Task 1-2, Literature Review

**Filling the Gap:**

**Environmental Justice in Transportation Toolkit**

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Prepared for:

Federal Transit Administration

U.S Department of Transportation

In conjunction with:

Cooperative Agreement MD-26-8001-00

Transportation Equity Cooperative Research Program

**5/23/2007**

Lead Author: Glenn Robinson, MA., MM., Morgan State University

Co-Author: Rich Kuzmyak, Transportation Consultant

Co-Author: Tom Sanchez, Phd. Virginia Tech

Contributor: Jackie Grimshaw, VP, Policy Transportation and Community
Development, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Contributor: Tim Buckley, Phd., Ohio State University

**Not For Distribution All Rights Reserved**

**OUTLINE**

I.  Introduction 2

II. Environmental Justice In Transportation Toolkit (EJTK) Framework 3

III. State of the Art 5

IV. Existing Research Studies and Technical Assistance Guides 13

V.  Environmental Justice and Public Participation 21

VI. Environmental Justice and Human Health 40

VII. Environmental Justice and Accessibility 45

VIII. Planning Elements Required For Effective Environmental Justice
      Analysis 48

**Tables**

Table 1: Coverage of Key Environmental Justice Elements in Source
Studies 6 - 7

Table 2: Summary of FHWA Case Studies 8

Table 3: Desk Guide Highlights 17

Table 4: Transportation Equity Planning Documents 20

Table 5: Levels of Public Participation 23

Table 6: EPA's Hot Spot Exposure Program 44

**Figures**

Figure 1: Transportation Equity-Related Planning Activities 21

**LITERATURE REVIEW**

**I. INTRODUCTION**

The objective of this literature review is to discuss how environmental
justice (EJ) analyses have been viewed and conducted by both
practitioners and academics. By highlighting methods that have been
applied in the context of transportation planning, we can justify the
utility of some EJ analysis tools as well as highlight particular needs
where there are dearths of examples. By reviewing both professional and
academic literature we can combine case studies, empirical research,
along with analytic methods. We will also balance the selected
professional and academic literature so that practical as well as
sophisticated tools are represented. For instance, some types of
analyses that either rely on voluminous or highly detailed data or
involve extremely complicated computations may simply be too expensive
to conduct by local public agencies. The tradeoffs between accuracy,
sophistication, and cost likely explain why some public transportation
planning agencies conduct few or relatively simplistic EJ analysis
techniques. Other explanations include the fact that some organizations
do not make EJ or equity analysis priorities within their planning
processes. This point, however, is beyond the scope of this literature
review.

From our review of the literature we identified several important
dimensions of EJ analysis techniques. First is the unit of analysis (or
aggregation) of the data used. Because so many analyses rely on
secondary data sources, the unit of analysis is often dictated by data
availability. Census data are the most commonly used because they are
relatively inexpensive, provide a common spatial or geographic unit of
analysis, and often provide temporal units of analysis if change over
time dynamics is an important element of the analysis. In other cases
the individual or household may be the unit of concern, which often
means that the spatial or geographic reference is suppressed to provide
confidentiality. In these cases spatial patterns cannot be easily
detected or included in analyses, but this may be remedied by using
other supplementary data sources if necessary.

A second important dimension of EJ analyses are analytical methods.
These can range from spatial analysis with geographic information
systems (GIS), statistical analysis, and qualitative analysis methods.
Qualitative analysis methods are probably the least used in EJ analysis
for transportation because so much emphasis is placed on empirical
measurement and quantifiable indices. Qualitative methods, however, can
be very valuable in assessing aspects such as customer satisfaction,
preferences, and other types of public input such as visioning and
scenario building. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are
represented in the academic literature and draw on a range of
disciplines such as geography, economics, sociology, psychology, and
anthropology.

A third important dimension of analysis is substantive focus. For EJ
analysis in transportation these can include health, safety, and
environment as well as transportation service and economic
characteristics. Several reviews of planning documents have found that
there is little or no consistency in the types of substantive focus
included in EJ or equity analyses. The lack of consistency can also be
seen in terms of the unit of analysis and analytical methods employed by
planners and are due to the lack of guidance provided by the state and
federal government.

To make clear our purpose, this review paper summarizes our findings
from what we believe to be the key studies and reports that have been
produced to date on environmental justice in transportation. In
particular, we have reviewed EJ case studies that have been published by
FHWA or FTA or that have been sponsored by these agencies and
documentation made available on the respective websites. We have also
reviewed a more recent set of overview studies and handbooks that begin
to fill the gap on the "how to" part of EJ. Based on the earlier
discussion, we paid attention to units of analysis, analytical methods,
and substantive focus for EJ analysis case studies and other reports.

This document is organized as follows: Section II briefly discusses our
framework for developing the tool kit. Section III summarizes a number
of studies that are examples of existing practice. These are primarily
case studies, and they are valuable because they illustrate particular
approaches to EJ, thus providing a model for others considering similar
initiatives. Section IV then examines a series of key research studies
or guidebook efforts providing more generalized directions on different
aspects of environmental justice, ranging from community involvement
through analytic methods and measurement. Sections V, VI and VII address
the specific areas of public involvement and public health. While
environmental justice maintains that human health is one of the most
critical concerns, EJ studies and guides have invested relatively little
time on this complex topic. Because we are proposing to include health
impacts among the key elements of our Toolkit, we summarize in Section
IV the treatment of human exposure and health both in the EJ literature
as well as feature other studies that would be drawn upon to incorporate
this element into the Toolkit. Finally, Section V provides an overall
summary of the findings from this review in relation to what we believe
is needed in the way of comprehensive guidance on environmental justice
in transportation.

II\. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE TOOLKIT FRAMEWORK[^1]

For the purposes of this literature review, we use the following
framework to examine EJ issues and applications to guide the development
of the EJ Toolkit. Within each level of the framework air
pollution/health; accessibility to jobs; policy effects; and other costs
and burdens that the minority community disproportionately carries as a
result of transportation services and policies will be examined. What is
important about this framework is that it provides us with a structure
to illustrate the elements that should be present in an effective EJT
process and also how those elements work together to arrive at
solutions. As in any valid planning process several iterations of review
and analysis are required. Our overall goal is to provide practitioners
with a more systematic way of approaching EJ issues, and thus add more
helpful structure to what is currently a relatively unstructured
process. The intent is not to prescribe methods nor deter creativity,
but to provide more insight into what is involved in an EJ assessment,
how the parts work together, and thus take out a large measure of the
guesswork in current efforts. The components of the framework include
Public Participation Methods, Implementation Body/Process, Performance
Measures, Analytical Tools, and Analysis of Distributive Impacts.

-   Public Outreach and Involvement: The Toolkit will use an initial
    screen of regional EJ issues to construct a collaborative process,
    which integrates public input. Specifically, several of the
    identified issues will be selected as projects for study in Phase
    II, where we will work with the public to develop our analytic and
    institutional approaches. The public will help to identify and
    assess underlying causes and conduct the data assembly and analysis
    to fully understand the nature and impact of the problem. The public
    will then work directly with us as we investigate alternative
    solutions, assess tradeoffs, and develop a plan for implementation.
    These problem-solving vignettes will be documented as case studies
    of the process. We will then draw upon these experiences in
    developing our Toolkit.

-   Triage Function: Several factors limit the EJ population's ability
    to seek remedy for EJ complaints or to ensure adequate
    representation in the decision-making process. One important factor
    may be the fragmented network of organizations authorized to address
    these issues. For example, an MPO may have difficulty speaking out
    to raise concerns about an issue with transit service, or with
    planning or land use decisions in a local jurisdiction. Moreover,
    the single agency would probably find it difficult to recommend a
    particular type of investigation or response if that response had
    implications for outside agencies. For this reason we have
    constructed an EJT *Triage* process at the center of our framework
    as a strategy for collaboration among all the key players, and as an
    advocacy group for the EJ community. We see this entity having
    sufficient expertise and authority to direct an analysis or
    investigation broad enough to deal with the critical underlying
    factors of the given problem and not simply those which are
    pertinent to the particular agency. We believe such collaborations
    could be effective ways of not only bringing more expertise and
    resources to bear on a complex EJ problem, but also reduce the risk
    of any given agency in having responsibility for recommending or
    implementing an action.

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-   Evaluation Framework: The Toolkit's guidance on selection of
    analysis tools or analysis procedures will be linked to an
    Evaluation Framework. The intent will be to first frame the problem,
    determine the sets of appropriate measures for its investigation (in
    relation to benefits and burdens), and how those measures will be
    used and interpreted (especially distributional equity
    considerations). Guidelines will be provided about the analytic
    tools, data and procedures to perform the analysis, and how to
    incorporate the results into decision-making. The strategy in
    creating this guidance will be to focus mainly on problem
    identification and selection of methods, while relying on materials
    such as Report 532 and NCHRP 8-36(11) for measures, tools and
    technical development methods.

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-   Analytic Tools: Again, Toolkit guidance will focus on identification
    and selection of appropriate tools and data, along with how to apply
    them in strategic ways, while leaving the details to existing
    documentation. Efforts will be made to illustrate the broader
    application of GIS techniques in a more aggressive application
    format, using population synthesis methods and household
    micro-simulation techniques to address more elusive elements of
    various EJ issues. A particular application is cited below in
    relation to assessing health impacts.

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-   Health Impacts: We not only believe that health impacts are a
    critical part of an EJ assessment, but believe that we have a unique
    opportunity to advance the current practice in showing how to
    incorporate these elements. First, the team has access to key
    expertise on the pollution/health link through Johns Hopkins
    University, which is a member of the team. The Hopkins staff has
    been significantly involved in advancing the science through
    hands-on projects in Baltimore and elsewhere. In addition to
    epidemiological expertise, Hopkins has access to extensive
    technological and personnel resources for monitoring pollutant
    concentrations. An important strategy we will investigate in the
    Toolkit effort will be to develop an improved
    transportation-pollution concentration interface through
    construction of a "pollution surface", which will be facilitated by
    the available of additional monitoring capability plus the
    deployment of state-of-the-art GIS modeling capabilities. We will
    include measures of health risk among our measures of benefit and
    burden.

We believe that the processes being proposed for the Toolkit will
provide an important advance to the cause of environmental justice, and
assistance available to both practitioners and members of the EJ
community. The case studies provide valuable support materials for EJ
communities and their advocates in seeking identification with problems
they too may be facing. This benefit to the community is an objective of
the guidance that is not currently available in the practitioner
guidebooks (NCHRP 532 and 8-36(2)), and is only partially available in
the existing case studies and the ITS Citizens Guide.

Our goal with the Toolkit is not to "reinvent the wheel", but to develop
a convenient and realistic guide to steer both agencies and community
groups through the complexity of environmental justice. It is an attempt
to provide more structure, a systematic approach, and a document that
*puts it all in one place*.

**III. STATE OF THE ART: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND TRANSPORTATION CASE
STUDIES**[^2]

The FHWA and FTA jointly published this compendium of case studies to
provide support to others engaged in EJT studies or assessments. The
purpose of the booklet is "to put environmental justice at the center of
transportation decision making", and to demonstrate that "when properly
implemented, EJ principles can improve all levels of transportation
decision-making -- from the first thought about a transportation plan
through project development, right-of-way, construction, operations and
maintenance". The premise is that "pursuing environmental justice is not
a simple task, but one that stretches the imagination of the
transportation agency, calling upon the practitioner to explore new
methods and new partnerships". It is further possible that "eliminating
discrimination, and the appearance of discrimination, often requires
probing analysis of transportation issues, broad-based community
outreach, and a particular sensitivity to the needs \[sic\] of people
who have not traditionally been participants in the decision-making
process".

The case study booklet illustrates how 10 different areas independently
approached EJ aspects in a variety of planning, project or impact
resolution contexts. The intent is to present a "story" of how a given
area recognized an EJ problem or need and dealt with it -- usually
documenting the process from beginning to end in an attempt to
illustrate the "learning curve" for the given agency. The essential
characteristics of the 10 case studies are illustrated in Table 1.
Clearly, the studies cover a wide range of planning activities, setting,
techniques used and organizations involved. The examples in the booklet
provide assurance as to how agencies, practitioners and others have
faced similar problems or circumstances and developed an approach to
deal with it. There are good insights in this book on public
participation methods, analytic approaches, and institutional mechanics,
all of which add when combined adds to the knowledge base and awareness
of the dimensions of environmental justice. The characteristics of the
case study booklet are:

-   The examples are somewhat random in topic coverage, and while
    interesting, require the user to ascertain which studies and which
    aspects are relevant to their particular situation.

-   It is not always clear that the path chosen by the particular case
    study agency is either optimal or inclusive of all important
    considerations, nor that they necessarily reached an effective
    solution. This situation requires the user to try to decide how much
    of the particular process to replicate in their respective
    situation.

Table 1 provides the previously mentioned framework by which these
studies/reports/plans are summarized and compared. Table 2 shows that
out of the 10 selected case studies there is little consistency in the
types of analysis and research topics, further illustrating how the body
of EJ research is traditionally targeted.

######### Table 1: Coverage of Key Environmental Justice Elements in Source Studies

+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
|      | Public    | Imple     | Pe        | A         | Analysis of  |
|      | Part      | mentation | rformance | nalytical | Distributive |
|      | icipation | Body/     | Measures  |           | Impacts      |
|      |           | Process   |           | Tools     |              |
|      | Methods   |           |           |           |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
| FHWA | Broad     | Varies    | Acces     | Regional  | Demographic  |
|      | spectrum  |           | sibility, | travel    | breakout     |
| Case | of public |           | highway   | models;   |              |
|      | part      |           | i         |           | by income,   |
| Stu  | icipation |           | nvestment | GIS;      | age and      |
| dies | examples  |           | analysis  | Census    | proximity.   |
|      | involving |           | &         | data.     |              |
|      | needs     |           |           |           |              |
|      | a         |           | minority  |           |              |
|      | ssessment |           | dis       |           |              |
|      | and       |           | placement |           |              |
|      | reaction. |           | caused by |           |              |
|      |           |           | highway   |           |              |
|      |           |           | projects. |           |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
| SCAG | Employed  | 10-member | Jobs      | Primarily | Explicit     |
| RTP  | ADR       | Peer      | acce      | regional  | c            |
| Up   | process   | Review    | ssibility | travel    | onsideration |
| date | to        | committee |           | model     | of benefit   |
| (1   | arbitrate | formed to | Oppo      | using TAZ | distribution |
| 998) | p         | challenge | rtunities | level     | from         |
|      | ositions; | process,  | acces     | ag        | existing and |
|      | no        | but no    | sibility. | gregation | planned      |
|      | special   | community |           | (no GIS); | tr           |
|      | public    | members & | Equity -- | HBW       | ansportation |
|      | in        | not an    | percent   | travel    | investments  |
|      | volvement | imple     | of hours  | only      | by mode,     |
|      | during    | mentation | saved vs. |           | race and     |
|      | 1998      | body      | percent   |           | income       |
|      | update    |           | of total  |           |              |
|      | but       |           | exp       |           |              |
|      | created   |           | enditures |           |              |
|      | several   |           | (by       |           |              |
|      | channels  |           | income    |           |              |
|      | for next  |           | group     |           |              |
|      | plan      |           |           |           |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
| M    | Held one  | Created   | Various   | Census    | Compared     |
| ORPC | Open      | 12-member | acce      | data,     | performance  |
| EJ   | House 3   | EJ Task   | ssibility | regional  | of existing  |
| Co   | months    | Force as  | measures; | travel    | & planned    |
| mpli | into      | advisory  |           | model,    | systems on   |
| ance | process   | committee | Travel    | GIS used  | poor &       |
| Re   | -- not    | --        | times;    | to map    | minority vs. |
| port | clear     | diverse   |           | p         | overall      |
| (2   | what real | me        | Co        | opulation |              |
| 000) | input to  | mbership, | ngestion, | &         |              |
|      | process   | 2         | fiscal,   | estimate  |              |
|      |           | community | disp      | acce      |              |
|      |           | members   | lacements | ssibility |              |
|      |           |           |           | measures  |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
| C    | Most      | Involving | Job       | Co        | Used GIS to  |
| RCOG | intensive | EJ        | oppo      | mbination | layer TIP    |
| EJ   | aspect of | p         | rtunities | of GIS    | projects on  |
| C    | process;  | opulation | access by | t         | Target areas |
| hall | Adopted   | in        | transit   | echniques | & determine  |
| enge | work shop | planning  | for       | and       | equitable    |
| G    | format to | process   | single    | regional  | share of     |
| rant | increase  | and       | car       | travel    | funding      |
| (2   | reach and | decision  | ho        | model;    |              |
| 002) | coverage  | making a  | useholds; | Spent     | For LRP,     |
|      | of topics | prime     | other     | con       | used travel  |
|      |           | concern;  | measures  | siderable | models to    |
|      |           | Re        | proposed  | time      | develop      |
|      |           | commended |           | defining  | measures of  |
|      |           | an EJ     |           | target    | cumulative   |
|      |           | Advisory  |           | areas and | travel time  |
|      |           | Board     |           | est       | and access   |
|      |           | plus      |           | ablishing | to jobs      |
|      |           | inclusion |           | t         |              |
|      |           | of one of |           | hresholds |              |
|      |           | its       |           |           |              |
|      |           | members   |           |           |              |
|      |           | on the    |           |           |              |
|      |           | Trans     |           |           |              |
|      |           | portation |           |           |              |
|      |           | Committee |           |           |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+
| USF  | By        | Ar        | Issues    | Not       | Issues       |
| EJ & | example   | ticulates | raised    | covered   | raised shine |
| T    | through   | i         | which can |           | light on     |
| itle | case      | mportance | be        |           | types of     |
| VI   | studies   | of        | t         |           | analyses     |
| Case |           | in        | ranslated |           | which should |
| Stu  |           | volvement | into      |           | be done      |
| dies |           | in the    | critical  |           |              |
| (2   |           | entire    | pe        |           |              |
| 005) |           | planning  | rformance |           |              |
|      |           | an        | measures  |           |              |
|      |           | decision  |           |           |              |
|      |           | making    |           |           |              |
|      |           | process   |           |           |              |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+--------------+

#########  

######### Table 1: Coverage of Key Environmental Justice Elements in Source Studies (continued)

