1/30/2024 0 Comments Line rider conundrumRather than embrace improvements to mobility they resist, or fail to engage, and lose the opportunity. Skepticism about new projects or innovations proposed as being “good for the community” is the predictable reaction of those who have experienced years of false promises and disinvestment in urban transit.īeyond this understandable skepticism, there are those who prefer to maintain inferior mobility systems out of fear that improvements will undermine their beloved status quo or that it will bring displacement and gentrification. While there are many planners and policymakers who genuinely want to be responsive to rider needs, the reality is that inequities remain ingrained in large part because of habitual neglect, often of benign intent but always of pernicious effect. Yet that is not always the case, and in the drive to advance transportation equity, we often run into barriers we did not expect.Īt the core of the problem is the poisonous atmosphere created by decades of neglect and disenfranchisement. Many of us who care deeply about transportation equity often take as a given that people in underserved neighborhoods will applaud and welcome increased investment in local transit improvements. Indeed, in many circumstances an initiative to improve transit service or create a new transit service (like Bus Rapid Transit) touch upon several of these forms of transportation equity. These forms of transportation equity are not mutually exclusive. Often that means stepping up investment in neighborhoods and communities that have historically been shortchanged when it comes to transportation funding. Fundamentally, social equity relates not simply to treating all people fairly, but also recognizing, acknowledging and acting on righting historical wrongs. Then there is ridership equity – are users of the transportation system being provided reasonably equal, meaningful modal choices, enabling access to jobs, healthcare, education and opportunity? Social equity, which builds the bonds that knit together the durable fabric of a healthy moral society, has a broader meaning. There is modal funding equity, which goes to whether public sector decision makers treat each mode fairly when it comes to the allocation of limited public funding resources. There is regional equity – the question whether every region in a state, or every neighborhood in a city, is equitably treated from a funding perspective. What do we think about when we think about transportation equity?
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