Represent The Underrepresented

Represent The Underrepresented Reflecting on How We Looked at Disadvantaged Populations in the Transportation Planning Process and How this Practice Evolved Over Time

June Lai

EVOLUTION OF EQUITY IN TRANSPORTATION

From the Civil Rights Act of 1964 until today, the acknowledgment of equity in transportation has evolved in many ways, from a mandatory box-checking afterthought to a boundary-pushing forethought (Legal Highlight: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, n.d.). Although every agency defines its equity goals differently, based on its particular role in the process, at the heart of equity is the achievement of an equitable distribution of transportation investments. As used today, the term equity refers to the flexible but equitable distribution of impacts and benefits to different communities depending on income, social class, or mobility needs. On the other hand, equality refers to an equal distribution of impacts and benefits, regardless of social class, income, or mobility needs. The concept of equality in the American society is grounded in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The principle of equality in transportation is applied horizontally and process-based, i.e. treating all people the same, regardless of existing structural barriers and inequalities (Camporeale, et al., 2019). In comparison, transportation equity is more vertical and outcome-based, i.e., adopting practices to ensure that people at different starting points reach the same destination (see Figure 1) (Litman, 2022). The concept of equity in transportation planning is based on the historical application of the principles of environmental justice in evaluating potential environmental impacts on proposed projects. Environmental justice is a concept first made official as a federal mandate by President Clinton in 1994 by Executive Order 12898 (Summary of Executive Order 12898, 2021). It requires federal agencies to identify and address disproportionately adverse effects of an agency’s programs, policies, and activities on minority and low-income populations to achieve an equitable distribution of benefits and burdens. Executive Order 12898 also requires all potentially affected communities’ full and fair participation in the decision-making process. Another legislation, the transportation provision included in Title II and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, ensures equal opportunity and access for persons with physical or mental impairments, just one area that ADA addresses in regards to discrimination for persons with disabilities. Both EO 12898 and the 1990 ADA are foundational to the consideration of equity principles in transportation planning practice. In addition, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits any federal action from discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin (49 CFR Part 21). As such, for any federal funding that comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), including the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), recipients need to demonstrate compliance with Title VI by conducting equity assessments and developing Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Plans (Title VI Guidance, 2020). Other guidance and regulations include theNational Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),which requires environmental justice evaluations as a part of NEPA’s Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) (Environmental Justice Guidance for National Environmental Policy Act Reviews, n.d.). More recently, President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government, defined equity as the consistent and systematic fair, just and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality (Exec. Order No. 13985, 2021). Executive Order 13985 also defines underserved communities as those that share a particular characteristic and geographic communities that have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life, as exemplified by the list in the preceding definition of equity. Equitable transportation planning allows disadvantaged groups to achieve the same level of success as everyone else, perhaps with necessary additional support and more favorable policies and programs. In order to custom-build tools that identify and address inequality, transportation agencies need to start with a full understanding of the communities they serve (Williams et al., 2019). This reflective article explores how transportation agencies, particularly Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), identify and define equity populations and analyzes how these definitions have evolved in the United States. This analysis is particularly important as our understanding of equity has grown beyond simply avoiding adverse and disproportionate impacts on environmental justice communities, which only focus on minority and low-income populations, to ensuring that all persons, especially historically underserved populations, also receive a fair share of the benefits of transportation. Transportation planners are bringing more underrepresented groups into the fold for special consideration in transportation plans, programs, and projects. To illustrate notable practices in equity-based transportation planning, this article features the Metropolitan Transportation

Figure 1: Using cycling as a metaphor for the difference between equality and equity. Source: https://vitals. sutterhealth.org/equality-vs-equity-do-you-know-the-difference/

Commission’s Equity Priority Communities metric, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s Economically Disconnected Areas metric, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Equitable Target Areas metric, and the Hillsborough County’s Underserved Communities metric because of their extensive equity metrics and detailed methodology.