+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
|      | Public    | Imple     | Pe        | Ana     | Analysis of    |
|      | Part      | mentation | rformance | lytical | Distributive   |
|      | icipation | Body/     | Measures  |         | Impacts        |
|      |           | Process   |           | Tools   |                |
|      | Methods   |           |           |         |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
| Atl  | Phase 1   | Two       | Long list | Had to  | Benefits &     |
| anta | was an    | c         | of        | syn     | burdens        |
| EJ   | e         | ommittees | measures  | thesize | evaluated for  |
| Bene | valuation | formed to | studied   | data    | most of the    |
| fits | of        | oversee   | -- good   | from    | measures,      |
| &    | existing  | work on   | in        | m       | particularly   |
| Bur  | efforts   | measures  | formation | ultiple | the key        |
| dens | by ARC:   | in Phase  | on their  | s       | measures       |
| S    | basically | II:       | function  | ources, |                |
| tudy | lots of   | Review    | & value;  | using   | Some concern   |
| (2   | recomm    | Panel to  |           | GIS to  | about focus on |
| 002) | endations | ensure    | Four key  | do the  | income over    |
|      | on how &  | results   | measures  | spatial | minority       |
|      | where to  | were      | selected: | relati  | status;        |
|      | improve;  | relevant  |           | onships |                |
|      |           | and       | 1\.       |         | Also some      |
|      | Phase II  | unders    | Walking   |         | concern about  |
|      | did not   | tandable, | distance  |         | using          |
|      | have      | Technical | to        |         | "history" to   |
|      | direct    | Committee | transit;  |         | explain how    |
|      | public    | to ensure | 2. Jobs   |         | things got     |
|      | input,    | results   | acces     |         | this way?      |
|      | but       | were      | s-ability |         |                |
|      | repre     | te        | by        |         |                |
|      | sentation | chnically | transit;  |         |                |
|      | on the 2  | sound.    | 3. Avg.   |         |                |
|      | oversight |           | congested |         |                |
|      | c         | However,  | travel    |         |                |
|      | ommittees | an        | time; 4.  |         |                |
|      |           | academic  | Potential |         |                |
|      |           | study     | impact to |         |                |
|      |           | with no   | historic  |         |                |
|      |           | attempt   | areas     |         |                |
|      |           | to        |           |         |                |
|      |           | integrate |           |         |                |
|      |           | results   |           |         |                |
|      |           | into the  |           |         |                |
|      |           | planning  |           |         |                |
|      |           | process   |           |         |                |
|      |           | yet       |           |         |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
| N    | Overview  | Not       | In        | Covers  | Describes      |
| CHRP | of the    | covered   | ventories | both    | benefit &      |
|      | need to   |           | and       | tools   | burden         |
| Pro  | define    |           | details   | in      | measures and   |
| ject | and       |           | lists of  | e       | discusses      |
|      | identify  |           | measures  | xisting | conduct of     |
| 8-36 | p         |           | of        | use and | di             |
| (11) | opulation |           | benefits  | po      | sproportionate |
|      | groups;   |           | and       | tential | benefit        |
| \(20 | Good      |           | burdens;  | use:    | analysis in    |
| 02\) | general   |           |           | GIS,    | some detail    |
|      | d         |           | Ca        | r       |                |
|      | iscussion |           | lculation | egional |                |
|      | of public |           | methods   | travel  |                |
|      | in        |           | described | models, |                |
|      | volvement |           |           | census  |                |
|      | t         |           |           | & other |                |
|      | echniques |           |           | data    |                |
|      |           |           |           | s       |                |
|      |           |           |           | ources; |                |
|      |           |           |           | also    |                |
|      |           |           |           | ho      |                |
|      |           |           |           | usehold |                |
|      |           |           |           | micro   |                |
|      |           |           |           | sim     |                |
|      |           |           |           | ulation |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
| Desk | Full      | Discusses | Extensive | Defers  | Citations for  |
|      | chapter   | need for  | citations | to      | evaluating     |
| G    | on types  | &         | on        | u       | di             |
| uide | of public | function  | pe        | pcoming | sproportionate |
|      | inv       | of        | rformance | NCHRP   | impacts;       |
| \(20 | olvement, | Citizens  | measures  | 8-41    | suggests SCAG, |
| 03\) | te        | Advisory  | via       | report  | ABAG, MTC and  |
|      | chniques, | Co        | reference | on      | MORPC RTP      |
|      | c         | mmittees; |           | Te      | efforts as     |
|      | ommittees | where in  |           | chnical | examples       |
|      | (         | planning  |           | Methods |                |
|      | primarily | process   |           | to      |                |
|      | via       | issues    |           | Support |                |
|      | r         | can be    |           | A       |                |
|      | eference) | raised    |           | nalysis |                |
|      |           |           |           | of EJ   |                |
|      |           |           |           | Issues  |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
| ITS  | What to   | Details   | Provides  | Not     | Discusses      |
| Citi | do guide. | how the   | a good    | ad      | concept of     |
| zens | How to    | trans     | gen       | dressed | benefits and   |
|      | respond   | portation | eralist's |         | burdens, how   |
| EJ&T | to        | planning  | overview  |         | it must be     |
| Hand | community | process   | on types  |         | dealt with in  |
| book | needs.    | works and | of        |         | the            |
|      | Involving | key steps | measures, |         | transportation |
| \(20 | everyone. | in which  | how they  |         | planning       |
| 03\) |           | to get    | are used, |         | process        |
|      |           | involved  | why they  |         |                |
|      |           |           | are       |         |                |
|      |           |           | important |         |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+
| N    | Not a     | Not a     | 11        | A       | Covered in the |
| CHRP | coverage  | coverage  | different | mu      | background     |
|      | item      | item      | c         | ltitude | sections but   |
| Re   |           |           | ategories | of      | not in the     |
| port |           |           | of        | common  | development of |
| 532  |           |           | measures  | and     | measures of    |
| (2   |           |           | covered,  | less    | deployment of  |
| 004) |           |           | with      | common  | tools          |
|      |           |           | guidance  | methods |                |
|      |           |           | on use    | linked  |                |
|      |           |           | scaled to | to each |                |
|      |           |           | the type  | type of |                |
|      |           |           | of        | measure |                |
|      |           |           | analysis  | and     |                |
|      |           |           | & setting | a       |                |
|      |           |           |           | nalysis |                |
|      |           |           |           | a       |                |
|      |           |           |           | pproach |                |
+------+-----------+-----------+-----------+---------+----------------+

######### Table 2: Summary of FWHA Case Studies

######### 

<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 28%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 3%" />
<col style="width: 2%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 23%" />
<col style="width: 5%" />
<col style="width: 9%" />
<col style="width: 12%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="case-study-namelocation" class="heading">Case Study
Name/Location</p></td>
<td colspan="5"><p id="type-activity" class="heading">Type
Activity</p></td>
<td><p id="ej-cat." class="heading">EJ Cat.</p></td>
<td><p id="research-topics" class="heading">Research Topics</p></td>
<td colspan="3"><p id="type-of-stakeholder" class="heading">Type of
Stakeholder</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="section-2" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="planning" class="heading">Planning</p></td>
<td><p id="project-develop.nepa" class="heading">Project
Develop./NEPA</p></td>
<td><p id="row-evaluation" class="heading">ROW Evaluation</p></td>
<td><p id="community-impact-assess." class="heading">Community Impact
Assess.</p></td>
<td><p id="public-involvement" class="heading">Public
Involvement</p></td>
<td><p
id="minoritylow-income-black-asian-latino-native-american-hispanic"
class="heading">Minority/Low Income, Black, Asian, Latino Native
American, Hispanic</p></td>
<td><p id="section-3" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-4" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-5" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-6" class="heading"></p>
<p id="topics-and-effective-practices" class="heading">Topics and
Effective Practices</p></td>
<td><p id="geography-urbanrural" class="heading">Geography
(Urban/Rural)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-7" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-8" class="heading"></p>
<p id="transportation-mode" class="heading">Transportation Mode</p></td>
<td><p id="section-9" class="heading"></p>
<p id="agency-involved" class="heading">Agency Involved</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="verona-road-west-beltline-needs-assessment-study-madison-wi"
class="heading">Verona Road &amp; West Beltline Needs Assessment Study
(Madison, WI)</p></td>
<td><p id="x" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="section-10" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-11" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-12" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-1" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="bali" class="heading">B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="early-public-involvement" class="heading">Early public
involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="u" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="highway" class="heading">Highway</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="jobs-access-and-reverse-commute-planning-northern-nj"
class="heading">Jobs Access and Reverse Commute Planning (Northern
NJ)</p></td>
<td><p id="x-2" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="section-13" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-14" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-15" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-16" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="mli" class="heading">M,LI</p></td>
<td><p
id="data-sources-gis-analytical-methods-mpo-regional-coordination"
class="heading">Data sources, GIS, Analytical Methods, MPO regional
coordination</p></td>
<td><p id="ru" class="heading">R,U</p></td>
<td><p id="transit" class="heading">Transit</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-transit-agency-hhs" class="heading">MPO, Transit agency,
HHS</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="east-west-expressway-eis-statement-durham-nc"
class="heading">East-West Expressway EIS Statement (Durham, NC)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-17" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-3" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-4" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-5" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-6" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="bli" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p
id="title-vi-complaint-housing-of-last-resort-mitigation-and-enhancements-collaborative-plans"
class="heading">Title VI complaint, housing of last resort, mitigation
and enhancements, collaborative plans</p></td>
<td><p id="u-1" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-1" class="heading">Highway</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-city-local-community" class="heading">State DOT,
City, Local Community</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p
id="southern-california-regional-transportation-plan-los-angeles-region"
class="heading">Southern California Regional Transportation Plan (Los
Angeles Region)</p></td>
<td><p id="x-7" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="section-18" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-19" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-20" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-21" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="mli-1" class="heading">M,LI</p></td>
<td><p
id="data-sources-analytical-techniques-benefitsburdens-alternative-dispute-resolution"
class="heading">Data sources, analytical techniques, benefits/burdens,
alternative dispute resolution</p></td>
<td><p id="u-2" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit" class="heading">Highway, Transit</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo" class="heading">MPO</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="cypress-freeway-replacement-project-oakland-ca"
class="heading">Cypress Freeway Replacement Project (Oakland,
CA)</p></td>
<td><p id="x-8" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-9" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-10" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-11" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-12" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="bli-1" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p
id="project-development-right-of-way-public-involvement-mitigation-and-enhancements"
class="heading">Project development, right of way, public involvement,
mitigation and enhancements</p></td>
<td><p id="u-3" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-2" class="heading">Highway</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-1" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="fruitvale-bart-tod-project-oakland-ca"
class="heading">Fruitvale BART TOD Project (Oakland CA)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-22" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-23" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-24" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-25" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-13" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="hbali" class="heading">H,B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="partnerships-enhancements-public-involvement"
class="heading">Partnerships, enhancements, public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="u-4" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="transit-1" class="heading">Transit</p></td>
<td><p id="transit-agency" class="heading">Transit Agency</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="mpo-environmental-justice-report-columbus-oh"
class="heading">MPO Environmental Justice Report (Columbus, OH)</p></td>
<td><p id="x-14" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="section-26" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-27" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-28" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-15" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="hbli" class="heading">H,B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="data-sources-analytical-techniques" class="heading">Data
sources, analytical techniques</p></td>
<td><p id="u-5" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit-1" class="heading">Highway, Transit</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-1" class="heading">MPO</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="south-park-avenue-improvement-project-tucson-az"
class="heading">South Park Avenue Improvement Project (Tucson,
AZ)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-29" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-30" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-31" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-32" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-16" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="hli" class="heading">H,LI</p></td>
<td><p
id="partnerships-enhancements-context-sensitive-design-public-involvement"
class="heading">Partnerships, enhancements, context sensitive design,
public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="u-6" class="heading">U</p></td>
<td><p id="bikeped-transit" class="heading">Bike/Ped, Transit</p></td>
<td><p id="city-dot-fta-hud" class="heading">City DOT, FTA, HUD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p
id="cordes-junction-interchange-environmental-assessment-yavapai-county-az"
class="heading">Cordes Junction Interchange Environmental Assessment
(Yavapai County, AZ)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-33" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-17" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-18" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="section-34" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-19" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="n" class="heading">N</p></td>
<td><p id="tribal-consultation-cultural-resources-assessment"
class="heading">Tribal consultation, cultural resources
assessment</p></td>
<td><p id="r" class="heading">R</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-3" class="heading">Highway</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-2" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p
id="south-carolina-route-72-environmental-assessment-calhoun-falls-sc"
class="heading">South Carolina Route 72 Environmental Assessment
(Calhoun Falls, SC)</p></td>
<td><p id="section-35" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="x-20" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-21" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-22" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="x-23" class="heading">X</p></td>
<td><p id="bli-2" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="community-impact-assessment-public-involvement"
class="heading">Community impact assessment, public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="r-1" class="heading">R</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-4" class="heading">Highway</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-3" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Two of the case studies in the FHWA/FTA compendium with direct
applicability to the EJ toolkit framework are Southern California's
(SCAG) regional plan update, and Mid-Ohio's (MORPC) environmental
justice assessment. Two other useful cases are the CRCOG EJ Challenge
Grant Project and Case Studies in EJ and Transport. These four are
reviewed separately below:

***Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG): "Community
Link 21"***[^3]

The Southern California Association of Governments' (SCAG) 1998 update
of its Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) became a national example of
the methods and processes for assessing the benefits and burdens of a
regional transportation plan. The 1998 RTP, known as CommunityLink 21,
developed and adopted performance indicators that gauge the social and
economic effects of transportation investment decisions on the region's
minority and low-income populations. SCAG's initial RTP (long range
plan) update was faulted for inadequate treatment of equity and
accessibility issues. A coalition of groups led by Environmental Defense
claimed that the plan offered few benefits to those living below the
poverty line, and that SCAG had failed to meaningfully involve low
income and minority communities in the planning process. Under threat of
a lawsuit, SCAG revised its process in several important ways to better
serve low-income communities:

-   It recommended a transit restructuring strategy to better serve
    low-income communities.

-   It incorporated a transportation equity performance indicator in
    their plan evaluation process.

-   It employed the measure of accessibility with a new emphasis toward
    differentiating impacts by transportation mode, income group and
    ethnicity.

-   It examined parity between the tax burden shouldered by individual
    income groups and then developed a method to assess the distribution
    of transportation benefits along the same lines.

As a result of these efforts, SCAG was able to earn the support of EDF,
and the resulting RTP was hailed for "bringing transportation equity to
the planning table."

*Lessons Learned:*

In terms of the value, on page 5, for comprehensive EJ guidance, we note
the following contributions (as summarized in Table 1):

-   Use of accessibility as a key measure of transportation performance

-   Explicit consideration of benefit/burdens disparities in relation to
    both existing and proposed transportation investments

-   Active incorporation of these findings in the regional planning
    process and subsequent plan updates

-   Emergence of the MPO as a regional forum for debating EJ issues and
    concerns

However, the following are areas where the case study may not provide
useful guidance:

-   The public participation process was engineered "after the fact",
    with some interesting new techniques only beginning to be tested at
    the time of the case study's preparation. Not clear how the EJ
    population was materially involved in the actual drafting of the
    revised RTP.

-   The 10-member Peer Review Committee had no community members

-   Analytic tools employed were unremarkable

-   Health impacts not considered

**Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC): Environmental Justice
Report**[^4]

In response to the October 1999 joint memorandum from the Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) and the Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA) directing that environmental justice compliance be made part of
the MPO certification process, MORPC undertook a comprehensive review of
its transportation planning activities to ensure its compliance with
Title VI. The review was built around four steps:

-   Mapping the locations of minority and low-income populations

-   Identifying the transportation needs of the targeted population

-   Documenting the public involvement process

-   Quantifying the benefits and burdens of existing and proposed
    transportation plans

MORPC's first step was to convene a 12-member task force to serve as an
advisory group for the process, including members from local
governments, the transit agency, the state environmental agency, several
public interest groups and two members of the target community. The
committee played a key role in helping define the target population,
identify its needs, evaluate the public involvement process, and develop
measures to assess benefits and burdens. MORPC used a combination of
census block data, the regional travel model (TAZ level aggregation) and
GIS to profile and map the target population. Transportation needs were
ascertained from existing studies, and focused chiefly on bus transit
access. A series of accessibility and travel time measures were
developed to assess benefits and burdens of alternative transportation
system investment plans (2020 no-build, 2020 current TIP, and 2020 full
RTP improvements). From this assessment MORPC determined that its low
income and minority residents were at least as well served by existing
and proposed investments as other segments of the population. In April
2000, based on recommendations of its Citizen Advisory and
Transportation Advisory Committees, MORPC adopted the Environmental
Justice Assessment into its regional transportation plan, and presumably
satisfied the USDOT's certification requirements.

*Lessons Learned:*

Value of this case study for EJ guidance purposes would be in the
following areas (as summarized in Table 1):

-   Creation of a diverse 12-member regional EJ Task Force to steer the
    process, including 2 community members

-   Use of accessibility and travel time measures to assess benefits and
    burdens in relation to both existing and future transportation
    opportunities

-   Use of GIS methods to help locate and map EJ populations, and
    subsequently to incorporate these data in regional travel model runs

The following are areas where the case study may not provide useful
guidance:

-   Actual public participation process was minimal and not worthy of
    replication: it was after the fact and involved only one community
    Open House with 50 attendees. It is unclear what community input
    derived from this process.

-   Transportation needs were extracted from existing studies and/or
    model runs, and did not involve the public. Major focus was on
    connecting EJ urban populations with decentralizing job
    opportunities, and particularly through reverse commute bus service.

-   Accessibility measures and analytic tools used are fairly primitive.
    It appears that they compare accessibility for EJ groups by transit
    within a 40-minute acceptable time envelope with 20-minute envelope
    for regular population. Hence, they conclude no existing or future
    disparities in benefits.

-   Long term continuing spatial mismatch between people in jobs is
    cited as an issue but not raised outside the chosen accessibility
    measures/assessment. Speaks to the narrow range of vision adopted by
    study.

-   Health impacts not considered

***Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG): EJ Challenge Grant
Project***[^5]

CRCOG was one of four agencies selected in 2001 to participate in a
federal Environmental Justice Challenge Grant program. These grants were
for the purpose of allowing each agency to assess how well their
transportation planning programs were meeting the goals and requirements
of Title VI and to identify ways to improve involvement of minority
communities in those programs. The CRCOG process had three objectives:
(1) to develop a current profile of the region's minority and low-income
communities; (2) to find ways to increase public involvement in all
phases of the planning process; and (3) to develop quantitative methods
for use in assessing whether the target community is receiving a fair
share of the region's transportation benefits or burdens. CRCOG's
documentation of its work unabashedly notes that its emphasis was much
more on developing a process-oriented strategy and improving the
involvement of the minority and low-income community in the planning
process than on developing quantitative methods for assessing
transportation needs, benefits and burdens.

It would appear that CRCOG made significant efforts to involve the
public in its process, to the extent of dropping an early strategy to
run the entire process with a single committee to on that relied instead
on a series of community workshops. These were located in different
areas at different times and each addressed a different set of questions
dealing with some aspect of the regional planning process. Considerable
insights were gained with respect to methods of outreach and
involvement, ways to communicate information, needs and concerns, and
areas of the planning process most in need of improvement. A particular
goal of CRCOG in its evaluation was to identify ways to increase the
involvement of the target population in core decision-making activities,
like project selection, TIP development, and update of the regional long
range plan. To increase the odds of this happening, CRCOG recommended
two key organizational changes: (1) formation of an Environmental
Justice Advisory Board to advise the decision-making Transportation
Committee, and (2) appointment of an Advisory Board member as a voting
member of the Transportation Committee. CRCOG did investigate and
attempt some improvements to its quantitative methods, but admitting
that this was not a prime area of interest, most of the outcomes were at
the definition and recommendation stage.

*Lessons Learned:*

Value of this case study for EJ guidance purposes would be in the
following areas (as summarized in Table 1):

-   Significant experimentation with public outreach methods and good
    success in getting input of transportation needs and ways to improve
    the planning process

-   (Proposed) Creation of an EJ Advisory Committee to advise the voting
    Transportation Committee on EJ issues bearing on planning and
    programming decisions

-   (Proposed) Inclusion of a member of the EJ Advisory Committee as a
    voting member on the Transportation Committee

-   Extensive use of GIS methods help locate and map EJ populations,
    coupled with definition of thresholds (i.e., what constitutes
    minority or low-income)

-   Development of analysis methods and measures to evaluate Equity in
    both the short-term TIP and in the long-term regional transportation
    plan. Used GIS to co-locate target populations and transportation
    projects to determine equity in project funding; used regional
    travel model to develop accessibility measure for LRP

The following are areas where the case study may not provide useful
guidance:

-   Much of what is in the documentation is in the way Action Plan
    recommendations; they are interesting and ambitious recommendations
    but it is not clear how many have actually been implemented and with
    what effect

-   An aversion over "complex" technical measures steered the study away
    from measures like accessibility, although they came back to adopt
    it in their recommendations. Unfortunately, the only accessibility
    measure they used in the study was access to jobs by transit for
    zero-car households (from pre-existing work), so there is no real
    sense for whether the near term or long term plans achieve equity

-   The short term measure -- percent of TIP investments vs. percent EJ
    population -- is not an outcome oriented measure of performance, and
    may be tainted also by the inclusion of transit subsidies in the
    cost accounting for the EJ population

-   Health impacts not considered

**Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit Title VI
Reporting**[^6]

This study was jointly funded by TCRP and the National Center for
Transit Research at the University of South Florida for the purpose of
identifying examples of environmental justice solutions and Title VI
reporting and implementation that demonstrate commitment to equitable
distribution of public transportation resources. In an earlier study by
NCTR, Title VI reporting was identified as a tool for assessing the
impacts of transportation decisions, particularly as related to
environmental justice.

This is one of the comparatively few EJ case studies emanating from the
transit sector, and hence has value in taking a slightly different view
of EJ requirements. A theme echoed in the study is that persons of color
and with low incomes tend to walk, bike and use transit more than the
general population, are more likely to be victims of auto-pedestrian
incidents, and are more likely to be affected by decisions that direct
transportation resources into suburban highway improvements over urban
transit. The study suggests that five topics encapsulate many of the
facets of environmental justice issues in transportation: (1) justice in
decision-making; (2) the sitting of transportation facilities; (3)
public transit access to government services; (4) equity in
transportation investments; and (5) transportation, land use, economic
development, and social equity.

