with the correct data, AASHTO said state DOTs can then see what type of impact they are having.

“Organizations with limited resources can partner with state DOTs or other planning organizations to identify opportunities that support planning in underserved communities,” AASHTO added.

The group noted in its letter that there is an “existing body of knowledge and research” related to transportation accessibility that can be used to measure access to opportunities – such as jobs, schools, healthcare, etc. – and the impact that changes to the land use system and/or the transportation system has on access to opportunities.

The first resource is the “Transport Access Manual: A Guide for Measuring Connection Between People and Places,” which serves as a guide for understanding how to measure the performance of transport and land use configurations. The second resource is the “National Accessibility Evaluation Pooled-Fund Study,” led by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which is constructing a “measurement of accessibility” to jobs across the entire country.

“Transportation projects are undertaken to provide connectivity — the ability for people or things to physically travel — between locations, or to lower travel times where connectivity already exists,” AASHTO noted. “As long-term infrastructure investments, transportation systems are not built to satisfy individual trips at specific times, but rather to provide capacity that can be used to satisfy a huge variety of potential trips over the system’s lifetime. Accessibility metrics directly reflect this potential by combining network travel times with the locations and value of the many origins and destinations served by a multimodal transportation system.”

AASHTO also expressed in its letter support for establishing a task force with state DOT representation to “provide recommendations to address current and future needs of the transportation workforce, factors and barriers influencing and attracting individuals—including those from underserved communities.”

Legislation recently proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works would seek to “reconnect and revitalize” areas harmed by the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past six decades.

[Above photo by the Massachusetts DOT]

Dubbed the “Reconnecting Communities Act,” Sen. Carper’s bill would establish a grant program within the U.S. Department of Transportation to help communities “identify and remove or retrofit highway infrastructure that creates obstacles to mobility and opportunity.”

It builds off a “Community Connectivity” pilot program originally proposed two years ago by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. – a program subsequently passed unanimously by the EPW committee as part of the America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019.

In a statement, Sen. Carper said the Reconnecting Communities Act “would empower communities to reverse this unfortunate legacy by building spaces over and around our highways, revitalizing nearby areas as a result.”

His bill is also solely sponsored by Democrats including: Sen. Van Hollen; Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate’s majority leader; Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.; Sen Chris Coons, D-Del.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

“The development of the Interstate Highway System connected our country in ways it hadn’t been previously, but it also upended neighborhoods and left communities divided, many times over economic and racial lines. In many communities of color, nearby highways continue to represent real barriers for getting around and getting ahead,” Sen. Carper pointed out.

“In cities across the country, communities of color have disproportionately seen their homes and businesses demolished for the construction of highways that in turn separate them from their neighbors and from economic opportunity. This is just one example of how government has disrupted and divided communities through the placement of infrastructure projects,” added. Sen. Padilla. “As we work to rebuild our economy and our infrastructure, we must do so equitably,” he said. “The Reconnecting Communities Act will play an important role in making sure that we don’t return to the status quo, but that we repair the harm and injustice these communities have faced.”