CASE STUDIES

METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION (MTC)

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is the MPO in the San Francisco Bay Area responsible for transportation planning in the ninecounty region. It uses a broad definition for vulnerable communities. Formerly called Communities of Concern, Equity Priority Communities (EPCs) are census tracts that have a significant concentration of underserved populations, such as households with low incomes and people of color (Equity Priority Communities, 2021). To designate EPC status, MTC uses the 2014-2018 American Community Survey (ACS) five-year tract-level data and compares each census tract against a threshold value for each demographic factor. The threshold value is determined by using a value that is 0.5 standard deviation higher than the regional mean. The eight demographic factors MTC used are: • People of color (70% threshold) • Low-income1 (28% threshold) • Limited English proficiency (12% threshold) • Seniors 75 years and over (8% threshold) • Zero-vehicle households (15% threshold) • Single-parent families (18% threshold) • People with disabilities (12% threshold) • Rent-burdened households (14% threshold) Suppose a census tract exceeds both threshold values for low-income and people of color shares or exceeds the threshold value for low-income and three or more variables, then MTC uses the EPC framework to guide its decisions to ensure historically underserved communities have equitable access to housing and transportation. Plan Bay Area 2050 (the long-range strategic plan), the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), and the Lifeline Transportation Program utilize the EPC framework to determine funds and prioritize projects that would meaningfully reverse existing disparities. For example, in the newest update of Equity Priority Communities for Plan Bay Area 2050, 343 out of 1,591 (21.5%) of all census tracts in the 9-county Bay Area are designated as an EPC (see Figure 2).

CHICAGO METROPOLITAN AGENCY OF PLANNING (CMAP)

As part of the On To 2050 Comprehensive Regional Plan effort, Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning (CMAP) states that one of its principles is inclusive growth, which refers to “economic processes that enable the broadest possible proportion of residents and communities to contribute to and benefit from the region’s prosperity” (Economically disconnected areas, n.d.). Hence, this principle required identifying places in the region least connected to prosperity and experiencing disinvestment so that the agency could prioritize policy solutions targeting those areas. Economically Disconnected Areas (EDAs) are areas with a concentration of lowincome residents and either minority residents or residents with limited proficiency in English (Economically Disconnected Areas Local Strategy Map Methodology, n.d.). These areas are targeted through strategies that improve connections between residents and the region’s economy to promote inclusive growth. Disinvested areas are primarily non-residential areas that exhibit characteristics of long-term market weakness, including employment loss, low rates of small business lending, and relatively low commercial real estate values. Places with a weak market can lead to community issues that perpetuate a cycle of disinvestment, like declines in property values and tax revenue. Figure 3 shows the location of EDAs and disinvested areas and where they intersect. CMAP could visually identify places that call for additional policy and funding support to prioritize investment and advance equity by overlaying the two datasets.

Figure 2: Equity Priority Communities in the 9-county San Francisco Bay Area. Source: https://mtc.ca.gov/ planning/transportation/access-equity-mobility/equity-priority-communities

THE ATLANTA REGIONAL COMMISSION (ARC)

The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) uses the Protected Classes model to identify the concentration of populations that are specified in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and EO 12898 (Equity Analyses Methodology, 2019). In addition, ARC uses this data to guide policy and funding decisions combined with qualitative knowledge and input from the Transportation Equity Advisory Group (TEAG). The nine population groups (indicators) are: • Ethnic minority • Female • Foreign born • Limited English proficiency • Low-income • Older adults • People with disabilities • Racial minority • Youth After collecting the above data from the ACS, the ARC uses a standard deviation scoring method to determine each indicator’s relative percentage compared to the regional mean. Every census tract is classified into one of the five bins: well above average, above average, average, below average, and well below average. Each bin is scored from 0 to 4 depending on the intensity. Then, the scores for each of the nine indicators are added to obtain a cumulative numeric score between 0 and 36 (see Figure 4).

HILLSBOROUGH TRANSPORTATION PLANNING ORGANIZATION (TPO)

The Hillsborough TPO recognized that underserved and underrepresented people were historically disenfranchised from the decision-making process, disproportionately burdened by negative planning outcomes, and needed special accommodations to be included in planning processes (Plan Hillsborough nondiscrimination & equity plan, 2021). Hence in the 2021 Title VI Nondiscrimination Plan, the agency transitioned from the term Communities of Concern to Underserved Communities to better reflect the historic disinvestment by the public and private sectors in vulnerable groups and certain areas instead of placing the burden of disinvestment onto these communities.

