Transportation Policy

Following its first meeting in late September, a revived U.S. Department of Transportation equity advisory committee plans to recommend new federal policies and practices aimed at making transportation systems more equitable to more people by June 2024.

[Above photo by USDOT]

The USDOT’s 24-member Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity or ACTE – which formally relaunched in August – is made up of representatives from state departments of transportations, private industry stakeholders, and nonprofit transportation groups.

According to the USDOT, the committee’s objective is “provide advice and recommendations” about:

• Practices to institutionalize equity into programs, policies, regulations, and activities;
• Establishing and strengthening partnerships with “overburdened and underserved communities” that the department hasn’t reached in the past;
• Offering a forum about equity concerns in local and regional transportation decisions;
• Providing “strength, objectivity, and confidence” to the department’s decision-making process.

The state DOT representatives on the committee are Roger Millar – secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials – and Tunya Smith, director of Office of Civil Rights for North Carolina Department of Transportation.

USDOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg asked the committee at its inaugural meeting to “deliberate bold ideas…not as a theoretical exercise of what may be, but as a real opportunity to shape real work.” Buttigieg added that he wants the committee to join him in “working to change patterns of exclusion that literally have been cemented into American life for generations.”

Former USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx – selected by Buttigieg to chair the re-constituted committee – originally established the ACTE during his 2013-2017 tenure. While the committee took no action at its first meeting, remarks from the members set the tone for committee’s work, which will include documenting past examples of inequity in transportation planning to inform future policies and practices.

“The promise of our democracy depends, in part, on correcting past mistakes,” Foxx said. “Transportation errors, as all of you know, can last a long time. Our responsibility will be not to engineer history but to tell it as pure and straight as it can be told.”

WSDOT’s Millar agreed that transportation “is not an end unto itself; it is a means to a lot of things, to economic prosperity, to social equity, to environmental justice, things that matter to our communities.” But he also reminded committee members that “the actions of transportation agencies did not happen in a vacuum…It’s really important that we remember that and we are not alone in our ability to do harm or to do good.”

Many comments from ACTE members focused more on the practical nature of the task at hand. NCDOT’s Smith, for example, said the ACTE should create dashboards and metrics “to look at how we evaluate these programs and how we frame and structure our policy decisions to lead to sustainable change.” She also said discussions of climate change should translate into actions to help communities, “particularly communities of color that are often impacted more heavily from storms, in not having proper drainage systems.”

Smith, who also manages the NCDOT Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, urged the committee to include feedback from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and faith-based organizations “to really help us inform the work.”

The USDOT has not announced when the next ACTE meeting will take place.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority recently issued a comprehensive “vision statement” outlining the agency’s values, goals, and metrics that will help it improve safety, service, equity, sustainability, and culture.

[Above photo by MBTA]

The MBTA – a division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation – said it developed this “vision statement” via detailed collaboration with staff and stakeholders.

“Thanks to input from MBTA employees and our valued partners within transportation advocacy organizations, we have new strategic goals which underscore our commitment to improving the MBTA to make it safer, more reliable, resilient, and equitable,” said MassDOT Secretary and CEO Gina Fiandaca in a statement.

“We intend to bring a new level of transparency, public engagement, and capital investment to the MBTA, and we will succeed with workforce investments, collaboration, and decisions that prioritize safety,” she added.

[Editor’s note: Fiandaca plans to step down as MassDOT secretary and CEO in September. Monica Tibbits-Nutt, the agency’s undersecretary, will take over as acting transportation secretary.]

The main goals MBTA has incorporated within its vision statement are:

• Empower and support staff to develop a culture which prioritizes and promotes safety.
• Modernize assets to improve connectivity while ensuring MBTA property is maintained in a state of good repair.
• Ensure transparent decision making so the experiences and perspectives of MBTA staff and riders are accounted for.
• Retain, attract, and invest in a diverse and qualified workforce that represents MBTA ridership.
• Support regional vitality by providing riders with dependable, frequent, and accessible service.
• Increase environmental sustainability and resilience within the state’s transit systems.
• Increase the percentage of transit trips in the region by attracting new riders and retaining existing riders via a dependable, frequent, and accessible service.
• Communicate openly about costs and revenues needed to support current services and for future expansion.