The study is built around five case studies, each of which provides an
example of actions taken by transit agencies to respond to environmental
justice and Title VI concerns, and documents techniques used to achieve
community buy-in and support. Four of the case studies entail
metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver and Miami), while the fifth
is a national assessment of EJ issues facing Native Americans and
Alaskans. The study report concludes with a section on "Suggested
Guidance" for transportation agencies addressing civil rights and
environmental justice issues, which includes the following elements:

-   Improving agencies' public outreach and involvement efforts

-   Providing access to the decision making process at all levels, from
    the MPO long range planning process through service delivery and
    maintenance.

-   Impacts associated with the siting of transportation facilities,
    with goals for ensuring equitable distribution of benefits and
    burdens.

-   Fragmented government authority problematic in dealing with
    multi-faceted problems

-   Equity in transportation investments, and financial and other
    implications of these investments

-   Disconnect between land use and transportation decisions and
    authority

-   Use of Title VI program guidelines to support collection of data
    which supports identification of minority/low-income populations and
    analysis of service standards and policies in these areas.

-   Consideration of the differential effect of cuts in bus service,
    routing changes, location and maintenance of stations and equipment
    on minority populations, who are more likely to be impacted.

The value of this study as a guidance tool is primarily in its shaping
of issues and practices that relate to transit and non-motorized
transportation, both of which have greater impact on the EJ community.
This would be important in the areas of public involvement, access to
the decision-making process, and awareness of differential impacts.
Where this study may fall short in its guidance potential is that it has
relatively little information on specific performance measures, analytic
approaches, and step-by-step guidance on process.

**IV. EXISTING RESEARCH STUDIES AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE GUIDES**

***Atlanta Transportation Benefits & Burdens Study***[^7]

This project was the result of a 1997 agreement between the USDOT and a
coalition of non-government agencies (Environmental Defense, Southern
Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, and Georgia
Coalition for a People's Agenda) to conduct a study of environmental
justice in the Atlanta region. The work was to be performed in two
phases -- a Phase 1 assessment of public participation followed by a
Phase II assessment of the distribution of transportation benefits and
burdens on minority and low-income populations. Phase I was completed
during 1999 and 2000, tied to the solicitation of comments and
opportunities for change in participation in the 2000 Regional
Transportation Plan update. FHWA's Office of Human Environment, its
Office of Metropolitan Planning, and FTA's Office of Planning
participated in this review, for which the Phase I report[^8] concluded
that the Atlanta Regional Commission needed to be more proactive in
engaging minority and low-income populations, better documenting their
public involvement activities, increasing their capacity to sustain
outreach to local communities, and removing institutional and logistical
barriers between the public and decision makers.

The main purpose of Phase II of this study was to evaluate quantitative
measures of transportation benefits and burdens for minority and
low-income populations in the Atlanta region. This work was done by
private consultants contracted by FHWA using a framework that first
established a baseline of current distributions of benefits and burdens,
which were then compared with conditions likely to occur over the next
25 years due to demographic trends and transportation investments. Given
the timing of the study, 2000 Census data were not yet available so the
researchers were forced to assemble information from various sources
representing different points in time from 1990 to 2000. Therefore the
approach used was to set up a template representing "current conditions"
which could be updated when new data became available or in relation to
future scenarios for RTP updates. Two different groups of participants
were used to comment on the work: a Review Panel that ensured that the
analyses produced clear and understandable information, and a Technical
Committee that determined whether the work was technically reliable and
consistent with good practice. Both groups had a diverse membership that
included government agencies, non-profit interest groups, and EJ
community advocates.

Phase I served to solicit the community's input on appropriate benefits
and burdens to measure. The study team recognized that it didn't have
the tools or data to address all the questions that were raised, and
that no single measure would provide a complete answer. It was clear
that the dimensions of geography, demographic characteristics,
transportation system attributes and model data would have to be
synthesized from different sources, levels of aggregation or even points
in time in order to portray travel patterns or impacts by race,
ethnicity and income. GIS was the key tool used for this synthesis, and
for presenting the information in understandable formats.

Given the focus of the Phase II study effort on "measures", and the
objective of FHWA to identify measurement tools that could be used in a
variety of planning scenarios, RTP updates or focused planning studies,
the research team evaluated a rather lengthy list of measures. Each of
these measures was derived from the Phase I outreach process, including
input from both the community and transportation agencies. The key
measures that were recommended by the study were:

-   Population within walking distance of transit

-   Percent of employment accessible within 60 minutes by transit for
    lower income groups

-   Average congested travel time by income

-   Potential impact to historic areas

Other measures that were evaluated included: transit load factors (as
surrogate for service quality); effect of congestion on neighborhood
safety; quality of transportation system maintenance; proximity of
population to point source emissions (represented by bus yards);
proximity to mobile source pollution (population near major highways as
proxy); effect of taking property for transportation on community
cohesion; distribution of crashes; incidence of transportation costs.
For each measure the study documented:

-   Description and importance of the measure

-   Measurement tools

-   Lessons learned/areas for further consideration

-   Important technical considerations

-   Alternative approaches not taken, and why

Lessons Learned:

Value of this case study for EJ guidance purposes would be in the
following areas (as summarized in Table 1):

-   The major value of this study is that of a technical aid in
    understanding the challenge of defining and measuring benefits and
    burdens, and in particular trying to effectively measure these
    commodities (performance measures) in relation to the impacted
    populations.

-   Starts addressing the issue of tradeoffs -- what is benefit to one
    may be a burden to another. Question is how to balance.

-   Provides assistance in identification, appraisal and manipulation of
    data (how to work in an imperfect information world, although some
    issue as to how the Atlanta situation compares to other areas)

-   Health impacts are approached, with good reference information

However, the following are areas where the case study may not provide
useful guidance:

-   While this is a comprehensive list of measures, it is not
    particularly an exhaustive or well-categorized list. It does not
    link particular issues with appropriate measures.

-   No lesson on how this came out of the regional planning process, or
    even if the recommendations will find their way into use. It was
    done for, not by, the locals (with their participation but difficult
    to ascertain ownership)

-   *A practical consideration in the value of this study is that,to our
    knowledge, a final Phase II report has never been released. Since
    the study was completed in 2002, this raises the question of whether
    the study or its findings have been accepted by the sponsoring
    agencies.*

***NCHRP Project 8-36(11): Technical Methods to Support Analyses of
Environmental Justice Issues***[^9]

This project was undertaken as a special study for AASHTO's Standing
Committee on Planning to provide assistance to state DOTs, MPOs, transit
agencies and others attempting to address environmental justice
requirements in planning and project studies. The primary focus was on
identifying and developing an inventory of technical approaches that
could be used in both systems-level and corridor/subarea planning to
quantify benefits and burdens and their distribution across individual
population groups. To perform this review, the study both articulated
and offered interpretation for the array of existing environmental
justice laws and policy directives, and also collected information on
current practice and challenges from a large number of practicing
agencies. Based on interviews with 15 state DOTs, 21 MPOs, and three
transit agencies, the study determined that there is considerable
uncertainty among agencies as to the appropriate level of analysis that
is necessary, the correct mix of public involvement and technical
analysis, and the manner in which environmental justice should be
treated during systems planning. The existing practice review confirmed
that the approaches in use for project planning are much better defined
and accepted than they are for statewide or regional systems planning.

The report describes methods, including examples, for defining and
identifying population groups, conducting public outreach and
involvement, defining measures of benefit and burden, defining
disproportionate impacts, and responding to environmental justice
issues. Its primary strength, however, is in its description of methods
for identifying and examining the distribution of risks, benefits and
burdens. It provides both a solid overview of the definitions of
benefits and burdens, and the procedures for assessing disparate
benefits. Lists of each type of measure are provided, along with
descriptions on how they may calculate, agencies, which have used the
measures and their experiences. An emphasis is placed on currently
available methods that can be applied immediately without further
research, but the study also makes note of other methods that are
currently in use which may be valuable in environmental justice
applications, but which are not being routinely applied in that context.

*Lessons Learned:*

As a guidance tool, NCHRP 8-36(11) has considerable value in the
following areas:

-   Improving understanding of the legal issues driving environmental
    justice evaluations, and the guidance given or not given by the
    various statutes and directives.

-   Offering a sense of what other transportation and planning agencies
    are doing to address EJ in their different levels of planning and
    project activities.

-   An inventory of and orientation to measures of benefit and burden,
    their meaning, value and methods of computation.

-   Solid grounding in the definition and assessment of disproportionate
    impacts.

Where NCHRP 8-36(11) falls somewhat short in its guidance is in the
following areas:

-   Illustrating application and actual use of these measures in real
    world situation

-   Incorporation of public outreach and involvement

-   Nuance of introducing these measures within the institutional
    planning and decision-making process.

***CalTrans: Desk Guide \-- Environmental Justice in Transportation
Planning and Investments***[^10]***^0^***

The purpose of the Desk Guide is to provide those involved in making
decision about California's transportation system (public agencies,
concerned citizens, community-based organizations concerned citizens,
community-based organizations, and elected officials) with information
and examples of ways to promote environmental justice. In section 5 of
the Desk Guide it states that there are "only a few resources providing
guidance on assessing the distribution of transportation project impacts
on low-income and minority population".

While the Desk Guide covers the full breath of regulatory, procedural,
and technical issues, it does not provide detailed guidance or
background in any specific area. Rather, each section of the Desk Guide
points to resources (reports, papers, guidance documents, Internet
sites, etc.) that provide greater detail for interested readers. Table 3
summarizes the types of information that are included in this reference
guide, by individual chapter.

**Table 3: Desk Guide Highlights**

  ----- ------------------- ---------------------------------------------
  Ch.   Focus               Highlights

  1     Impacts             Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts
                            (Air pollution, Noise and Water)

  2     Legal and           Historical Beginnings, Title VI of the Civil
        regulatory context  Rights Act, Title VI Application to
                            Transportation in the Los Angeles MTA
                            Lawsuit, Changes in the VI Enforcement.

  3     How public agencies Developing Agency-Specific Environmental
        incorporate         Justice Policies, Training and Education,
        environmental       National Highway Institute Courses,
        justice issues into Establishing a Citizens' Advisory Committee,
        their planning      Need for Citizens' Advisory Committees, Roles
        processes           for Citizens' Advisory Committees and
                            Environmental Justice and Public Involvement
                            (Attitude, Active Engagement, Public
                            Information Materials, Language, Effective
                            Public Meetings and Operating Support for
                            Community-Based Organizations)

  4     When and how        Overview of the Long-Range Transportation
        environmental       Planning Process, Defining Population Groups
        justice issues can  (Regulatory Definitions and Current Practice
        be addressed        in California) Data Sources (U.S. Census, The
                            American Community Survey, National Household
                            Transportation Survey and Statewide
                            Integrated Traffic Records System) and
                            Non-Traditional Pubic Data Sources.
                            Developing Vision, Assessing Needs and
                            Identifying Investment Alternatives,
                            Involving the Public Early to Generate Real
                            Alternatives, Using Community Groups In Needs
                            Assessment., Performance Measures
                            (Accessibility, Employment Accessibility,
                            Access to other Activities, Travel Time,
                            Transportation Service Provision, Other
                            Performance Measures, Evaluating
                            Disproportionate Impacts (Spatial
                            Distribution versus Area Wide Analysis,
                            Travel Models and Key Assumptions and The use
                            of GIS and Mapping)

  5     How environmental   Defers to Technical Methods to Support
        justice relates to  Analysis of Environmental Justice Issues,
        transportation      NCHRP Project 8-41, Effective Methods for
                            Environmental Justice Assessment (Forthcoming
                            at the time of this publication) and
                            Environmental Justice and Transportation
                            Investment Policy

  6     Application         Public Participation: Arterial corridor Needs
        highlights of       Assessment in Madison, Wisconsin, Road
        various techniques  Widening in Calhoun Falls, south Carolina,
                            Intersection Rebuilding in Yavapia County,
                            Arizona. Assessment Methods: Southern
                            California Association of Governments 2001
                            Regional Transportation Plan, Metropolitan
                            Transportation Commission 2001 Regional
                            Transportation Plan, Association of Bay Area
                            Governments (ABAG) Livability Footprint
                            Equity Analysis, Regional Transportation
                            Planning in Columbus, Ohio
  ----- ------------------- ---------------------------------------------

***Environmental Justice and Transportation: A Citizens Handbook***[^11]

The Citizens Guide was written with the general public in mind. It
provides introductory detail for investigating and advocating
environmental justice and transportation issues. Its intent is help
those who are new to the transportation planning and decision making
process influence how environmental justice is incorporated into
decisions about transportation policy and projects. It provides a basic
orientation to environmental justice and the legal requirements for its
inclusion in the transportation planning process identifies steps in the
planning process when citizen involvement is particularly effective, and
provides suggestions on how environmental justice can be incorporated in
a project.

The Citizen's Guide appears to be a valuable resource for the layperson,
and as guidance would appear to have its greatest value in relation to
the EJ community itself. This guide can help educate the community or
its advocates on how to engage the planning process and have an impact.
It is probably too simplistic to be of much value to practitioners, but
that was not its intended audience.

**NCHRP Report 532: Effective Methods for Environmental Justice
Assessment**[^12]

# NCHRP Report 532 is a guidebook designed for planning practitioners in state DOTs, MPOs, and local planning agencies who must consider environmental justice impacts in planning, programming, and implementing transportation projects. It presents as a step-by-step guide that provides technical assistance in selecting appropriate methods of analysis for calculating any of a number of relevant impacts. While intended primarily as a planning guide, it is also promoted as an educational resource on the concepts, tools and procedures currently employed for assessing environmental justice issues in the context of transportation planning decisions. The guidebook is a continuation of research begun in project 8-36(11), focusing more on the *modification* of existing methods and developing new methods that are needed. The methods in the handbook are organized by topic in order to facilitate use by practitioners in assessing EJ issues within specific application categories. The categories included are:

-   Air quality and Hazardous materials

-   Water Quality and drainage

-   Transportation user effects (primarily accessibility)

-   Community cohesion

-   Economic development

-   Noise/ Safety

-   Visual quality

-   Land prices and property values

-   Cultural resources

Each of these categories is presented as a stand-alone chapter with the
following information included:

-   Overview of the measure: the effect being addressed and why it would
    have EJ implications

-   State of the practice: how the effect is evaluated by the profession
    and used for EJ

-   Selecting an appropriate method of analysis: guidance on which
    method to use for particular situations, scaled to level of focus
    and type of decision pending

-   Methods: discusses each alternative method in detail

-   Resources: cites articles, book and other sources with additional,
    more detailed information

-   References: lists the sources that used in compiling the chapter

The Guidebook also provides a basic foundation on the essentials of
environmental justice, its place in the planning process, the concepts
of benefits, burdens and distributive effects, and the basic challenges
facing planning professionals. There is a separate chapter dealing with
the identification of "protected populations", including a summary and
assessment of the many different data sources, tools and methods, which
have been used. The appendices include more detailed information on EJ
Requirements and case law, as well as detailed sections on how to use
GIS systems and Decennial Census data to evaluate EJ issues.

Although it bears a lot of similarity to NCHRP 8-36(11) in its coverage,
NCHRP Report 532 stands as an important addition to the library of
guidance on environmental justice. Its primary value as a guidance tool
is to aid technical specialists and planning practitioners in selecting
the most appropriate methods for their particular analysis. Of
considerable value in this regard is the attempt to scale the analysis
tools selected to the geographic scale and precision needs of the
particular issue, which may be different, based on the stage of the
planning process and the gravity of the issue under consideration.

Where Report 532 may be deficient in providing EJ guidance is in the
following areas:

-   It does not attempt to address public involvement or how this
    information may be relevant to interaction with the public -- it
    assumes that this is the domain of the larger planning process

-   It does not deal with the how or why of where these measures are
    appropriate or important to be considered

-   It assumes that these directives will come out of the larger
    planning process

######  {#section-36}

###### ***Metropolitan Planning Organizations and Environmental Justice Planning***

While federal statutes and regulations delineate procedural steps for
incorporating EJ requirements into the planning process, those
directives provide no practical or systematic guidance on how a
comprehensive EJ program or evaluation should be done. While the absence
of hard rules and guidance provides important flexibility to
implementing agencies, it also invokes a level of conjecture as to what
a proper EJ process or analysis should look like. It is argued that
there is no single source that an interested party can look to for
assistance in negotiating this complex process. In the absence of such
guidance, it is further argued that implementing agencies have to do
more primary research on their own, leading to trial and error methods,
or worse, an EJ analysis or process that falls short of its potential.

The extent to which large MPOs incorporate transportation equity,
environmental justice, and civil rights concerns into their planning
processes. Most MPOs address civil rights issues in their LRPs, and
"environmental justice" was most commonly discussed as part of regional
goals and objectives, public participation and outreach, and in
discussions about regional demographic trends. Several incorporated
geographic analyses showing the spatial distribution of low-income
households and racial minorities.[^13] In addition, nearly 1 in 4 MPOs
had produced a planning document specific to environmental justice or
civil rights issues (a list of the 11 is shown in Table 4).

This is compared to only 8 out of 50 U.S. States that reported having
adopted environmental justice programs in 2000 (American Chemical
Council 2000). Of the states with adopted policies most were focused on
complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1961, which prohibits
discrimination in any program receiving federal funds. The National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and 23 USC 109(h) also requires
consideration of social impacts that may result from projects with
federal support (US DOT 2003).

**Table 4: Transportation Equity Planning Documents**

  --------------------------------- -------------------------------------
  **MPO**                           **Plan/Document**

  CATS (Chicago, IL area)           Unified Work Plan

  MTC (San Francisco Area)          2001 RTP Equity Analysis and EJ
                                    Report

  DVRPC (Philadelphia Area)         "... and Justice for All" Report

  Southeast Michigan COG            Regional Transportation Plan

  North Central Texas COG           Mobility 2025

  Metropolitan Washington COG       Access for All and CLRP

  Puget Sound Regional Council      Title VI Plan; Environmental Justice
                                    Demographics

  Boston MPO                        Regional Transportation Plan

  Northeast Ohio Areawide           Title VI Plan
  Coordinating Agency               

  Rhode Island Statewide Planning   Community Participation-Title VI
  Program                           

  Oahu MPO (HI)                     Environmental Justice in the OMPO
                                    Planning Process
  --------------------------------- -------------------------------------

There were some common elements among these documents with most being
guided by either Title VI of the Civil Rights Act or Executive Order
12898. The underlying concern expressed was whether proposed
transportation investments were biased toward particular demographic
groups. To this end, most MPO efforts defined and quantified the
proportion of metropolitan population within "targeted" or "protected"
populations. In addition, the locations and concentrations of these
populations were mapped along with the location of transportation
improvements. The objective of such mapping efforts is to illustrate the
distributional equity of MPO plans. Distributional analyses represent a
subset of social impact analyses and in addition to identifying and
measuring direct impacts from policy interventions, social impact
analysis is also concerned with direct effects such as how individuals
or groups adapt to interventions. These adaptations can take the form of
physical or psychological responses (such as health) as well as economic
responses (such as residential relocation) and do not occur randomly
within urban areas. Distributional analyses generally identify the
outcomes of decision-making processes, and like a broader range of
social impact analyses, do not identify weaknesses or biases in the
system that produced such outcomes.

In many cases EJ plans outlined specific strategies for public
participation as key elements to guide and implement equity planning.
Most of the efforts documented by MPOs appeared to be relatively recent
so there were few longitudinal assessments of program effectiveness.
Such evaluations will be possible in the future given the types and
range of indicators that were included in the plans. Indicators within
planning reports include measures of regional employment accessibility,
transit accessibility, traffic congestion levels, environmental impact,
and transportation mobility. Few, however, concentrate on measures of
outcomes such as labor participation rates, wage levels, school
attendance, or overall regional accessibility.

In the United Kingdom, policymakers and advocates often take a broader
view of social inequity. British efforts to eradicate "social exclusion"
address communities that are isolated from or marginalized by general
society. In the U.S., attempts to counter spatial inequity are usually
limited to improving housing and employment access---represented in some
respects by residential segregation---whereas *social exclusion* is a
much broader concept. It encompasses concerns about 1) physical
(personal) exclusion, 2) geographic exclusion, 3) exclusion from
facilities, 4) economic exclusion, 5) temporal exclusion, 6) fear-based
exclusion, and 7) space exclusion. Addressing social exclusion includes
addressing problems such as lack of access to jobs, education, and
training; low levels of access to public transportation at particular
times of the day, which has an impact on persons without cars working
late, and early-morning shifts; and limited access to public and private
spaces because of unsafe conditions and design.

