Racial Equity, Black America and Public Transportation

In the United States, the gap between Black Americans and White Americans in terms of wealth, health, and social equity is disproportionately wide. Many historians and social experts in the fields of sociology, social justice, and now transportation are beginning to understand the magnitude of the role transportation policy, urban planning, and public infrastructure construction as well as both private and public financing have played in a century-long unraveling of a Black American middle class dating back to the post-civil war reconstruction era. The objective of this research will be to develop the following: (1) An enhanced and more inclusive approach to transit planning that takes into account and acknowledges that transit systems of the 21st century must have a critical role in addressing and correcting many of the problems caused by a historically racially biased 20th century transportation industry that destroyed Black communities in the building of today's transportation systems and networks. (2) Policies on social equity for the planning of transit systems, the operations of transit systems, and for technologies used in the operations of transit systems to ensure that each and every citizen and their communities receives the same benefit. (3) Policies, principles, recommendations, and guidelines for the funding of transportation projects that includes projects focused on the reversal of damage done in the last century through public funding of infrastructure projects that destroyed historically Black communities or through the practice of "Redlining" by private financial institutions.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5071
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $250000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project H-59

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Transit Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Transit Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Parker, Stephan

• Start Date: 20201123
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communities; Equity (Justice); Financing; Public transit; Race; Recommendations; Transportation planning; Transportation policy
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01758958
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project H-59
• Files: TRB, RiP
• Created Date: Nov 23 2020 3:06PM