“We are committed to providing a safe, reliable, and accessible transportation system for Massachusetts,” said MBTA General Manager Phil Eng.

“We are listening to the feedback of our riders and stakeholders, and we are using that feedback to shape our vision and our roadmap. It is only with them that we can make this mission a reality,” he pointed out. “We know we sometimes face challenges, but we are confident that we can overcome them. We are committed to making the MBTA a public transportation system that everyone can rely on.”

Eng noted that MBTA plans to finalize metrics for tracking progress towards those goals in the coming months.

“We believe these goals will help keep us focused,” noted Lynsey Heffernan, MBTA’s assistant general manager for policy and transit planning. “We’re serving vibrant and diverse communities with rich history and culture who deserve to be able to rely on us for public transit services. The more in tune we are with our collective vision, the more likely we will be able to deliver on that vision.”

A comment letter sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation on June 29 outlines how the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and its members are working to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion or DEI protocols within the transportation industry – and recommended ways USDOT could support such DEI-focused efforts now and in the future.

[Above photo by AASHTO]

“In order to improve safety, mobility, and access for everyone, we are promoting diversity in all AASHTO activities and collaborating with traditional and non-traditional partners to support equity and social justice objectives,” AASHTO noted in its letter.

The foundation of the organization’s ongoing DEI initiatives is an “Equity Resolution” passed unanimously by the AASHTO Board of Directors in November 2020. That resolution affirms AASHTO’s commitment to anti-discrimination in the delivery of all programs and services. That “affirmation” included improving contracting and procurement practices to assist disadvantaged business enterprises or DBEs, focusing efforts on recruitment, promotion, and training so that the state departments of transportation can “better reflect the communities they serve” while also ensuring establishment of inclusive workplaces.

To implement the Equity Resolution, AASHTO developed a multimodal, multidisciplinary Equity Task Force that has provided equity resources and information to state DOT executive leadership, developed partnerships with equity stakeholders, and obtained funding for equity research.

In 2023, the Task Force focused on improving internal and external state DOT equity communications; helping state DOTs develop diverse, inclusive, and equitable workforces, while also enhancing public engagement to improve transportation decision-making. The Task Force developed an Equity Communications Work Group – consisting of equity and communications staff within the state DOTs – to assist states with internal and external equity communications and messaging.

That Work Group is developing the Task Force’s web presence, collecting successful practices for making intentional choices to use inclusive communications in language, style guides, images and media, and then developing model language and templates for strategic internal and external agency communications. Additionally, the Task Force is working with the AASHTO Subcommittee on Transportation Workforce Management Subcommittee and the AASHTO Committee on Human Resources to collect and share successful strategies to improve recruitment, hiring, promotion, training, leadership development and retention of—and support for—a workforce at all levels that reflect the communities served by the state DOTs.

AASHTO noted in its letter that all of the information being collected will be integrated into a new Transportation Workforce Management Playbook – a publication currently under development – to ensure that equity is a key component of transportation workforce planning and management. The Task Force will also partner with the AASHTO Committees on Planning, Environment, Civil Rights, and others, as well as external stakeholders, to collect and compile effective public engagement practices in underserved and marginalized communities. That includes practices related to developing ongoing community and stakeholder relationships, as well as developing community partnering agreements for all stages of a particular transportation project or program.

The organization also noted in its letter that USDOT’s “Power of Community” focus area directly aligns with the AASHTO Equity Resolution, and also can help advance equity at the local level. AASHTO also recommended that USDOT consider ways to support broader community engagement on transportation related priorities and needs – particularly on long-term relationship building and partnerships, especially in underserved and marginalized communities.

“Such an expanded approach will support increased and more active participation of underserved and marginalized populations, which may not have the tools, resources and/or ability to have a voice in decisions that impact their communities,” AASHTO said. “USDOT should further support these efforts through increased funding flexibility for long-term public community engagement and partnerships.”