Overall, it was unclear in nearly all cases how the results of MPO
equity analyses could be used as feedback in the transportation planning
and decision-making process. Emphasis was often placed on public
involvement, where information from the analyses could be discussed and
used to identify areas of potential concern. In other cases, the
information generated through data analysis processes focused on social
equity became inputs to regional transportation modeling (see for
example Metropolitan Transportation Commission 2001).

In addition to planning documents, we looked at whether MPOs allocated
staff or budget resources to transportation equity, public
participation, and other outreach activities. Only 15 percent of MPOs
responded that they have staff specifically involved with civil rights
oversight and planning. On the other hand, it is interesting to note
that while the selected MPOs acknowledged that they provide little
support in terms of staff positions or budget resources for civil
rights, close to three-quarters reported that they conduct activities
that had a civil rights focus. The selected MPOs reported that on
average, they conducted 3 of the types of activities shown in Figure 1.
The most frequent of these being public meetings (68 percent) those were
specifically for environmental justice or transportation equity
purposes.

**Figure 1: Transportation Equity-related Planning Activities**

![](media/image2.wmf){width="6.496527777777778in" height="2.6375in"}\
Source: Sanchez and Wolf (2007)

#  {#section-37}

# V. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

In this section it is not our intent to say that that government
initiated public participation is undesirable. To the contrary it is
required and quite desirable as a tool for meaningful interaction when
addressing environmental justice issues that are initiated by the
government in response to regional growth strategies as well as when
initiated by neighborhoods and communities that promote preservation
strategies.

As shown in Table 4, who and how this process starts are of critical
importance. Typically and often the top down public participation
process is initiated at the bequest of the government and from its
perspective with the objective of targeting particular community
organizations and churches in high-risk areas to get input reactions.
This top down approach has lead to community mistrust and
dissatisfaction. As show in the literature public participation is seen
as an activity that is initiated by government sponsoring agencies.
Through the eyes of low income and minority community residents this
process is often viewed suspiciously and not designed to address
community based concerns and issues. On the other hand bottom up
participation when initiated by; high risks communities are more likely
to get involved in the interest of seeing that remedies are implemented
in their best interest. With the bottom up approach it is easier to sit
down to explain the start dialog about what should be done with a
community of government and non-profit agencies that have
responsibilities and interest in these high risk areas.

The art of knowing what, when, and how to ask for equitable
environmental justice in transportation improvements is both
evolutionary and iterative and is neither well defined nor linear. It is
believed that an important characteristic of a successful environmental
justice program is that it be dynamic, i.e., that it allow for "cycles"
of involvement, information exchange, education, analysis of
alternatives and their tradeoffs, and ultimately closure -- where the
stakeholders are witness to and feel ownership in the final outcome.
Since, the types of issues that arise in EJ deliberations are typically
not clear-cut the process of problem identification, understanding, and
resolution involves multiple iterations of sifting through multiple
variables and tradeoffs.

######### Table 5: Level of Public Involvement 

<table style="width:100%;">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 28%" />
<col style="width: 5%" />
<col style="width: 4%" />
<col style="width: 3%" />
<col style="width: 4%" />
<col style="width: 9%" />
<col style="width: 21%" />
<col style="width: 0%" />
<col style="width: 9%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 5%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="case-study-namelocation-1" class="heading">Case Study
Name/Location</p></td>
<td colspan="4"><p id="impetus" class="heading">Impetus* </p></td>
<td><p id="focus" class="heading">Focus</p></td>
<td><p id="topics-and-effective-practices-1" class="heading">Topics and
Effective Practices</p></td>
<td colspan="4"><p id="stakeholder-involvement"
class="heading">Stakeholder Involvement</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="section-38" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><strong>Response Driver</strong></td>
<td><p id="deliberative" class="heading">Deliberative</p></td>
<td><p id="adversarial" class="heading">Adversarial</p></td>
<td><p id="colloborative" class="heading">Colloborative</p></td>
<td><p id="transportation-mode-geography-urbanrural"
class="heading">Transportation Mode/ Geography (Urban/Rural)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="section-39" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-40" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-41" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-42" class="heading"></p>
<p id="lessons-learned-and-outcomes" class="heading">Lessons Learned and
Outcomes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-43" class="heading"> </p>
<p id="section-44" class="heading"> </p>
<p id="agency-of" class="heading"> Agency of </p>
<p id="responsibility" class="heading"> Responsibility </p></td>
<td><p
id="minoritylow-income-black-asian-latino-native-american-hispanic-1"
class="heading">Minority/Low Income, Black, Asian, Latino Native
American, Hispanic</p>
<p id="section-45" class="heading"></p>
<p id="section-46" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-47" class="heading"></p>
<p id="bottom-uptop" class="heading"> Bottom Up/Top </p>
<p id="down" class="heading"> Down</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p
id="verona-road-west-beltline-needs-assessment-study-madison-wi-ex.-1"
class="heading">Verona Road &amp; West Beltline Needs Assessment Study
(Madison, WI), Ex. 1 </p></td>
<td><p id="cb" class="heading">CB</p></td>
<td><p id="yes" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-48" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-1" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-u" class="heading">Highway (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="public-involvement-1" class="heading">Public
Involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-4" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
<td><p id="bali-1" class="heading">B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="jobs-access-and-reverse-commute-planning-northern-nj-ex.-2"
class="heading">Jobs Access and Reverse Commute Planning (Northern NJ),
Ex. 2</p></td>
<td><p id="gov" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="section-49" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-50" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-51" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="transit-ru" class="heading">Transit (R,U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="data-sources-gis-analytical-methods-mpo-regional-coordination-1"
class="heading">Data sources, GIS, Analytical Methods, MPO regional
coordination</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-transit-agency-hhs-1" class="heading">MPO, Transit
Agency, HHS</p></td>
<td><p id="mli-2" class="heading">M,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-1" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="east-west-expressway-eis-statement-durham-nc-ex.-3"
class="heading">East-West Expressway EIS Statement (Durham, NC), Ex.
3</p></td>
<td><p id="cb-1" class="heading">CB</p></td>
<td><p id="section-52" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-2" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-53" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="highway-u-1" class="heading">Highway (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="title-vi-complaint-housing-of-last-resort-mitigation-and-enhancements-collaborative-plans-1"
class="heading">Title VI complaint, housing of last resort, mitigation
and enhancements, collaborative plans</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-city-local-community-1" class="heading">State DOT,
City, Local Community</p></td>
<td><p id="bli-3" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-2" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p
id="southern-california-regional-transportation-plan-los-angeles-region-ex.-4"
class="heading">Southern California Regional Transportation Plan (Los
Angeles Region), Ex. 4</p></td>
<td><p id="gov-1" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-3" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-4" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-5" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit-2" class="heading">Highway, Transit</p>
<p id="u-7" class="heading"> (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="data-sources-analytical-techniques-benefitsburdens-alternative-dispute-resolution-1"
class="heading">Data sources, analytical techniques, benefits/burdens,
alternative dispute resolution</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-2" class="heading">MPO</p></td>
<td><p id="mli-3" class="heading">M,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-3" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="cypress-freeway-replacement-project-oakland-ca-ex.-5"
class="heading">Cypress Freeway Replacement Project (Oakland, CA), Ex.
5</p></td>
<td><p id="cd" class="heading">CD</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-6" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-7" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-54" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="highway-5" class="heading">Highway</p>
<p id="u-8" class="heading"> (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="project-development-right-of-way-public-involvement-mitigation-and-enhancements-1"
class="heading">Project development, right of way, public involvement,
mitigation and enhancements</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-5" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
<td><p id="bli-4" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="bu" class="heading">BU</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="fruitvale-bart-tod-project-oakland-ca-ex.-6"
class="heading">Fruitvale BART TOD Project (Oakland CA), Ex. 6</p></td>
<td><p id="cd-1" class="heading">CD</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-8" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-9" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-55" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="transit-u" class="heading">Transit (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="partnerships-enhancements"
class="heading">Partnerships, enhancements</p></td>
<td><p id="transit-agency-1" class="heading">Transit Agency</p></td>
<td><p id="hbali-1" class="heading">H,B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="bu-1" class="heading">BU</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="mpo-environmental-justice-report-columbus-oh-ex.-7"
class="heading">MPO Environmental Justice Report (Columbus, OH), Ex.
7</p></td>
<td><p id="cd-2" class="heading">CD</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-10" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-56" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-11" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit-u" class="heading">Highway, Transit
(U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="data-sources-analytical-techniques-1"
class="heading">Data sources, analytical techniques</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-3" class="heading">MPO</p></td>
<td><p id="hbli-1" class="heading">H,B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-4" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p id="south-park-avenue-improvement-project-tucson-az-ex.-8"
class="heading">South Park Avenue Improvement Project (Tucson, AZ) Ex.
8</p></td>
<td><p id="section-57" class="heading"></p>
<p id="cb-2" class="heading">CB</p></td>
<td><p id="section-58" class="heading"></p>
<p id="yes-12" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-59" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-13" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="bikeped-transit-u" class="heading">Bike/Ped, Transit
(U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="partnerships-enhancements-context-sensitive-design-public-involvement-1"
class="heading">Partnerships, enhancements, context sensitive design,
public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="city-dot-fta-hud-1" class="heading">City DOT, FTA,
HUD</p></td>
<td><p id="hli-1" class="heading">H,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-5" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p
id="south-carolina-route-72-environmental-assessment-calhoun-falls-sc-ex.-9"
class="heading">South Carolina Route 72 Environmental Assessment
(Calhoun Falls, SC), Ex. 9</p></td>
<td><p id="gov-2" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-14" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-15" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-16" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-r" class="heading">Highway (R)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="community-impact-assessment-public-involvement-1"
class="heading">Community impact assessment, public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="state-dot-6" class="heading">State DOT</p></td>
<td><p id="bli-5" class="heading">B,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-6" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p
id="environmental-justice-crcogs-transportation-planning-program-ex.-10"
class="heading">Environmental Justice &amp; CRCOG’s Transportation
Planning Program, Ex. 10</p></td>
<td><p id="gov-3" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-17" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-60" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="section-61" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit-u-1" class="heading">Highway, Transit
(U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="community-impact-assessment-public-involvement-2"
class="heading">Community impact assessment, public involvement</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-4" class="heading">MPO</p></td>
<td><p id="bali-2" class="heading">B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="tdbu" class="heading">TD/BU</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p id="metropolitan-atlanta-rapid-transit-authority-marta-ex.-11"
class="heading">Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA),
Ex. 11</p></td>
<td><p id="cb-3" class="heading">CB</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-18" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-62" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-19" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit.-housing-r" class="heading">Highway, Transit.
Housing (R)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="housing-transit-accessibility"
class="heading">Housing, Transit, Accessibility</p></td>
<td><p id="mpo-transit-authority" class="heading">MPO, Transit Authority
</p></td>
<td><p id="bali-3" class="heading">B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-7" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><p
id="conflict-of-public-policies-hope-vi.-vs.-prwora-chicago-illinois-ex.-12"
class="heading">Conflict of Public Policies: Hope VI. vs. PRWORA,
Chicago, Illinois, Ex. 12</p></td>
<td><p id="gov-4" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="section-63" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-20" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-64" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="highway-transit-u-2" class="heading">Highway, Transit
(U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p id="housing" class="heading">Housing</p></td>
<td><p id="housing-authority" class="heading">Housing Authority</p></td>
<td><p id="bali-4" class="heading">B,A,LI</p></td>
<td><p id="td-8" class="heading">TD</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><p
id="public-involvement-in-the-major-investment-study-mis-process-denver-colorado-ex.-13"
class="heading">Public Involvement in the Major Investment Study (MIS)
Process, Denver, Colorado, Ex. 13</p></td>
<td><p id="gov-5" class="heading">GOV</p></td>
<td><p id="yes-21" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="section-65" class="heading"></p></td>
<td><p id="yes-22" class="heading">Yes</p></td>
<td><p id="housing-u" class="heading">Housing (U)</p></td>
<td colspan="2"><p
id="government-initiated-community-outreach-and-participation"
class="heading">Government Initiated Community Outreach and
Participation </p></td>
<td><p id="transit-district" class="heading">Transit District</p></td>
<td><p id="n-1" class="heading">N</p></td>
<td><p id="tdbu-1" class="heading">TD/BU</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Notes: CB Community Based, CD Community Driven, Gov. Federal, State,
Regional or Local

\*Terry L. Cooper, Thomas A. Bryer, Jack W. Meek, Collaborative
Governance Initiative, Citizen, PAR, Supplement to Volume 66, Centered
Collaborative Public Management,

***Example 1: Verona Road/West Beltline Needs Assessment study Madison,
Wisconsin, Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation (WisDOT)***[^14]

**What Was the Issue?**

Verona Road & West Beltline Road had become major facilities serving the
urban area, with increased congestion. Improvements to the main
intersection were inevitable, but the intersection also abuts the
minority community of Allied Drive (4000 residents), isolating it from
the rest of Madison and serving to concentrate poverty in the area.
Madison is a very progressive community -- always difficult to move
public infrastructure projects forward. WisDOT knew it had to take
pre-emptive measures to involve the community. Transportation
deficiencies were one acknowledged cause of the neighborhood's economic
distress: 80% of residents did not own a vehicle, only one bus line
served the community and difficult to access regional job opportunities.
Also access and safety issues for local pedestrian travel: no sidewalks,
and required to cross 7 lanes of traffic to reach commercial activities
on west side of Verona Road.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

WisDOT electively chose to undertake a needs assessment before entering
any discussion of an actual project, even though NEPA does not require
prior to actual project evaluation.

> A [variety]{.underline} of mechanisms were found to be the most
> effective approach:

-   [Major public outreach process]{.underline} with extra efforts to
    involve the Allied Drive community, involving nearly 70 meetings

-   [Open house]{.underline} at Neighborhood Center to explain the study
    and obtain input.

-   A representative from the Center appointed to a [Mayor's Advisory
    Committee]{.underline}, which included city council members,
    neighborhood organizations, and business groups to build a
    constituency for the project.

-   Formed a [partnership with local middle school]{.underline}, working
    with staff and students to develop a transportation and land use
    curriculum, and have students prepare a [pedestrian needs
    assessment]{.underline} for Verona Road. Students conducted traffic
    counts, speed studies, and interviews, and then presented findings
    and recommendations to community and officials.

-   Conducted a comprehensive [community charrette]{.underline} to brief
    the community on the needs study findings and also to brainstorm
    about short and long-term solutions.

-   WisDOT produced a [13-minute video]{.underline} on the needs
    assessment, with 200 copies distributed to city council members,
    local media, neighborhood organizations, business groups, and other
    stakeholders.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   The NEPA assessment, which kicks in at the project planning level,
    is not the best forum for an initial assessment of transportation
    needs and community consensus building.

-   Community involvement early in the planning process sensitized
    decision makers to community concerns and helped foster community
    buy-in to the project. Later on, the Committee served as an
    additional vehicle for public participation and kept decision makers
    informed about community concerns about the project.

-   With relatively few vehicle owners, the Allied community was much
    more concerned with pedestrian, transit and safety issues. Problems
    with safe local access were illuminated -- and remedied -- that
    probably would not have been otherwise recognized.

-   Involvement of the Mayor's Advisory Committee and conduct of the
    charrette resulted in short-term improvements implemented in the
    following year (new ped-activited signal and improved access to an
    existing signal).

-   A precedent-setting resolution from the Mayor's Advisory Committee
    to the City Council that calls on WisDOT to develop transportation
    solutions consistent with the goals identified through the public
    needs assessment process.

-   Involving the Allied community in the project presented special
    challenges and significant time and resource investments by WisDOT
    and its partners. Because of the transient nature of the area, it
    was difficult to identify solid leadership. Three different local
    representatives served on the Committee in just over 1 year.
    Community members were not always eager to become (and stay)
    involved.

***Example 2: Regional Job Access and Reverse Commute Planning, North
Jersey Transportation Planning Authority New Jersey WorkFirst
Program***[^15]

**What Was the Issue?**

New Jersey implemented its welfare program WorkFirst New Jersey (WFNJ)
following passage of the federal Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Act of 1996, also known as the welfare-to-work initiative. A
major element of welfare to work is the provision of reverse-commute
transit services, since the disadvantaged/unemployed populations are
frequently concentrated in older central cities while the appropriate
jobs for these people are most commonly found at the suburban fringe.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this case study was the
***absence*** of any sort of active public participation process. What
it was an exercise in mapping and GIS analysis to see how well the
state's existing mass transportation system addressed these potential
needs. Based on some simplistic analysis that looked at proximity of
both target households and target job centers to existing transit, the
study concluded that a high level of access could be provided; the study
and the findings appear naïve in that they ignore the difficulty in
"connecting the dots". In other words, it is not enough to simply have a
household or destination with ¼ mile of transit; the operative question
is how realistically the transit system serves the particular trip.
Route circuitry, transfers, and reverse flow headways can frequently
make such a trip quite arduous.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

The major lesson seems to be that if the public were more actively
involved in identifying their real-world mobility problems and
requirements, a more effective set of planning studies might have ensued
and choices identified.

***Example 3: East-West Expressway Environmental Impact Study Durham,
NC***[^16]***, North Carolina Dept. of Transportation (NCDOT)***

**What Was the Issue?**

The East-West Expressway was a project initially planned in 1959, as a
10-mile limited access highway designed to connect I-85 with I-40 near
Durham NC and to address growing congestion in this corridor. About half
of the expressway was constructed by the early 1970's, with an unbuilt
segment needing to go through a small African-American neighborhood
known as Crest Street. Plans called for relocating Crest Street
residents to another area in or near Durham. The community sensed that
it was part of a national trend to dislocate established minority
neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal and decided to oppose the
expressway.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

Crest Street residents were able to use their long-term connections and
respect in the Durham area to develop political alliances with
sympathetic activist groups such as ECOS (a Duke University group
opposed to the expressway for environmental reasons). In 1973, ECOS won
a court decision that required NCDOT and FHWA to comply with NEPA and
prepare an EIS. During the preparation of the EIS, the City of Durham,
NCDOT, and FHWA worked together to prepare a restructuring plan for
Crest Street. However, this plan would have dispersed Crest Street
residents throughout the city, and was actively opposed by the very
close-knit neighborhood. In 1977, the neighborhood was declared eligible
to receive legal aid from the North-Central Legal-Assistance Program;
attorneys from this program were seen as crucial to the residents'
ability to make them heard. The neighborhood also obtained expert
technical assistance, such as a qualified traffic engineer offering
credible counter arguments to NCDOT proposals. In 1978, a Duke
University group conducted a sociological survey of the community, which
-- while disputed at the time -- was subsequently validated by a 1980
survey commissioned by a project steering committee. These surveys were
important in convincing people of the value of preserving the Crest
Street community. In 1978, the neighborhood's Community Council filed an
administrative Title VI complaint with the US DOT, alleging racial
discrimination in the planning of the expressway. A favorable advisory
ruling by the US DOT's Office of Civil Rights was later seen as crucial
in making FHWA, NCDOT and the city enter into serious negotiations with
Crest Street. A series of meetings was subsequently convened among all
parties, including a representative from FHWA headquarters in
Washington. These meetings led to formulation of a collaborative process
for preparing a comprehensive mitigation and enhancement plan for the
neighborhood. The organizational framework included a
technical/operating committee (the Task Force), composed of
representatives from the Crest Street Community Council and the
principal public agencies and private organizations involved in the
project. Although the City interrupted the process for 11 months to
resolve a controversial zoning decision, the basic structure of the Task
Force remained intact and a comprehensive mitigation and enhancement
plan was completed in 1983.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   The evolution of the mitigation effort was seen as the most
    encouraging and inspiring part of the Crest Street story. In a
    period of less than 2 years, the working environment changed from
    angry and adversarial to spirit of cooperation and mutual respect
    rarely if ever found in negotiations among opposing parties on a
    project of this type and magnitude.

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-   The mitigation plan involved a comprehensive restructuring of the
    entire Crest Street neighborhood, keeping it intact in the process.
    What made the plan feasible was suitable vacant adjacent land on
    which to re-establish the neighborhood. While site assembly plans
    were proceeding smoothly, the city complicated things dramatically
    when it chose to rezone some of the proposed site for a health club
    facility, which -- because of proximity to the new highway \-- it
    argued was important in terms of tax revenues and jobs. The loss of
    this crucial parcel led the mitigation effort to consider
    alternative locations and ultimately to use an old community
    cemetery site, requiring the relocation of over 1,000 graves.