Figure 3: Economically Disconnected Areas in the Greater Chicago region. Source: https://www.cmap.illinois. gov/2050/maps/eda

Figure 4: Protected Classes Model Methodology. Source: https://cdn.atlantaregional.org/wp-content/uploads/ arc-equity-methodology-june2019.pdf

The methodology identifies census tracts and block groups with a higher than county average, using ten demographic indicators: • Racial minorities: non-white residents • Ethnic minorities: Hispanic or Latino(a/x) • Low-income households, those with household incomes at or below the poverty line; for this effort, the Census Bureau’s definition of poverty is used, which varies based on total household size. • Persons with disabilities, those households with at least one person with a disability • Limited English proficiency households, those in which English is not the primary language and/or who do not speak English well • Zero vehicle households. • Low educational attainment: Persons without a high school degree • Female heads of households, those with a female listed as head of household, with no husband present • Youth. Residents who are between the ages of 10 and 17 • Older adults. Residents who are 65 years old or older A census tract block group is identified as an underserved community by being in the 80th-100th percentile of block groups (very high concentrations) based on the concentration of the ten indicators (see Figure 5). The most underserved communities are block groups with four to nine indicators within the 80th-100th percentile range.

DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

Traditionally, environmental justice has been the standard for transportation planning agencies in evaluating project impacts and determining whether a proposed plan/project would impose disproportionate burdens and adverse effects on low-income and minority communities. Major transportation plans/ projects that go through the NEPA process with EIS preparation would only have to include analyses of the plan/project impact on low-income, minority, and occasionally LEP persons in their environmental justice chapters. As previously mentioned, environmental justice analysis is process-based and focused on avoiding disproportionately burdening vulnerable populations. However, equitable transportation planning practices demand more forethought and must be more inclusive by considering the mobility needs of a large share of underrepresented populations.

In the case studies mentioned in this article, the MPOs not only expanded their environmental justice-based analysis beyond low-income and minority populations, they also broadened their understanding of the location of the demographic groups with different mobility needs (Twaddell, et al., 2019). Some agencies also rethought and renamed their nomenclature and definitions of underrepresented communities.

For example, prior to 2020, both the MTC and Hillsborough TPOused the term Communities of Concern for their vulnerable populations. In 2020, both agencies changed their definition and methodology to reflect society’s increased awareness of language and rhetoric. MTC’s board decided to adopt Equity Focus Communities (Tupase, 2021) , while the Hillsborough TPO went with Underserved Communities (Plan Hillsborough nondiscrimination & equity plan, 2021). CMAP used the environmental justice model to identify concentrations of minority and low-income populations in its programs and plans prior to its On To 2050 Comprehensive Plan effort. In 2018, when CMAP created On To 2050, the agency also adopted a new methodology to identify “geographies not currently well connected to regional economic progress” in economically disconnected and disinvested areas (Economically disconnected areas, n.d.). By broadening and renaming equity metrics, transportation planners are increasing the inclusivity in the transportation planning process, acknowledging the power of language in shaping a negative perception towards disadvantaged populations in the past, and aiming to reshape transportation policies in a more equitable, forward-looking future.

Transportation planners and transportation planning agencies should go beyond what is required by law to increase the inclusivity of their agency’s plans, programs, and projects. In deciding on the nomenclature and determining which indicators to feature, planners should think critically about and analyze the demographics and specific needs of the communities they serve.

About the Author

June Lai is a transportation planner at HDR with experience in policy and plan development in relation to transportation equity, environmental justice, data analysis and visualization. Prior to joining HDR, June worked for the County of San Luis Obispo and Motivate on the expansion of Bay Area Bike Share to the East Bay. She holds a dual master’s in City & Regional Planning and Engineering from Cal Poly SLO, and a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from UC Berkeley.

References

49 CFR Part 21. Nondiscrimination in Federally-Assisted Programs of the Department of Transportation - Effectuation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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