That includes tapping into specific equity-focused datasets, said AASHTO, such as United for ALICE – short for “Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed” – data, which looks at employed community members that are unable to afford housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and technology.

AASHTO also recommended that USDOT explore using “County Health Rankings and Roadmaps” datasets, which support community-based efforts to improve health equity. That group’s 2023 National Findings Report explores several measures related to civic infrastructure and census participation across the country. This report could be used to enhance USDOT’s Equitable Transportation Community or ETC Explorer Tool as well, AASHTO said.

Finally, the Washington State Department of Health created the Washington Environmental Health Disparities or EHD Map Tool; an interactive mapping program that compares demographic and ecological data in communities across the state to identify environmental health disparities.

That map program provides insight into where public investments may be prioritized to mitigate environmental health impacts. USDOT could use the EHD Map Tool to update and enhance its environmental justice screening and mapping or EJScreen tool.

AASHTO also suggested that USDOT provide guidance to state DOTs regarding which tools should be used for various transportation planning, programming and project evaluation efforts. That guidance should outline the circumstances for appropriate use of the USDOT ETC Explorer, the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, the Transportation Disadvantaged Census Tracts Tool, the Electric Vehicle Charging Justice40 Map, the EJScreen, and other relevant tools.  

For example, AASHTO noted that Washington State’s EHD Map Tool provides example of how federal agencies can partner with state agencies in using local tools to supplement nationwide demographic tools and more accurately identify and address disparities in the health sector and beyond. For instance, using such “local tools” to enhance the Four Factor Analysis could provide more accurate identification of Limited English Proficiency or LEP populations, which would better allow important documents to be translated and better support public engagement.

The Federal Transit Administration plans to award $20 million to 47 communities to help improve public transportation options in areas that are experiencing, in the agency’s words, “long-term economic distress.”

[Above image by the FTA]

The FTA said its Areas of Persistent Poverty or AoPP program provides support to state and local governments, transit agencies, and nonprofit organizations to create better transit for residents with limited or no transportation options.

The agency said AoPP-funded investments can be used to support efforts to initiate transit service as well as improve service and modernize transit vehicle fleets, from procuring low- and no-emission buses to launching scheduling applications for smart devices and improving bus stops.  
“Transit is the great equalizer, providing rides for those who do not have a car or cannot drive, and particularly in rural and Tribal areas, having access to an affordable, reliable bus ride can mean the difference between isolation and opportunity,” said FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez in a statement. “[Our] AoPP program is about forging connections for people who need accessible transit the most.”

The grants are specifically awarded for studies to improve transit in Census-defined low-income areas, the agency added, while also supporting coordinated human service transportation planning to improve mobility and access or provide new services – including paratransit services. 

Three state departments of transportation and one state DOT transit division received funds from this round of AoPP disbursements:

• The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities received $785,400 to conduct a statewide transit study that assesses transportation needs statewide, with a focus on small, tribal and disadvantaged communities. The assessment will list barriers to access and recommend solutions to reconnect communities and will identify capital projects alongside equity considerations.
• The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority – a division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation – received $127,367 to complete the design of on-route battery-electric bus chargers at the Ashmont bus station. This station serves as a major transportation hub, facilitating connections between the subway, trolley, and 11 bus routes. The project will support transit reliability for the neighboring disadvantaged communities these stations serve and contribute toward the MBTA’s ambitious target of electrifying the entire bus fleet by 2040.
• The Maine Department of Transportation received $650,462 to help two rural public transit agencies create a community-based transportation model that will aggregate transportation services, including non-emergency medical transportation and taxi companies. It will also automate its dispatch operations and fare card system with real-time data, which will allow the systems to expand and provide more service.
• The Montana Department of Transportation received $451,500 to plan for new transit services in the city of Bozeman. The project will incorporate climate change, racial equity, and environmental justice into the transit development plan, as well as generate a financing plan that will provide a long-term sustainable funding source for these new services.