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-   The federal housing-of-last-resort provision of the Uniform
    Relocation and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970
    provided the flexibility that FHWA needed to commit federal funds to
    construct replacement dwellings for the new community. However, it
    took a separate act of the state legislature to make matching state
    funds available. The community successfully argued that replacement
    housing should be provided as a means of preserving the family
    relationships and social fabric of the neighborhood. This reasoning
    caused the neighborhood to be treated *as a whole*, including some
    residents outside the highway footprint. As a result, many houses --
    including those on the new site \-- were rehabilitated, 65 houses
    were moved from the old community to the new, several new single
    family homes were built, a former school building was converted to
    elderly housing, and apartments were built for those who could not
    afford to purchase homes. Rental housing was built with the help of
    the city and the HUD Section 208 housing program, which allows
    residents to pay rents based on incomes with the remaining cost
    financed by federal funds.

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-   Another key element in the mitigation and enhancement plan was the
    provision of modern infrastructure, including paved streets,
    sidewalks, sewerage and recreation facilities. Today Crest Street is
    a vital inner-city neighborhood: homes are well maintained and a
    strong sense of community identity and cohesion persists, with 3 or
    4 generations of families to retain close ties.

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-   The Crest Street Community Council, a 5-member board elected by
    residents, is seen as an important continuing legacy of the project.
    The Council ensures that homes are adequately maintained, it
    sponsors periodic cleanup days, and it serves as a central
    organization for the social support systems that have existed for
    generations.

***Example 4: Community Link 21\-- Regional Transportation Plan Equity
and Accessibility Performance Indicators***[^17]***^6^, Southern
California Association of Governments (SCAG)***

**What Was the Issue?**

In the 1998 update of its Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), known as
*CommunityLink 21*, SCAG developed and adopted performance indicators
that gauge the social and economic effects of transportation investment
decisions on the region's minority and low-income populations. However,
in its initial RTP update, SCAG was faulted for inadequate treatment of
equity and accessibility issues, wherein a coalition of groups led by
Environmental Defense claimed that the plan offered few benefits to
those living below the poverty line, and that SCAG had failed to
meaningfully involve low-income and minority communities in the planning
process.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

To avoid the delays and costs of a threatened lawsuit, and alternative
dispute resolution (ADR) process was employed to fully understand and
explore the positions held by each party. Within 4 weeks of receiving a
letter of intent to sue, the first meeting was held between SCAG and the
coalition of potential litigants. During this process, SCAG
representatives included elected officials, the chair of SCAG's
Transportation Policy Committee, the president and vice president of
SCAG, and representatives of each of the SCAG counties. SCAG agreed to
involve coalition membership in a series of public meetings and
workshops to solicit greater involvement from low-income and minority
communities. During the ADR process, SCAG affirmed its support for the
Consent Decree by incorporating the following provision in the 1998 RTP:

Capital improvement planning and programming for MTA shall include
attention to all modes of transportation and all areas of the county
from which riders are drawn. Improvements meeting the needs of transit
dependent populations shall be given priority consistent with MTA's
other statutory responsibilities and obligations

In completing it 1998 RTP update, SCAG won major accolades for adopting
new measures of accessibility and equity that gave new insight into the
mobility needs of minority and low-income populations. Then, beginning
with the 2001 RTP update, SCAG opened a new level of outreach and
dialogue with these disadvantaged populations. A guidance manual was
developed -- Compliance Procedure for Environmental Justice in the
Transportation Planning Process -- that describes public outreach
strategies to assure that traditionally underrepresented groups can
participate meaningfully in the processes as well as analyses that SCAG
staff conduct to examine equity. Noteworthy outreach and involvement
practices that were employed in the 2001 RTP update included:

-   Retaining communications consultants to facilitate regular meetings
    and workshops, including Environmental Justice Community Dialogues
    targeting low-income and minority populations. These are typically
    evening meetings in which a tutorial is offered on SCAG and the RTP
    to describe the nature of a regional planning organization and its
    responsibilities, as well as what the RTP represents in the regional
    transportation planning process. Specific needs and issues are
    identified and recorded as input for the RTP planning process.

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-   SCAG maintains a database of contact information for individuals in
    low income and minority populations. These contacts are developed
    through each local subregion to reflect their respective needs and
    interests, and are supplemented by the outreach consultants to
    include community organizations and associations. Persons in this
    database are routinely updated on workshops and discussion sessions.

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-   Outreach material is translated into Spanish and other languages as
    needed in a given community area.

-   Local public affairs shows offer an outlet for local communication,
    with local elected officials asked to serve as regional
    spokespersons and emphasizing the importance of regional planning
    and the need for local input

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   As a result of a threatened lawsuit, SCAG revised its planning
    procedures and measures of performance to more explicitly consider
    the special needs of minority and low-income populations.

-   That equity and efficiency are not mutually exclusive goals

-   That benefits and burdens can be integrated successfully into a
    performance-based planning process by developing and incorporating
    performance indicators that gauge the social and economic effects of
    transportation plans on minority and low-income populations.

-   There are significant advantages in transportation planning from
    reaching out to all transportation users, including minority and
    low-income individuals to understand the needs and barriers to
    access and opportunity. SCAG learned that it needed to make a
    greater commitment to building long-term relationships in order to
    solicit input from these population segments. They are doing
    outreach and involvement much earlier and much more proactively
    through the RTP process.

***Example 5: Cypress Freeway Replacement Project West Oakland, CA
California Dept. of Transportation (Caltrans)***[^18]***^7^***

**What Was the Issue?**

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area caused the
collapse of the Cypress Freeway, a double-deck structure built in the
1950s to connect the developing areas of southern Alameda County with
the City of San Francisco. When originally constructed, the freeway
alignment slashed through a long standing, predominately
African-American community known as West Oakland. The community had been
in a downward spiral since the decline in the shipbuilding industry
following WW II that originally supplied the town with many of its jobs.
The Cypress Freeway almost completed the demise by essentially splitting
the community in half and uprooting 600 families and dozens of
businesses. Over the years the remaining businesses withered from
isolation, while residents were forced to endure intense fumes and noise
from the vehicle traffic overhead. While Caltrans was under intense
pressure to quickly rebuild the highway, given its critical role in the
regional transportation system, the community quickly organized in
opposition to this plan.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

By 1989, more than half of West Oakland's 18,000-plus residents lived
below the poverty level, unemployment was more than 40% for
African-American males, and roughly 85% of the community's 8,735 housing
units were occupied by renters. Residents and community leaders were
determined to prevent the mistakes of the past, and within 48 hours of
the quake, a group of prominent community leaders and activists formed
the Citizens Emergency Relief Team, or CERT. More than just another
neighborhood association, its membership included a director from BART,
a former Port of Oakland CEO, an Alameda County supervisor, and a former
mayor of Berkeley. Members of CERT worked with city and county officials
to identify an alternative alignment for the Cypress, running west of
the previous highway and closer to the Port of Oakland. While this
alignment was eventually selected, debate over the alignment continued
for 18 months. During this period, Caltrans helped form the Community
Advisory Committee comprised of West Oakland citizens, and participated
in scores of meetings with the CAC, CERT, the West Oakland Commerce
Association, City of Oakland officials, and commuter groups. The
coalition backing the new alignment frequently used the language and
symbolism of environmental justice to articulate its positions, such as
"Why is the poor community always having to pay?"

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   Eight months after the official public comment period ended on Feb.
    1, 1991, Caltrans released its Final EIS which identified the
    community-backed alternative as the preferred alternative. This
    alternative redirected the freeway along the railroad tracks to the
    west of the community. This decision represented an opportunity to
    reunite West Oakland, seen as a crucial step in addressing the
    social and economic problems of this community.

-   Negotiations among Caltrans, the City of Oakland, and West Oakland
    community groups over the project design led to a number of
    additional community benefits. Among these, Caltrans agreed to
    provide a direct off ramp from the new freeway to service the Port
    of Oakland, eliminating the need for heavy trucks to traverse the
    neighborhood's residential streets, while also improving the Port's
    competitive position.

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-   Caltrans initiated a number of strategies to mitigate the impacts of
    demolition of the old freeway and construction of the new freeway.
    These included temporary relocations of nearby residents and
    installing dust screens on homes in close proximity. Trucking guides
    were produced to encourage truck drivers to use designated routes
    through West Oakland. Sound barriers were installed around the new
    highway, with landscaping to provide aesthetic separation.

-   The Oakland City Council forged an agreement with Caltrans that
    outlined Caltrans' responsibility for resolving issues of concern
    with the City and its citizens during the design and construction of
    the project. The agreement also set goals for the participation of
    disadvantaged and local contractors on the project, including
    programs to train and employ local residents. This resulted in the
    establishment of the Cypress/Mandela Training Center, which by 2001
    had produced nearly 700 graduates qualified for positions in
    carpentry, surveying, electrical and masonry work; these graduates
    have been placed in construction jobs throughout northern
    California.

***Example 6: Fruitvale Transit Village Project Oakland California, Bay
Area Rapid Transit District (BART)***[^19]***^8^***

**What Was the Issue?**

Fruitvale is a stop on the BART lines several stations south of downtown
Oakland. It developed as an orchard and canning community, with
prosperity continuing through WW II that earned it the title of
"Oakland's second downtown". The construction of freeways in the 1950s
began the demise of the town, as manufacturers shifted outward in search
of cheap land and labor. By the 1960s, Fruitvale had become a distressed
neighborhood, with high unemployment, inadequate housing, and other
problems associated with low-income, inner-city neighborhoods. Fruitvale
is also a diverse community, with over 90% of its residents being
minority (Hispanic, Asian, and African-American), much of this diversity
coming during the pre- and post-World War II economic boom.

In 1991, BART announced plans to construct a multi-level parking
facility adjacent to the Fruitvale station. This proposal didn't please
the community; since the area around the station was already distressed
and crime-plagued; residents and business owners complained that the
parking facility would further exacerbate these negative conditions by
worsening traffic and cutting off pedestrian access between the station
and the downtown business district. As a result of its protest, a series
of events was precipitated that led to a very exemplary and
unconventional redirection of BART's plans into a major transit oriented
development around the station that the community was heavily involved
and represented in.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

Despite its gradual decline, Fruitvale had a strong network of community
organizations, including most particularly the Unity Council, founded in
1964 by Arabella Martinez, Assistant Secretary of the US Department of
Health, Education and Welfare under President Carter. The Council had a
solid track record of bringing residents and community interests
together to deliver important community projects, including affordable
housing, business assistance, historic preservation, façade
improvements, community festivals, job readiness, home ownership
assistance, and programs for seniors and school children. The Unity
Council led the opposition to BART's initial plan, and when it saw that
it did not have the support of the community, BART withdrew its proposal
and agreed to work with community leaders on an alternative plan. These
discussions (sometimes painful) gave birth to the idea for the Fruitvale
Transit Village, a \$100 million mixed-use development adjacent to the
BART station that combines housing, shops, offices, a library, child
care, a pedestrian plaza, and an array of community services.

In consideration of its capabilities, the Unity Council was awarded a
\$185,000 Community Development Block Grant in 1992 by the City of
Oakland to initiate a community planning process for revitalizing the
area around the station. Based on evidence of good progress, the US DOT
(FTA) further awarded the Council a \$470,000 planning grant for the
Fruitvale Transit Village in 1993, which was used to conduct community
workshops and carry out economic, traffic and engineering studies. Also
in 1993, the Council partnered with UC Berkeley's National Transit
Access Center to stage a community design symposium, which developed
architectural renderings for the site. Later, as the scale of the
project continued to grow, the Unity Council, BART and the City of
Oakland signed a Memorandum of Understanding that established the
Fruitvale Policy Committee to guide further planning and development at
the site. The Unity Council led intensive community planning efforts
throughout the process, significantly involving the community in
identifying positive and negative qualities of the community and how
they would or would not design the site to address these factors. There
was considerable interaction on alternatives land use plans, and the
community was heavily represented in the key design issues.

In 1996, the Unity Council established a non-profit subsidiary -- the
Fruitvale Development Corporation -- to serve as the developer for the
Transit Village and manage contracts. This development was in stark
contrast to BART's typical process in which competitive bidding is used
to identify developers. In this case, however, BART's policy allowed it
to award sole-source development rights if such an arrangement was
deemed in its best interest. This authority proved to be well placed in
dealing with the myriad of problems that arose over the next few years,
ranging from assembly of land parcels, to finding another solution to
supplying the required parking, to negotiating agreement with the City
on the optimal form and management of the street and sidewalk system.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   Because of the community's proactive involvement, a potential
    liability (parking garage inducing traffic and impeding walking) was
    turned into an asset benefiting all parties, including community and
    the transit operator.

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-   While this was/is a low income/minority community, a
    transit-oriented development project was seen as viable and
    desirable to the community; the community was directly and
    substantively involved in its conception, design and implementation.
    This is important because TOD is a major strategy for urban
    revitalization, but is often feared by the community because of
    likely displacements when land values rise.

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-   A well-based, respected community organization is invaluable in
    getting the community heard, changing the predictable tide of
    events, and adding value to and restoring pride in the community.

***Example 7: MPO Environmental Justice Report Columbus, Ohio Mid-Ohio
Regional Planning Commission (MORPC)***[^20]***^9^***

**What Was the Issue?**

In late 1999, MORPC undertook a substantive review of the extent to
which its transportation planning activities met the requirements of
Title VI, this in response to an FHWA/FTA joint memorandum directing
stronger consideration of EJ requirements as part of the MPO planning
certification process.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

A diverse 12-member regional EJ Task Force was convened to steer the
process, taken from MORPC's Citizen Advisory Committee, Transportation
Advisory Committee, and the Columbus Area Transportation Coordination
Program. The group included representatives from municipal governments,
the Central Ohio Transit Authority, the Ohio Environmental Protection
Agency, and several public interest groups. Two of the participants were
members of the target populations, while others were selected on the
basis of their experience working with low-income and minority
populations. This Task Force met biweekly for three months, during which
time it played a key role in helping MORPC define the target population,
identify the needs of the target population, evaluate the agency's
existing public involvement process, and develop appropriate measures
for gauging the regional benefits and burdens of transportation system
investments on the target population. At the end of the three months,
MORPC held an Open House on Environmental Justice to formally present
the findings of its Draft Environmental Justice Report and give citizens
an opportunity to provide feedback. A location (and time) was chosen to
provide the best possible access to the low-income and minority
community.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   The environmental justice review process produced a set of
    conclusions about the fairness of transportation access and travel
    in the Mid-Ohio region, albeit based largely on a modeling process
    developed by agency staff. By documenting the review process in its
    Draft Environmental Justice Report, MORPC opened itself to the
    possibility of public scrutiny. Neighborhood groups and other
    organizations now the opportunity to review the agency's findings,
    gauges them against their own experience, and responds accordingly.

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-   The MORPC exercise resulted in valuable new information on regional
    demographics, accessibility, travel times, and highway investments
    for different segments of the population that may be useful in
    research efforts or other undertakings by neighborhood groups.

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-   MORPC staff acquired greater insight and sensitivity to the
    transportation concerns and needs of low-income and minority
    populations. Through the Task Force, a forum was provided for
    exploring workable partnerships to improve access for target
    populations. MORPC also now better understands how its
    transportation system and plans serve its disadvantaged residents,
    providing a stimulus to incorporate these findings in future
    planning efforts.

***Example 8: South Park Avenue Improvement Project Tucson, Arizona
Tucson Department of Transportation***[^21]***^0^***

**What Was the Issue?**

South Park is a long-established minority neighborhood in the Tucson
area, originally settled by African Americans during the 1940s. Facing
multiple obstacles rooted in segregation at that time, early residents
worked hard to build a community of which they could be proud. South
Park was one of only two places in Tucson where African Americans were
permitted to purchase land, and with difficulties obtaining credit;
homes and businesses were built on a pay-as-you-go basis, with tents
serving as temporary dwellings. By the 1960s, it was a well-knit,
thriving community anchored by a number of black-owned businesses along
South Park Avenue. Over the next several decades, however, South Park
fell victim to traditional urban inner-city ills of crime, drugs, and
gang activity -- 35% of its households were below the poverty line, and
the unemployment rate was nearly double that of the Tucson Metropolitan
area. By 1990, the population mix had dramatically shifted, with African
American share falling from a high of 90% in the 1940's to less than
50%, while the Hispanic population increased to nearly 40%.

In 1989, the Tucson Urban League received HUD Community Development
Block Grant funds to prepare a Community Development Plan for the South
Park area. Working in partnership with the University of Arizona College
of Architecture, which donated its services, the Urban League conducted
9 months of intense public meetings to identify key issues and
opportunities. One area of concern targeted by the Plan was the
commercial district along South Park Avenue from 18^th^ to 36^th^
Streets where businesses had been struggling in the wake of construction
of Kino Boulevard during the 1980s as a new arterial for traffic between
the downtown and the airport. This new roadway diverted significant
traffic -- and business \-- away from South Park Avenue commercial
establishments. In 1995, the Tucson Department of Transportation (TDOT)
identified FTA's Livable Communities Initiative as a potential funding
source for improvements along South Park Avenue to help support the
process of engineering a comeback for this disadvantaged area, and
helped secure a \$1 million grant for streetscape and pedestrian
improvements.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

During 1996 and 1997, TDOT held a series of town hall meetings to gain
public input on the project's design. Despite considerable efforts to
publicize the meetings, however, attendance was poor and participants
were skeptical about the City's seriousness to help the community.
Challenged by this disappointing start, TDOT intensified its outreach
efforts through the strategy of "neighborhood walkabouts", in which
project staff members walked through neighborhood streets and parks,
introducing themselves and the project to residents in a personal,
informal manner. TDOT also conducted in-home interviews with several
respected elders in the South Park community. Within months,
participation at the town meetings increased to more than 40 people,
with the higher interest attributed both to the more aggressive outreach
and the format of the meetings themselves. Residents were invited to
"view and vote" on the numerous design aspects of the project, with the
voting results being shared during the course of the meeting. One of the
most creative elements in the project was engaging the public in the
design and development of public art to embellish the streetscape. Art
classes were provided to help residents develop their artistic skills,
and participation in the exercise imparted substantial interest and
ownership in the project and faith in its possibilities. Based on the
evidence of an outstanding community involvement process, the FTA
granted an additional \$500,000 to the project in 1997. By the time the
project was completed in September 1999, it resulted in significant
family of improvements including sidewalks and curb access ramps, 7 new
bus shelters, pedestrian-friendly walls that doubled as a public art
canvas, installation of new traffic signals at three intersections, and
major landscaping improvements.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   Transportation improvements can serve a broader purpose by playing a
    role in revitalizing distressed communities.

-   The Improvement Project greatly enhanced the livability of this
    low-income, minority community and breathed new life into a
    distressed commercial district.

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-   Among the practices illustrated by the project for integrating
    environmental justice principles into transportation planning,
    design and construction was the highlighting of the role played by
    creative partnerships. While TDOT played a central role, it relied
    on others to supply crucial technical and financial resources to
    reach a vision for the area. The origins of support for the project
    lay in the partnerships established between the Tucson Urban League,
    the University of Arizona, and the community. Local government
    agencies are generally limited in their ability to conduct such a
    thorough and exhaustive analysis for every neighborhood. TDOT
    instead used the recommendations from the local partnership as
    leverage to identify and acquire outside funding for the projects.

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-   Public involvement was successful because it did not stop with
    initial skepticism, but identified and applied more creative and
    aggressive techniques that won the public's support.

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-   Getting the public involved at a hands-on level with the design of
    the project -- and even with the construction of some of the key
    elements -- led to much more earnest community identification, pride
    and ownership with both the eventual project, and the community
    itself.

***Example 9: South Carolina Route 72 Environmental Assessment Calhoun
Falls, South Carolina, South Carolina Department of Transportation
(SCDOT)***[^22]***^1^***

######### What Was the Issue?

Sometime in the early 1990s, the South Carolina Department of
Transportation came forth with a proposal to widen a 15.5-mile segment
of existing state route 72 between the Savannah River and the town of
Abbeville. The project is part of a larger two-state long-range plan to
provide a multilane highway between Athens, GA and Charlotte, NC to help
attract industry and promote economic development. The existing route 72
runs through the town of Calhoun Falls, population 2,328, with a
substantial African-American community (47%) and more than 40% of all
households -- black and white -- earning less than \$15,000 per year.
Both the town's leaders and the state hoped that the transportation
access improvements afforded by widening SC 72 would make Calhoun Falls
more attractive as a location for manufacturing and distribution
facilities, being only 2 hours away from Charlotte by truck.

At issue was the fact that at least one of the six alignments under
study would cut through a minority community known as Bucknelly. SCDOT
wanted to involve the Bucknelly neighborhood in the decision-making
process for this project, seeing that clearly some of the alternatives
would generate disproportionately high and adverse effects on this
predominately African-American community. Their efforts in finding
effective outreach and participation mechanisms were met with numerous
challenges.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

SCDOT and its consultants performing the environmental assessment for
the project initially planned on community workshops as the primary
mechanism for engaging residents in the process. Given the level of
poverty and illiteracy in the area, however, it quickly became clear
that a creative array of measures would be needed to inform and involve
the public. Clearly, Internet website methods would be of limited use,
and with literacy issues, there was concern that notices could not be
read. In partial response, newsletters -- included with monthly water
bills -- were a primary medium, combined with posters preceding each
workshop, and enlisting the help of the town's ministers to keep the
public informed from the pulpit. These efforts notwithstanding, 118
residents attended the initial workshop, but only 11 of these were
African American, and only one of the returned 47 comment sheets
indicated opposition for the alternative that would have divided
Bucknelly. No African Americans were among the 38 residents that
participated in a second workshop held in Abbeville, whose participants
were mainly interested in an adjacent SCDOT project.

The project team decided that other ways had to be found to engage the
Bucknelly community. They first made a number of in-person tours into
the community to learn more about its composition and history. During
one of these tours, the team came to recognize Bucknelly's unique
history, and previous public works decisions (location of a sewage
treatment plant, an electric substation) projects whose location was
clearly not in the best interest of the community. To try to overcome
the poor turnout at the initial workshops, the team conducted a special
workshop for only members of the Bucknelly community, and held it at the
Ellison Community Center (in Bucknelly) on the Monday following Easter,
so as to get maximum publicity and persuasion from faith leaders on
heavily-attended Easter Sunday services. Seventy-five residents attended
the special community meeting, and 40 comment sheets were returned.

Project team members made a special effort to describe the alternatives
and their potential impact on the community, and also to help residents
who had literacy difficulties to complete their comment sheets. The
community, thus assisted, came out overwhelmingly in favor of the
alternative advocated by the mayor, which avoided the Bucknelly
neighborhood in favor of a less central route that would be more
conducive to the town's economic development and redevelopment goals. In
this regard, both the black community and the white community were able
to reach an accord of what plan was in the best interest of the town.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   By experiencing the community on a human scale through a series of
    "walk arounds", the project team was able to identify the Bucknelly
    community and appreciate how several of the project alternatives
    would affect it.

-   Taking time to learn the history of Bucknelly helped explain initial
    skepticism and help build a successful outreach and involvement
    program.

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-   Once again, the most effective public involvement results came from
    a conscious effort to tailor the outreach and communication
    approaches to unique local needs.

***Example 10: Environmental Justice & CRCOG's Transportation Planning
Program, Hartford, Connecticut Capitol Region Council of Governments
(CRCOG)***[^23]***^2^***

**What Was the Issue?**

In early 2001, CRCOG was none of four planning agencies across the
country selected to participate in a federal Environmental Justice
Challenge Grant Program. The purpose of the grant program was to allow
each agency to assess how well their transportation planning programs
met the goals and requirements of Title VI and Environmental Justice,
and to identify ways to improve the involvement of minority communities
and address the needs of those communities.

While CRCOG believed that it had a positive history of involving low
income and minority communities in its planning process, it felt that it
needed to improve upon the level of minority community involvement in a
broader cross-section of its planning and programming activities. It was
felt that there was opportunity to increase involvement in some of the
core decision-making activities, like adoption of the TIP, project
selection, and development of the Regional Transportation Plan. Because
the Transportation Committee primarily controls these activities, this
meant that the structure of that committee had to be examined.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

The original intention was to conduct a transportation program
evaluation with a special committee composed of representatives of the
minority and low-income community and of various agencies involved in
transportation decision-making. The plan was to work with a select group
over the course of a year to review the full range of planning and
programming activities. However, this approach was radically changed
after just one meeting, when it was realized that it would be
impractical to expect a single group of individuals to sustain its
interest in such an intense review process over a year's time. The
alternative approach taken was to reach out to a greater number of
people through a series of workshops, held in minority neighborhoods and
at which the topics and the participants varied. At each workshop, one
or more aspects of the CRCOG planning program was reviewed, followed by
a discussion of how the conduct of those activities could be improved to
(1) encourage greater minority community participation, (2) do a better
job of addressing issues of concern to the community, and (3) do a
better job of informing the community.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

The first community workshop was built around a critique of a prior
planning project, namely to appraise CRCOG's public involvement in its
Route 44 Albany Avenue corridor study. Since Albany Avenue crosses
several predominately African-American neighborhoods, outreach to the
community was an important part of the study. This review also had the
purpose of helping plan community involvement for a pending busway study
through the same general area. The following recommendations resulted
from this meeting:

-   Given a very strong community structure, CRCOG was advised to
    recognize the character and work directly with each community,
    rather than take a "regional" approach as it did with Albany Avenue.

-   All neighborhoods should be involved, even if only a small portion
    of a neighborhood falls within the study area.

-   Neighborhoods should be added to the Advisory Committee which is set
    up by CRCOG for each study, and not just city leaders and staff.

-   More advertising should be done through neighborhood organizations,
    including churches

-   In the early stages of a study, it is necessary to reach out as
    widely and informally to the community, through small group meetings
    rather than formal public meetings.

-   Earn and build trust with the community by demonstrating that
    community input is being listened to and used.

The second workshop was held in a predominately Hispanic area in south
Hartford, and had two purposes: (1) evaluating aspects of CRCOG's
planning program other than special studies, and (2) gathering input for
development of the next regional transportation plan. Several familiar
Hartford area projects were used as examples to explain how the projects
originated and how they were selected for funding, illuminating elements
such as corridor studies, the TIP, and the transportation plan. The
transportation plan was emphasized as the starting point where
transportation issues and needs are first identified. Recommendations
resulting from this meeting included:

-   Several methods were recommended for improving communication between
    the community and CRCOG, including placing meeting notices on buses
    and at bus shelters, creating "problem-solving" groups, and
    televising meetings on public access cable TV stations.

-   Re-examining committee structure and funding allocation, in relation
    to whether minority groups have adequate representation and whether
    they get a fair share of transportation benefits.

-   Encouraging the continued participation of the Hartford
    Environmental Justice Network, an existing group already familiar
    with the principles of environmental justice.

-   Clean fuel buses should be a priority, and addressed in the RTP.

-   The quality and quantity of transit service was labeled as an issue
    of critical concern to the minority community, and the need for
    better service should be a prime issue in the RTP

The final workshop was for the purpose of consolidating and prioritizing
the recommendations from the first two workshops into an Action Plan.
Enough was learned on what parts of the planning process were most in
need of improvement, so to begin the process of developing
recommendations on how to address them the strategy was to make the core
group of participants at this third meeting the basis for a permanent
Advisory Board. These were drawn from participants attending the
previous workshops plus members of CRCOG's Transportation Committee and
its Policy Board. One of the goals of Action Plan was to allow the
minority communities to have more direct input to CRCOG's planning
process, for which the adopted strategy was to have CRCOG committee
members sit on the same Board with community representatives, and to
have a member of the Advisory Board sit on the Transportation Committee.
A specific recommendation out of the workshop was to work on a way to
make the TIP document more understandable to the lay public.

***Example 11: Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA),
Atlanta, Georgia***[^24]***^3^***

**What Was the Issue?**

In response to the enormous growth of the Atlanta region (40% population
increase between 1990 and 2000), the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit
Authority (MARTA) has been challenged to meet the needs of both a larger
and more geographically dispersed population. Public transportation did
not begin in Atlanta until 1952, and it was not until 1966 that a public
entity was formed through the creation of MARTA, but only through the
approval of two of the five counties in the region plus the City of
Atlanta. MARTA's first rail transit service began operating in 1979, and
the combined rail/bus system is now the ninth largest in the country.
Through Atlanta's most rapid growth period, however, the freeway system
has been the most dominant agent of change. Construction of the freeway
system disrupted or displaced entire communities, fueled rapid
out-migration, and has led to record traffic and air pollution problems.
It also helped widen the separation of the more affluent and racially
homogenous suburbs from the lower-income minority populations of the
City. While MARTA was hoped to be the solution to the area's
transportation problems, it's weakness is that it was never allowed to
integrate with the surrounding region, so that trips to or from the
fastest growing outlying counties require either auto or bus access. For
residents of Atlanta who rely on public transportation, the lack of
continuity in the transit system means often impossibly long commute
times to suburban employment sites; in 2004, it was estimated that only
about one-third of the region's jobs were accessible within one hour by
transit for low income households. Yet, most of these issues are beyond
MARTA's purview to affect. To further improve transit service,
additional state funding must be secured, but for this to happen the
state constitution must first be changed, and then there are significant
issues as to how transit must compete with regional highway needs, given
the overwhelming auto orientation of the region and its traffic and
pollution problems.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

MARTA has struggled with budgetary constraints that it would generally
attempt to offset with fare increases, creating additional hardships for
low income and elderly transit dependants. However, one such cycle was
met with a discrimination complaint (in 2000) that opened the way for
more effective rider and grassroots advocacy for equity in the
distribution of transportation funds. MARTA staff, riders and grassroots
organizations participated in community forums to resolve the issue. A
fare increase was subsequently "negotiated", and afterwards MARTA
continued to schedule quarterly meetings with the community to answer
further questions.

Among its Title VI activities, MARTA uses extensive overlays to measure
level and quality of service against standards, which are specifically
designed to assure non-discrimination in service delivery. Complaints
are directed to an Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, which has
a staff of about 20. There is also a Title VI liaison for each area of
the agency, which comprises the Title VI Advisory Committee. This
committee meets quarterly, and considers levels of service in one area
vs. another, types of amenities provided (benches, shelters, vehicle
types, etc.), and also economic development opportunities.

MARTA also worked with the Metropolitan Atlanta Transportation Equity
Coalition (MATEC), a grassroots organization formed in 1999, to resolve
issues related to vehicle assignment. MATEC is made up of transit
riders, civil rights groups, environmental justice advocates,
faith-based organizations, neighborhood organizations, academics and
labor representatives. At issue was both MARTA's ability to dispatch
vehicle efficiently (bearing on service reliability), and also type of
vehicle deployed, with the suggestion that diesel buses were more likely
to be assigned to minority/low-income communities than cleaner,
alternative fuel vehicles.

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

MARTA from its experience learned that everyone needs to become involved
and educated in order to properly discuss and arrive at responses to
challenges, issues and concerns. In acquiring this knowledge it better
understood that effective solutions to the many constraints it faced,
requires working with a variety of groups across the region. For
example, to resolve the vehicle allocation issue, MARTA's Title VI
Advisory Committee worked with its scheduling, budget and legal offices,
leading to the purchase of clean diesel vehicles as replacements,
reconfiguring six routes, and working closely with MATEC to explain the
vehicle assignments and the need for an additional facility to better
manage operating costs.

***Example 12: Conflict of Public Policies: HOPE VI vs. PRWORA, Chicago,
Illinois***[^25]***^4^***

**What Was the Issue?**

This is not particularly a public participation example, but is a very
interesting recounting of how well intentioned public policies can
conflict in a way that they lead to a worsening of conditions for the
very people they are trying to help.

Federal Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere (HOPE VI)
money was secured by the Chicago Housing Authority in 1996 to undertake
a 10-year plan to demolish and redevelop the 1960's-era Robert Taylor
Homes, a 2-mile long, 4,300 unit public housing project that was the
largest of its kind in the world. The 4,300 units were to be replaced by
2,400 mixed-income rental units and homes, of which only 850 would be
public housing replacement units, resulting in a loss of between 3,200
to 3,450 public housing units. During the tear down and reconstruction,
families were moved to a temporary home or a rehabbed permanent home; a
housing choice survey was used by CHA to determine where families would
like to live during redevelopment.

At about the same time, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Responsibility Act, or PRWORA, was passed, otherwise known as the
welfare reform act, placing priority and a time clock on getting
unemployed persons off welfare and into jobs. The simultaneous
administration of both of these programs in Chicago meant that a large
number of minority and low-income households were being displaced to new
residential locations -- many of them suburban \-- at a time of
increasing impetus to connect them with jobs. Because many of the
affected households did not own cars and were highly dependent on public
transit, the relocation from Robert Taylor to other areas in the region
carried the mixed blessing of reduced transit access, essentially
placing many in a "catch 22" situation.

**Public Participation Mechanism:\
**

Really none, which is interesting considering the magnitude of the
impact

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

-   The serendipitous movement of many poor, urban public housing
    residents who were greatly dependent on public transit for access to
    goods, services and jobs was difficult on those who relocated to the
    suburbs.

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-   Unplanned as it was, the loss of low-income housing during
    redevelopment of Robert Taylor was not only a major disruption and
    setback for those who relocated, but also stressed the receiving
    neighborhoods and other public services. (This strongly suggests
    that any program that would look to solve the problem of poor access
    of the poor to jobs by moving them to the suburbs would be poorly
    advised, absent associated improvements in land use, transportation
    connectivity, and public services.)

***Example 13: Public Involvement in the Major Investment Study (MIS)
Process, Denver, Colorado, Regional Transportation District
(RTD)***[^26]***^5^***

**What Was the Issue?**

Denver's Regional Transportation District has been charged since its
creation in 1969 with planning a regional transportation system with an
emphasis on developing rapid transit alternatives to private auto
transportation. Toward that end, it has implemented a system of high
occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes and a light rail line in 1994. Studies
since that time have focused on major transportation corridors where
future rapid transit investments are being considered. The RTD has
studiously researched ways to involve the public in these major
investment studies.

The case study reports on RTD's study of the I-70 Corridor, which is
being conducted by the FHWA, FTA, the Colorado Department of
Transportation, RTD, and the City and County of Denver. The project
incorporates improvements between I-70 and Pena Boulevard, and a transit
connection between downtown Denver and the Denver Airport.

**Public Participation Mechanism:**

The public involvement activities in this study have been described as
an unprecedented effort at community outreach. Among the variety of
activities that have been tested in this project are:

-   Hiring outreach specialists from the neighborhoods

-   Ensuring extensive training for anyone who interacts with the public

-   Using flyers to notify residents and businesses of meetings

-   Conducting door-to-door outreach as a first contact in neighborhoods

-   Holding block meetings for subsets of neighborhoods

-   Attending neighborhood association and business meetings

-   Conducting neighborhood meetings and larger corridor-wide meetings

-   Providing translation at meetings

-   Providing child care at larger meetings

-   Catering meals for meetings

-   Developing issue working groups

-   Proactively involving the media

-   Disseminating information across a wide range of media

**Outcome & Lessons Learned:**

From the information in the case study and the ongoing nature of the
project, it was not possible to ascertain the overall effectiveness of
this campaign or the effectiveness of individual measures. However, the
range of strategies considered is indicative of the effort that an
effective public outreach and environmental justice program may have to
consider in order to be confident that it is reaching its intended
audience.

#  {#section-66}

# VI. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN HEALTH 

#  {#section-67}

One of the major "missing links" in environmental justice analyses are
evaluatations of the relationship between transportation activity and
human health. Developing transportation-related indicators to measure
public health impacts is actually a requirement under Title VI. While
transportation may impact health in many ways, for example
vehicle/pedestrian conflicts, noise and exhaust odors, one very tangible
connection is through transportation's contribution to poor air quality.
Poor air quality has a detrimental effect on persons with asthma or
other pulmonary health problems, children and the elderly. An
ever-increasing body of empirical research is able to demonstrate an
epidemiological link between the proximity of exposure to air pollution
concentrations and higher incidence rates of a variety of health
abnormalities. Not surprisingly, there is also a body of evidence which
indicates that minority and low-income populations tend to live and work
closer to sources of air pollution than does the general population, and
hence face greater health risks.[^27]^6,^ [^28]^7,^ [^29]^8^

Chapter 3 of NCHRP Report 532 provides the most current and
comprehensive review of the role of air quality in environmental justice
assessments among current guidance materials. It is particularly on
point in laying out the issues, the tools and the challenges with regard
to air quality impacts. It points out that transportation-related air
pollution's effect on communities can occur in two primary ways:

-   Through increased ground-level concentrations of pollutants like
    carbon monoxide (CO) or particulate matter (PM) caused by motor
    vehicle traffic and congestion

-   Atmospheric concentrations of ozone and particulate-causing
    pollutants like VOCs, NO~x~, SO~x~, and also CO.

From an environmental justice perspective, the methods for dealing with
either type of effect are not especially good. The ground-level effects
are analyzed using hot-spot or micro-scale techniques which relate
vehicle activity levels at roadway intersections with readings at
pollution measurement receptor sites. While the models are fairly
accurate at creating this linkage between activity and receptor reading,
they are not able to project what concentrations are or will be in
non-receptor areas, e.g., along sidewalks or inside neighborhoods. And
for the measurement of atmospheric pollutants, the standard regional air
quality models used for transportation conformity and addressing NAAQS
standards do not provide geographic distinctions; rather, they are
obliged to assume that distributions are uniform across large areas.
Hence, the ability of standard tools and data to tie transportation
activity to pollution concentrations in particular geographic areas --
i.e., those with EJ populations -- is much challenged. What these
methods also do not allow for is accounting for any *cumulative* effect
on health of pre-existing activity and pollution concentrations.

Second, however, is the fact that none of the methods presented directly
address the causal connection between vehicle-generate pollution and
health effects, such as asthma or cancer rates. Report 532 notes that
the assessment of health effects is an emerging field of research, and
because this type of research is very time and resource intensive and
requires considerable expertise in health and epidemiology, the
evaluation of health effects would be beyond all but a few extreme
EJ/transportation situations. Hence, methods are not included in the
guidebook, although references to several exposure-based EJ studies are
provided.

The first of the two problems -- ascertaining pollutant concentrations
in particular areas -- may find an interesting solution in the
"pollution surface" concept introduced as the fourth method in Chapter 3
of Report 532. This creation of a pollution surface makes it possible to
estimate pollution concentrations within particular geographic subareas
of a region. Two different approaches are described for creating a
pollution service -- model-based methods and statistical methods.

Model-based methods estimate emissions based on roadway geometry,
traffic volumes and vehicle fleet emissions characteristics. A prototype
model known as MEASURE (Mobile Emission Assessment System for Urban and
Regional Evaluation), supported by the EPA, is described as an example
of a model-based approach. Although the MEASURE model is built in a GIS
framework which allows it to not only produce more accurate estimates of
emissions than conventional MOBILE6 approaches it is not widely used
outside of the research community. However several of its components
have been incorporated into the development of EPA's Move model replaces
Mobile 6. The Move model like its predecessor Mobile 6 can be integrated
with GIS technologies to provide better spatial and temporal resolution
of the emissions and be sensitive to how changes in transportation
system design can affect the emissions rates. Statistical models predict
pollution surfaces by fitting regression models to observations at
monitoring sites based on known values for predictor variables such as
land use, population, and vehicle miles traveled. Because monitoring
networks are sparse, Report 532 advises that a larger monitoring network
and a larger number of samples over time will yield a more accurate
model.

Assuming that the approach of creating a pollution surface proves to be
a more accurate and responsive way to estimate pollution concentrations
imposed on specific geographies or populations, the second part of the
health impacts equation is the link between concentrations and health.
Whereas Report 532 suggests that this research area is too complex or
not quite ready to incorporate in an EJ evaluation, the presence of
Johns Hopkins University and affiliate Dr. Timothy Buckley on the BREJT
team lead us to believe that we are much closer to making the tie with
health than may be perceived.

This is evidenced by the large and growing number of credible studies on
the subject, ranging from non-specific outcomes of mortality
(Finkelstein et al. 2004[^30]^9^) to more specific effects including
injury (Kumanyika, 2001[^31]^0^), obesity (Frank et al. 2004[^32]^1^),
cancer (Pearson et al. 2000; Knox, 2005[^33]^2^), cardiovascular (Bigert
et al. 2003[^34]^3^), and a range of respiratory effects (Brunekreef et
al. 1997, Wjst et al. 1993[^35]^3^), (Weiland et al. 1994, Friedman et
al. 2001[^36]^4^). Parallel public health studies suggest that this
health threat is disproportionately borne by racial minority and socio-
economically disadvantaged subpopulation groups (Green et al. 2004;
Gunier et al. 2003; Apelberg et al. 2005[^37]^5^). A brief profile and
citation for some of these key studies is provided below.

# Air Pollution from Busy Roads Linked to Shorter Life Spans for Nearby Residents[^38]**^6^**: Dutch researchers looked at the effects of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollutants on 5,000 adults. They found that people who lived near a main road were almost twice as likely to die from heart or lung disease and 1.4 times as likely to die from any cause compared with those who lived in less-trafficked areas. Researchers say these results are similar to those seen in previous U.S. studies on the effects of long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution. The authors say traffic emissions contain many pollutants that might be responsible for the health risks, such as ultra-fine particles, diesel soot, and nitrogen oxides, which have been linked to cardiovascular and respiratory problems.

###### Truck Traffic Linked to Childhood Asthma Hospitalizations: A study in Erie County, New York (excluding the city of Buffalo) found that children living in neighborhoods with heavy truck traffic within 200 meters of their homes had increased risks of asthma hospitalization. The study examined hospital admission for asthma amongst children ages 0-14, and residential proximity to roads with heavy traffic[^39]^7^. Pregnant Women Who Live Near High Traffic Areas More Likely to Have Premature and Low Birth Weight Babies: Researchers observed an approximately 10-20% increase in the risk of premature birth and low birth weight for infants born to women living near high traffic areas in Los Angeles County. In particular, the researchers found that for each one part per million increases in annual average carbon monoxide concentrations where the women lived, there was a 19% and 11% increase in risk for low birth weight and premature births, respectively[^40]^8^. Moreover, the researchers found considerably higher concentrations of carbon monoxide pollution near the freeways. Asthma More Common for Children Living Near Freeways: A study of nearly 10,000 children in England found that wheezing illness, including asthma, was more likely with increasing proximity of a child's home to main roads. The risk was greatest for children living within 90 meters of the road^39^. Proximity of a Child's Residence to Major Roads Linked to Hospital Admissions for Asthma: A study in Birmingham, United Kingdom, determined that living near major roads was associated with the risk of hospital admission for asthma in children younger than 5 yrs of age. The area of residence and traffic flow patterns were compared for children admitted to the hospital for asthma, children admitted for non-respiratory reasons, and a random sample of children from the community. Children admitted with an asthma diagnosis were significantly more likely to live in an area with high traffic flow (\> 24,000 vehicles/ 24 hrs) located along the nearest segment of main road than were children admitted for non-respiratory reasons or children form the community[^41]^0^.

#  {#section-68}

# Children Living Near Busy Roads More Likely to Develop Cancer: A 2000 Denver study showed that children living within 250 yards of streets or highways with 20,000 vehicles per day are six times more likely to develop all types of cancer and eight times more likely to get leukemia. The study looked at associations between traffic density, power lines, and all childhood cancers with measurements obtained in 1979 and 1990. It found a weak association from power lines, but a strong association with highways. It suggested that benzene pollution might be the cancer promoter causing the problem. 

Emissions from Motor Vehicles Dominate Cancer Risk: The most
comprehensive study of urban toxic air pollution ever undertaken shows
that motor vehicles and other mobile sources of air pollution are the
predominant source of cancer-causing air pollutants in Southern
California. Overall, the study showed that motor vehicles and other
mobile sources accounted for about 90% of the cancer risk from toxic air
pollution, most of which is from diesel soot (70% of the cancer risk).
Industries and other stationary sources accounted for the remaining 10%.
The study showed that the highest risk is in urban areas where there is
heavy traffic and high concentrations of population and industry.

######## EPA's Hot Spot Exposure Assessment Program

In addition to the above studies from the medical and academic research
field, the EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAQ) has
established a monitoring plan to assist regulatory agencies in the
development of models to accurately identify and assess personal
exposures to air toxics in microenvironments. The emphasis of this
monitoring plan is to quantify the impacts from mobile source-generated
toxics. A number of studies have been or are currently being conducted
by the EPA and other environmental agencies to assess personal exposures
to air toxics.

**Table 6: EPA's Hot Spot Exposure Assessment Program**

  ------------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------
                      Objectives                                Analyzed

  Baltimore[^42]^1^   Assessment of mobile source impacts on    Airborne Particulate
                      indoor and outdoor air pollution          Matter (PM),
                      concentrations of PM and gaseous toxics   Polycyclic Aromatic
                      in a home and a school located in an      Hydrocarbons (PAHs),
                      ambient hot spot location. Assess         PM2.5 Metals by
                      exposures by comparing continuous,        ICP-MS, EC/OC,
                      fixed-site measurements with the          Aldehydes by
                      time-course, sensitivity and specificity  fluorescence, VOCs by
                      of biomarkers among volunteer subjects    GC/MS, Nitrogen
                      occupying the fixed-site row home.        Oxides (NO2), Carbon
                      Characterize the exposure distribution    Monoxide (CO);
                      and investigate the health effects of     Meteorological
                      mobile source-related air pollution among Station (temperature,
                      inner-city asthmatic children.            wind speed/direction,
                      Associations among environmental          humidity); Traffic
                      exposures and biomarkers used to identify volume, speed, type,
                      and quantify the exposure levels.         pattern by video
                      Temporal and spatial variability of air   analysis; Atmospheric
                      toxics, including multiple                boundary layer by
                      microenvironments (in-home, in school,    LIDAR.
                      near roadway); source apportionment of    
                      mobile source-generated contaminants for  
                      outdoor, indoor, and personal             
                      measurements.                             

  LA[^43]^2^          Quantify in-vehicle, outside vehicle,     Obtain measurements
                      near vehicle (bus stop), and ambient      of in-bus and
                      exposures to diesel exhaust. Identify     near-bus pollutant
                      specific scenarios and factors that lead  concentrations during
                      to the highest air pollutant exposures of normal school bus
                      children while commuting on diesel school operations across the
                      buses or waiting at bus stops. Obtain     full range of
                      measurements of in-bus and near-bus       anticipated
                      pollutant concentrations during normal    conditions.
                      school bus operations across the full     Comprehensive vehicle
                      range of anticipated conditions.          characterization fuel
                      Comprehensive vehicle characterization:   analysis,
                      fuel analysis, vehicle/engine             vehicle/engine
                      information, tailpipe emission            information, tailpipe
                      characterization, assessment of high      emission
                      emitters, with emphasis on obtaining      characterization,
                      measurements during operations expected   assessment of high
                      to lead to realistic high-end exposures   emitters, with
                      and assessment of effects of control      emphasis on obtaining
                      technology (diesel retrofits).            measurements during
                                                                operations expected
                                                                to lead to realistic
                                                                high-end exposures
                                                                and assessment of
                                                                effects of control
                                                                technology (diesel
                                                                retrofits).

  FRESNO[^44]^3^      Study of the effect of air pollution on   Particle Matter
                      450 asthmatic children. Examines          (mass, metals, ions,
                      short-term effect of daily air pollution  elemental and organic
                      on the symptoms, medication use, and lung carbon), Polycyclic
                      function of these children and the        Aromatic Hydrocarbons
                      longer-term effect on the progression of  (PAHs) - gas and
                      asthma. Assess temporal and spatial       particle phase;
                      distributions of particulate matter (PM), Nitrogen oxides
                      including toxic components, at multiple   Ozone, Environmental
                      microenvironments including homes         tobacco smoke (ETS);
                      (\~100), schools (\~25), and near         Biological agents
                      roadways. Associations among              include Endotoxin,
                      environmental exposures and adverse       Pllens, and Fngal
                      health effects for asthmatic children     Spores in the air,
                      Temporal and spatial variability of air   and Endotoxin and
                      toxics, including multiple                Allergens in house
                      microenvironments (in-home, in-school,    dust.
                      near roadway); source apportionment of    
                      mobile source generated contaminants for  
                      outdoor, indoor, and personal             
                      measurements.                             
  ------------------- ----------------------------------------- ---------------------

OTAQ plans to participate in a number of these studies to specifically
investigate impacts from mobile sources in select microenvironments.
This literature review identifies and summaries the following

• Baltimore Traffic Study, 2001 -- 2003

• Los Angeles School Bus Exposure Assessment, summer 2001- spring 2003

• Fresno Asthmatic Children's Environment Study (FACES)

The objectives of these studies have in common the intent to demonstrate
particular aspects of the public health and transportation linkage at
various spatial scales (regional, local ear road, local Bus Stops,
inside and outside bus cabin, neighborhood/local and indoor mobile
trailers. Together the results of these studies further demonstrate the
association that pollution from mobile source emissions has on health.

## VII. ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility as a conventional planning measure is often narrowly
defined[^45]^5^. For example, proximity impact analysis has to establish
catchments areas that are defined by a distance measure. Accessibility
is determined by the spatial distribution of potential destinations, the
ease of reaching each destination, and the magnitude, quality, and
character of the activities found there. The greater the number of
potential destination within some defined time or distance range the
greater the accessibility. The closer such choice destinations are
within the maximum range the higher the level of accessibility. This of
course considers starting location, travel mode, physical and mobility
differences, and distance, time, time and cost constraints. When used
conventional accessibility measures are based on the notion of distance
and time to and from origins and destinations, which typically ignore
the role of complex travel behavior, and space-time constraints in
determining individual accessibility[^46]^6^. These factors are
especially significant in the lives of traditionally marginalized groups
such as low income, working poor, disabled, women, urban youth, and
racial minorities. As, a result all conventional accessibility measures
suffer from an inherent bias.

Accessibility in the everyday lives of people and in particular
marginalized groups is often constrained by the location of
essential facilities and the ability to get to them. For
instance, transit service reliability can play a significant role of
individual time-budget, and space-time constraints in determining
personal accessibility. The key in measuring accessibility is first
understand how individual/poor people view choice and not by how many
opportunities are located close to the reference location, but how many
opportunities are within reach given the particularities of an
individual's life situation and adaptive capabilities. Therefore,
environmental justice related accessibility impact analysis should focus
on space -time accessibility measures to be meaningful and effective in
today\'s urban environment.  

Ewing refers to accessibility as the closeness of urban activities to
one another, and points out that accessibility can be measured in
over-the --road distance, travel time, or travel cost. Thus
accessibility is a function both of land use patterns and the
transportation system that it serves[^47]^4^. Traditional transportation
planning has come to focus on zone -to- zone movements using the
commuter/work trip as as the primary variable in determining
accessibility. Thus creating an inherent basis, which inaccurately
reports the number of trips for non-work related trip-making activities?
The structure and theory of the classical models was primarily developed
in the 1960\'s - 1970\'s but has incrementally moved to away from a
total emphasis on zonal travel impedance\'s to include block, household,
and now personal mobility attribute data makes sense. The evolution of
the accessibility modeling process has continued to move toward a
more \"sensitive\" analysis process.

######## Measuring Accessibility 

The measurement of accessibility can take a variety of operational
forms. One of the most fundamental forms is referred to as \"relative
accessibility,\" where the distance or cost that separates two locations
is an indicator for the potential of interaction (Pirie 1979[^48]^7^).
The *distance to CBD* measure is an example of this. If a set of points
or locations are all potential origins or destinations, an \"integral
accessibility\" index measures the degree of interconnection of a
location *i* to all other locations, *j* : *Ai* = ![](media/image3.wmf)
, where *Ai* = integral accessibility and *aij* = relative accessibility
(Ingram 1971). The point with the lowest accessibility index (shortest
overall distance to all other points) is most accessible and also most
central (Garrison 1968[^49]^8^).

Relative and integral accessibility do not explicitly account for
variable supply and demand characteristics within a network of travel
origins and destinations. In general, there are few situations where
trip origins are unlimited from a location and few destinations have
unlimited capacities as trip ends. Gravity models are examples of
accessibility measures that are able to account for attraction,
opportunity, or capacity among points as well as distance and/or cost of
travel (Rietveld 1989[^50]^9^). For instance, *Iij = k Xi Yj f(cij)
,*where interaction *Iij* between locations *i* and *j* is assumed to
depend on conditions at *i* and *j* as well as on interaction costs
*cij*, *Xi* is a measure of the propensity of *i* to generate
interaction and *Yj* is a measure of the propensity of *j* to attract
interaction. *Xi* and *Yj* can represent production-attraction
constraints, which are most frequently used in transportation planning
models (Wilson 1971[^51]^0^). Singly or doubly constrained models can be
dynamic, reflecting changing supply or demand conditions of locations
over time (Weibull 1976[^52]^1^). Constrained models balance trip
productions and attractions so that total zonal outflows and total zonal
inflows are equal.

A fourth measure of accessibility is referred to as the
\"cumulative-opportunity\" model (Wachs and Kumagai 1973[^53]^2^). This
approach measures the number or density of relevant opportunities within
a specified travel time or distance from a geographic location. This
index represents a departure from standard accessibility measures
because destinations are endogenously determined rather than assigned
from a pre-defined set of locations. Black and Conroy (1977[^54]^3^)
express this model as: *Ki = A(T)(T-tT*) , where accessibility is
measured as the proportion of the activities of the region that have
been reached by time *T* multiplied by the specified travel-time
ordinate *T* minus the mean travel time to these activities. The measure
*Ki* contains information about the proportion of accessible
opportunities with increasing travel time. Accessibility will be high
when many opportunities can be reached within a travel time *T*, and low
when few opportunities are within travel time *T*.

 With regard to accessibility issues, a macro analysis can be done with
mapped data to show which tracts concentrated with people of color
and/or low income have the longest travel times to high employment
tracts. This can point to another set of targeted geographical areas
where organizations can be identified, and a dialog can begin that may
lead to improved transit links, lower fares, specialized transit or
other remedies. Marco level accessibility can be used to identify a
dozen or so high probability, serious EJ problems related to the
existing transportation system by established community groups prior to
working with the agency of responsibility in each target area to fix
them. This approach is not comprehensive, but it is intended to provide
quick results that can have a high impact on health and quality of life.
This kind of macro analysis would allow assessing all projects in the
region's TIP in a kind of "quick and dirty" analysis that will allow
picking out several high EJ impact proposed projects and/or policies and
focusing on fixing them. Target the highway link that involves
displacing 500 people of color, or the transit link that only helps
suburban commuters -- you get the idea. Make an issue out of the EJ
aspects of these projects so they get changed or dropped before they
become a reality. Again, because of their high impact on a localized
community, residents will be more motivated to get involved and more so
if they see government as a welling and cooperative partner[^55]^4^.

The EJTK will need to assess the existing transportation system and
existing policies that have a disproportionate effect on people of
color. This assessment will help to identify the most serious injustices
and then support proposed remedies. The starting point may be something
as simple as overlaying the existing freeway/arterial street grid over a
map that highlights census tracts that are predominantly people of color
and/or low income. Then various specific segments of the highway system
can be checked to see where there is little or no buffer between the
roadway and homes where people live. With this you can then target high
probability, worst-case situations where bad air from traffic is
affecting health and where short-term remedies need to be identified and
implemented.

As a compliment to measuring accessibility employing traditional tools
in a non-traditional way can play an important analytical function in
helping transportation and planning agencies charged with addressing
equity concerns. Done in relation to Title VI promotes a better
understand of the travel behavior of low income and minority
communities. Travel behavior information collected individually once
aggregated can provide a better understating of the specific needs of
low income and minority communities, and suggest how those needs can be
addressed within a transportation system planning context.

We envision employing standard data collection tools in a way that
enhances the capability for all minority and low-income communities to
better understand how their travel needs are addressed in the planning
process, impacted by transportation improvements and served by
operational improvements to existing infrastructure. Allowing a
community or individual to visualize and map their travel behavior
allows the community to objectively determine whether for example, the
RTP or other projects seem to meet/improve their travel needs - without
needing fancy analysis. As such, it can allow the community to
subjectively and objectively analyze many projects against their own
travel desire paths. The output can be used to sensitize regional and
city planners to those needs and in doing so help to highlight where the
state, regional and local decision makers should focus planning and
policy interventions. For example, non-intrusive questions should be
asked respective to: time and cost, barriers to making trip, opportunity
to travel, and their individual time budget. For instance: What is the
purpose of your trip? How did you get to work? How do you get home?
Where did you stop? How many buses did you?  Which buses did you use?
Were they on time? Does this happen a lot (frequency). What were the
times? Where were you going? How often do you make these trips? Notice
any peculiarities while making any these trips? How do you think the
systems that you use perform?

1.  Where did your begin this trip?

2.  Where do you live, list address / apt / zip code?

3.  What is your mode of travel?

4.  What is the purpose of the trip?

5.  Do you have any mobility limitations, if so what are they(defines
    ability to travel)?

6.  Are you traveling alone (look at possible trip chaining
    activity-single mom going to work- needs to stop at day-care)?

7.  What is the final destination of your trip (address etc)?

8.  Do you have to make other stops before your final destinations, if
    so would you list them.(address files-time and cost analysis)?

9.  What time are you traveling (time budget, opportunity travel,
    congestion impact etc.)?

10. What is the cost of your trip, if traveling by bus or train?

11. If you are driving, is the cost of gas, insurance, car maintenance
    affecting your ability to travel, and your general accessibility?

12. Will you have to make transfers to complete your trip?

13. Do you feel the time it takes you to complete your trip is
    reasonable( probably want to use a sliding scale to measure
    (perception of ease of travel affects how often and how far one is
    willing to travel for essential life services?

14. Do you have any health related issues that affect your ability to
    travel?

15. If you are driving are the conditions of the streets and roads a
    problem ?

16. Do the streets and roads affecting your ability to access jobs and
    services?

17. If you are traveling by bus or train, is the service generally on
    time and reliable?

18. Are you able to get to essential services and recreational
    activities given your time constraints and the availability of
    transportation services?

19. If you could change anything to improve your accessibility what
    would those be (list these cross /reference to EJ sessions)?

# VIII. CONCLUSIONS: PLANNING ELEMENTS REQUIRED FOR EFFECTIVE ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ANALYSIS

A basic premise motivating development of the proposed Environmental
Justice in Transportation (EJT) Toolkit is that there is an unmet need
for a practical toolkit to effectively analyze environmental justice
concerns and requirements as well as blend EJ into the metropolitan
planning and decision-making process. Environmental justice is a policy
objective of the Federal Government to bring about fairness and equity
to disadvantaged populations. In addition, they may not be fully
represented in societal decision-making about funding priorities,
mobility, health, or quality of life. Work is still needed to advance
this objective confirmed by the outcomes of Baltimore Region
Environmental Justice and Transportation Project (**BREJT**) community
meeting, held in December 2004 at Morgan State University. At this
meeting, members of the region's minority and low-income communities
were engaged at the neighborhood and regional level in a dialogue unique
to the Baltimore region to gain input on the whole ranges of concerns
held by the affected community. The identified concerns ranged from
issues as immediate as the quality of bus service in poor neighborhoods
to exposure to transportation pollution, to patterns in regional
transportation funding. Each of these concerns were compelling because
of their importance to the community, the multiple dimensions to the
problem, and the fact that the community had not found a way to work
within the "system" to find a solution.

Based on initial feedback, and after considering the range of concerns
that emerged from the Phase I Listening Sessions and Community Dialogue,
the BREJT team set out to develop a framework that it felt could
accommodate the range of capabilities that might be expected of a
guidance tool for environmental justice. Perhaps it is fortunate that
the team took this somewhat naïve top-down approach, because even after
a comprehensive literature review, we still feel that there are aspects
of the transportation EJ analysis and problem resolution process that
are not effectively dealt by the existing body of information that
informally constitutes guidance to practitioners and agencies. Our
framework analysis is based on the following observations and perceived
gaps in existing transportation EJ efforts:

-   That pubic outreach and involvement is extremely important: for
    disadvantaged groups to have a greater say in the planning and
    decision-making process, special efforts must be made to reach,
    inform and involve them. To be credible, that involvement should be
    continuous through the planning process, early enough to have an
    impact on the outcome, and there must be a mechanism to ensure
    closure.

-   That agency fragmentation may have a lot to do with the inability to
    have a particular problem properly addressed or acted upon, since
    the full authority for the problem may not fall within the
    jurisdiction of a single agency.

-   That there is no step-by-step guidance offered (or intended) by any
    of the federal regulations or directives on EJ, which means that
    there are no standard protocols for conducting EJ assessments and,
    hence, each agency is responsible for its own approach.

-   In particular, there are no guidelines on what variables are
    critical and must be included in appraising benefits and burdens.
    Studies are evolving toward a greater use of outcome measures like
    accessibility to jobs and opportunities, but whether or how this is
    done is left to the discretion of the respective agency, and may be
    determined by either data limitations or local policy norms.

-   That different measures analysis techniques and responses should be
    indexed to the level of the problem at hand, with allowance for use
    of more simplistic methods when the circumstances would not benefit
    from greater detail or accuracy, but where more informative methods
    are brought into play when the nature of the issue demands them.

-   That analytic tools, data and capabilities are highly variable
    across the many agencies that engage in environmental justice
    evaluations and problem solving.

-   That correct understanding and definition of "the problem" is
    9/10ths of the task of identifying the correct analysis approach
    and, ultimately, the solution. This places great weight on the
    process of problem diagnosis and recommendation for further action.

-   That every problem or assessment of equity in benefits or burdens
    involves "tradeoffs" to all parties; effective solutions must
    involve compromise, which comes from informed awareness of the
    relevant benefits and burdens and their distribution.

-   That the technical elements and the public involvement elements in
    an EJ process should be interconnected and reinforcing; in other
    words, the design of the analysis should not left wholly in the
    domain of technicians nor should the public involvement process be
    denied critical information, even if it is complex (or potentially
    controversial).

When we evaluated the framework of analysis for our toolkit that and
what we believed was needed to address the above range of demands with
the guidance available from the existing body of studies and guidebooks,
we reached the following conclusions:

1.  Value of Case Studies. The body of case studies is interesting and
    informative from the point of view of how particular areas dealt
    with particular problems given the nuance of their particular
    setting and circumstance. One may derive insight and some
    reassurance from these efforts that others are facing similar
    problems and making exemplary efforts to deal with them, and gain
    knowledge from methods and techniques that were developed and
    applied. While high praise is given for the effort that EJ
    professional have sacrificed to bring EJ guidance to its current
    state of the art, still there is a need to synthesize that guidance
    into a form where they may be systematically catalogued, accessed
    and reliably used. This is a particular concern given that:

-   The federal agencies that administer Title VI and EO 12898
    requirements have never provided a systematic set of rules or
    guidelines on what constitutes good practice in EJ compliance.

-   The cases studies are essentially documentaries of one area's
    trial-and-error journey to deal with their particular problem or
    circumstance, and offer no guarantee that the path they chose was
    the "best" path either for them, or that it would be optimal or even
    applicable to another area.

-   In virtually all instances, there is no sense of whether the
    approach taken actually "worked", since the snapshot of the process
    does not include the "next step" in the process.

> Public Involvement. The public involvement and community participation
> link does not appear to have been nailed down. In many of the case
> studies, the community is involved after the fact, i.e., once a
> problem becomes evident (e.g., SCAG), or their input is solicited in
> an early stage but they are not involved in subsequent steps of the
> process (e.g., CRCOG). Some of the more recent guidance materials --
> NCHRP Report 532 and the Environmental Justice and Transportation
> Citizens' Handbook, as well as materials on the FHWA/FTA EJ website
> \-- begin to fill the information gaps on this topic. The NCHRP report
> and the DOT website information delineate alternative methods
> available to practitioners, while the EJ Citizen's Handbook provides
> help to the EJ community on how and where they should get involved in
> the regional planning process. None of these resources, however,
> *meld* the two pieces of information into illustrations of how these
> methods are effectively used, and the case studies provide only a
> snapshot how a particular area chose to involve the public, causing
> the reader to determine whether the methods or results were effective
> or applicable.

2.  Ability to Influence Decision-Making. Closely tied to (2) above is
    the paramount question of how minority, low-income and other
    disadvantaged groups are truly able to gain access to "the system"
    and trust it to hear their concerns and to get things done. In most
    areas, the process of defining needs and setting planning and
    project priorities is a closely held privilege. Strategies for
    influencing this process include:

-   Formation of EJ task forces or advisory committees that are
    empowered to review, comment and provide guidance to the seated
    decision-making bodies, e.g. the MPO.

-   Making provision for one or more representatives of the EJ community
    to sit on one of these decision making bodies and have voting power.

-   Development of the kinds of performance measures and analyses, which
    make a compelling, case for shaping unconventional decisions.

3.  Performance Measures, Analytic Tools, and Distributive Impacts. The
    movement toward improved measurements of benefits and burdens and
    the analyses of distributional proportionality of those outcomes,
    such as through measures of accessibility begin to raise the bar for
    more objective decision-making. However, aside from a couple of case
    studies (CRCOG and MORPC) where initiatives have been undertaken to
    create EJ representation within the decision-making function of the
    regional planning process, there is no evidence that a working model
    of a diversified decision-making structure has yet been achieved.
    Examples of the greatest progress from a guidance perspective are:

> •NCHRP reports 8-36(11) and 532 are excellent resources on the concept
> of benefits and burdens, measures which can be used to quantify those
> elements, and technical assistance on availability and use of analytic
> tools and data.
>
> •NCHRP 532 even attempts the important next step of suggesting when
> the use of particular tools and measures is most appropriate, i.e., at
> what level of the planning process.
>
> These reports (which build upon the initial benchmark efforts of the
> Atlanta Benefits and Burdens study) offer substantial aid to
> practitioners (chiefly planners and modeling specialists) on the tools
> for performing EJ analysis.

4.  Pollution Exposure and Human Health. Finally, we draw issue with the
    fact that the most central and urgent tenant of environmental
    justice overall -- protection of human health -- is not part of
    current EJ evaluations or included in the guidance. This is
    perfectly understandable, since the state of the practice in EJ
    evaluation is still attempting to reach an acceptable level of
    analytical competence while the analysis of health effects raises
    the capabilities bar to still another level. To date, health impacts
    have been overlooked because of (perceived) shortcomings in each of
    these areas. However, based on the guidance on Air Quality
    evaluation in Chapter 3 of NCHRP Report 532, new methods seem to be
    emerging that would make it possible to depict pollutant
    concentrations at a finite geographic level through creation of
    "pollution surfaces". This GIS-based methodology combined with
    ever-increasing evidence from medical research on the pollution
    exposure-health link; make it possible to begin to assess health
    consequences of transportation plans or projects. As earlier
    discussed, two elements must be in place in order for a health
    determination to be feasible:

> • Data and analytic methods, which can relate pollutant concentrations
> in a particular location
>
> • Statistical relationships that connect pollutant exposure with
> incidence of particular health problems

These solid works of those who come before us notwithstanding, we feel
that there are several ways in which this guidance may be improved. In
particular, the referenced studies do not seem to help in the aspect of
*diagnosing the problem*, or in other words, determining how or in what
context to apply these measures or tools. This expectation of any
guidance effort is highly idealized, since in effect it is trying to
suggest that the guidance should be able to help shape how people think
or develop perspectives. For example, if low-income and minority workers
live in one part of a region and job growth is being encouraged by
transportation and land use policy to locate in another part of the
region, is the "problem" one of finding a transportation solution to
connect these people with the jobs (as with MORPC), or to stimulate
growth policies which bring the jobs and the people closer together?
While it is a tall order to expect this kind of vision from a toolkit,
we believe that more effort can be put into providing procedures to
"look at" problems, as a prelude to setting up an analysis and
evaluation framework.

Endnotes

**^1^** Baltimore Region Environmental Justice and Transportation
Project, Http://www.brejtp.org

**^2^** Federal Highway Administration & Federal Transit Administration,
*Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies.* US Department of
Transportation, Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

**^3^** Southern California Association of Governments, "Community-Link
21, Regional Transportation Plan: Equity and Accessibility Performance
Indicators." *Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies.* US
DOT Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

**^4^** Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, "MPO Environmental
Justice Report." *Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies*.
US DOT Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

**^5^** Capitol Region Council of Governments, "Environmental Justice &
CRCOG's Transportation Planning Program", Environmental Justice & Title
VI Challenge Grant, Hartford, CT (December 2002).

**^6^**Ward, B. *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public
Transit Title VI Reporting*. University of South Florida, National
Center for Transit Research. Final Report, TCRP J-06, Task 47 (Sept.
2005).

^7^ USDOT, FHWA, FTA, *Transportation Benefits & Burdens in the Atlanta
Region*, Final Draft, May 2002

**^8^**USDOT Office of Civil Rights*. Assessment of Environmental
Justice and Public Involvement in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area*". Phase
I Report (April 2000).

**^9^** Cambridge Systematics, Inc. *Technical Methods to Support
Analysis of Environmental Justice Issues.* NCHRP Project 8-36(11) (April
2002).

**^10^**California Department of Transportation, *Desk Guide,
Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning and Investments*.
Division of Transportation Planning, Office of Policy Analysis &
Research (January 2003).

^11^ Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), *Environmental Justice
and Transportation: A Citizens Handbook*. University of California at
Berkeley (2003).

**^12^** Forkenbrock, D.J. and Sheeley, J*. NCHRP Report 532: Effective
Methods for Environmental Justice Assessment.* Transportation Research
Board (2004).

**^13^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

^14^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000)

**^15^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

**^16^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

**^17^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

**^18^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

^19^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

^20^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

**^21^** Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept.
of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
Administration (Dec. 2000).

**^22^** Environmental Justice & Title VI Challenge Grant, Dec.
2002:http//www.planning.dot.gov/Documents/

EnvJustice/ChallengeGrant.htm

**^23^** Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit Title
VI Reporting. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT BD 549-10
(Aug. 2005).

**^24^** *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit Title
VI Reporting*. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT BD 549-10
(Aug. 2005).

**^25^** *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit Title
VI Reporting*. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT BD 549-10
(Aug. 2005).

^26^ Forkenbrock, D.J. and Sheeley, J. Chapter 3, p 60 cites Bullard
1996 and Bryant and Mohai 1992.

^27^ Green R.S., Smorodinsky, S., Kim, J.J., McLaughlin, R., and Ostro,
B. 2004. "Proximity of California Public Schools to Busy Roads",
*Environmental Health Perspective*, 112:61-66 (2004).

**^28^**Gunier, R.B., Hertz, A., Von Behren, J., and Reynolds, P.
"Traffic Density in California: Socioeconomic and Ethnic Differences
Among Potentially Exposed Children". *J Expo Anasis Environ Epidemiol*
13:240-246. (2003).

^29^ Finkelstein MM, Jerrett M, Sears MR. Traffic air pollution and
mortality rate advancement periods. Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Jul
15;160(2):173-7.

^30^ Kumanyika SK. Minisymposium on obesity: overview and some strategic
considerations. Annu Rev Public Health. 2001;22:293-308.

^31^ Frank LD, Andresen MA, Schmid TL. Obesity relationships with
community design, physical activity, and time spent in cars. Am J Prev
Med. 2004 Aug;27(2):87-96.

^32^ Knox EG. Oil combustion and childhood cancers. J Epidemiol
Community Health. 2005 Sep;59(9):755-60.

^33^ Bigert C, Gustavsson P, Hallqvist J, Hogstedt C, Lewne M, Plato N,
Reuterwall C, Scheele P. Myocardial infarction among professional
drivers. Epidemiology. 2003 May;14(3):333-9.

^34^ Weiland SK, Mundt KA, Ruckmann A, Keil U. (1994): Self-reported
wheezing and allergic rhinitis in children and traffic density on street
of residence. Ann Epidemiol. 4(3):243-7

^35^ Green RS, Smorodinsky S, Kim JJ, McLaughlin R, Ostro B. 2004.
Proximity of California public schools to busy roads. Environ Health
Perspect 112:61-66; Gunier RB, Hertz A, Von Behren J, Reynolds P. 2003.
Traffic density in California: Socioeconomic and ethnic differences
among potentially exposed children. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol
13:240-246.

^36^ [Brunekreef, Hoek, Goldbohn, Fischer, van den Brandt. "Association
Between Mortality and Indicators of Traffic-Related Air Pollution in the
Netherlands: A Cohort Study". *Lancet*, 360 (9341): 1203-9.
(2002).]{.underline}

^37^[Zhu, Hinds, Kim, and Sioutas, "Concentration and Size Distribution
of Ultra-Fine Particles Near a Major Highway", *Journal of the Air and
Waste Management Association.* (September 2002)]{.underline}

^38^ [Pearson et al.. "Distance-Weighted Traffic Density in Proximity to
a Home Is a Risk Factor for Leukemia and Other Childhood Cancers".
*Journal of Air and Waste Management Association* 50:175-180.
(2000)]{.underline}

^39^ South Coast Air Quality Management District. *Multiple Air Toxics
Exposure Study-II*. (March 2000).

^40^ [Edwards, J., S. Walters, et al. "Hospital Admissions for Asthma in
Preschool Children: Relationship to Major Roads in Birmingham, United
Kingdom". *Archives of Environmental Health.* 49(4): 223-7
(1994).]{.underline}

^41^ http://www.epa.gov

^42^ California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources Board,
April 2002

^43^ Fresno Asthmatic Children's Environment Study (FACES)

^44^ Analytical Procedures to Support a Congestion Management Systems,
Technical Memorandum 2:, Task B- Initial Performance Measure, 1994;
Ewing, Ried, Transportation Service Standards -- As If People Matter,
Transportation Research Record 1400, Transportation Research Board, 1993

^45^ Analytical Procedures to Support a Congestion Management Systems,
Technical Memorandum 2:, Task B- Initial Performance Measure, 1994

^46^ Transportation Service Center Analysis, Glenn C. Robinson,
Stephanie McDonald, Richard Nellet, 1997

^47^ Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring Accessibility: A Review and Proposal.
*Environment and Planning A*, 11, 299-312.

^48^ Garrison, William L. 1968. Connectivity of the Interstate Highway
System in Brian J.L. Berry and Duane F. Marble, eds. *Spatial Analysis*,
239-249, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey,

^49^ Rietveld, Piet. 1989. Employment Effects of Changes in
Transportation Infrastructure: Methodological Aspects of the Gravity
Model. *Papers of the Regional Science Association*, 66, 19-30.

^50^ Wilson, A.G. 1971. A Family of Spatial Interaction Models and
Associated Developments. *Environment and Planning*, 3, 1-32.

^51^ Weibull, J.W. 1976. An Axiomatic Approach to the Measurement of
Accessibility. *Regional Science and Urban Economics*, 6, 357-379.

^52^ Wachs, Martin and T. Gordon Kumagai. 1973. Physical Accessibility
as a Social Indicator. *Socio-Economic Planning Science*, 7, 437-456.

^53^ Black, J. and M. Conroy. 1977. Accessibility Measures and the
Social Evaluation of Urban Structure *Environment and Planning A*, 9,
1013-1031.

**^54^** Baltimore Region Environmental Justice In Transportation
Project, Community Dialogue, November 2004

[^1]: Baltimore Region Environmental Justice and Transportation Project,
    Http://www.brejtp.org

[^2]: Federal Highway Administration & Federal Transit Administration,
    *Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies.* US Department
    of Transportation, Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

[^3]: Southern California Association of Governments, "CommunityLink 21,
    Regional Transportation Plan: Equity and Accessibility Performance
    Indicators." *Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies.*
    US DOT Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

[^4]: Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, "MPO Environmental Justice
    Report." *Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies*. US
    DOT Pub. No. FHWA-EP-01-010 (December 2000).

[^5]: Capitol Region Council of Governments, "Environmental Justice &
    CRCOG's Transportation Planning Program", Environmental Justice &
    Title VI Challenge Grant, Hartford, CT (December 2002).

[^6]: Ward, B. *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit
    Title VI Reporting*. University of South Florida, National Center
    for Transit Research. Final Report, TCRP J-06, Task 47 (Sept. 2005).

[^7]: USDOT, FHWA, FTA, *Transportation Benefits & Burdens in the
    Atlanta Region*, Final Draft, May 2002

[^8]: ^8^ USDOT Office of Civil Rights*. Assessment of Environmental
    Justice and Public Involvement in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area*".
    Phase I Report (April 2000).

[^9]: ^9^ Cambridge Systematics, Inc. *Technical Methods to Support
    Analysis of Environmental Justice Issues.* NCHRP Project 8-36(11)
    (April 2002).

[^10]: ^10^ California Department of Transportation, *Desk Guide,
    Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning and Investments*.
    Division of Transportation Planning, Office of Policy Analysis &
    Research (January 2003).

[^11]: Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), *Environmental Justice
    and Transportation: A Citizens Handbook*. University of California
    at Berkeley (2003).

[^12]: Forkenbrock, D.J. and Sheeley, J*. NCHRP Report 532: Effective
    Methods for Environmental Justice Assessment.* Transportation
    Research Board (2004).

[^13]: See for example: Maricopa Association of Governments, *Regional
    Transportation Plan* (2003) and Mid-America Regional Council,
    *Transportation Outlook 2030* (2001)

[^14]: Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
    Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
    Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^15]: Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
    Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
    Administration (Dec. 2000)

[^16]: Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US Dept. of
    Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit
    Administration (Dec. 2000)

[^17]: ^16^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^18]: ^17^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^19]: ^18^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^20]: ^19^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^21]: ^20^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^22]: ^21^ Transportation & Environmental Justice Case Studies, US
    Dept. of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
    Transit Administration (Dec. 2000).

[^23]: ^22^ Environmental Justice & Title VI Challenge Grant, Dec.
    2002;<http://www.planning.dot.gov/Documents/EnvJustice/ChallengeGrant.htm>

[^24]: ^23^ Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit
    Title VI Reporting. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT
    BD 549-10 (Aug. 2005).

[^25]: ^24^ *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit
    Title VI Reporting*. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT
    BD 549-10 (Aug. 2005).

[^26]: ^25^ *Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit
    Title VI Reporting*. Final Report, TCRP Project J-06, Task 47, FDOT
    BD 549-10 (Aug. 2005).

[^27]: ^26^ Forkenbrock, D.J. and Sheeley, J. Chapter 3, p 60 cites
    Bullard 1996 and Bryant and Mohai 1992.

[^28]: ^27^ Green R.S., Smorodinsky, S., Kim, J.J., McLaughlin, R., and
    Ostro, B. 2004. "Proximity of California Public Schools to Busy
    Roads", *Environmental Health Perspective*, 112:61-66 (2004).

[^29]: ^28^ Gunier, R.B., Hertz, A., Von Behren, J., and Reynolds, P.
    "Traffic Density in California: Socioeconomic and Ethnic Differences
    Among Potentially Exposed Children". *J Expo Anasis Environ
    Epidemiol* 13:240-246. (2003).

[^30]: ^29^ Finkelstein MM, Jerrett M, Sears MR. Traffic air pollution
    and mortality rate advancement periods. Am J Epidemiol. 2004 Jul
    15;160(2):173-7.

    ^30^ Kumanyika SK. Minisymposium on obesity: overview and some
    strategic considerations. Annu Rev Public Health. 2001;22:293-308.

    ^31^ Frank LD, Andresen MA, Schmid TL. Obesity relationships with
    community design, physical activity, and time spent in cars. Am J
    Prev Med. 2004 Aug;27(2):87-96.

[^31]: ^32^ Knox EG. Oil combustion and childhood cancers. J Epidemiol
    Community Health. 2005 Sep;59(9):755-60.

[^32]: ^33^ Bigert C, Gustavsson P, Hallqvist J, Hogstedt C, Lewne M,
    Plato N, Reuterwall C, Scheele P. Myocardial infarction among
    professional drivers. Epidemiology. 2003 May;14(3):333-9.

    ^34^ Weiland SK, Mundt KA, Ruckmann A, Keil U. (1994): Self-reported
    wheezing and allergic rhinitis in children and traffic density on
    street of residence. Ann Epidemiol. 4(3):243-7

    ^35^ Green RS, Smorodinsky S, Kim JJ, McLaughlin R, Ostro B. 2004.
    Proximity of California public schools to busy roads. Environ Health
    Perspect 112:61-66; Gunier RB, Hertz A, Von Behren J, Reynolds P.
    2003. Traffic density in California: Socioeconomic and ethnic
    differences among potentially exposed children. J Expo Anal Environ
    Epidemiol 13:240-246.

[^33]: ^36^ [Brunekreef, Hoek, Goldbohn, Fischer, van den Brandt.
    "Association Between Mortality and Indicators of Traffic-Related Air
    Pollution in the Netherlands: A Cohort Study". *Lancet*, 360 (9341):
    1203-9. (2002).]{.underline}

[^34]: ^37^[Zhu, Hinds, Kim, and Sioutas, "Concentration and Size
    Distribution of Ultra-Fine Particles Near a Major Highway", *Journal
    of the Air and Waste Management Association.* (September
    2002)]{.underline}

    ^38^ [Pearson et al.. "Distance-Weighted Traffic Density in
    Proximity to a Home Is a Risk Factor for Leukemia and Other
    Childhood Cancers". *Journal of Air and Waste Management
    Association* 50:175-180. (2000)]{.underline}

    ^39^ South Coast Air Quality Management District. *Multiple Air
    Toxics Exposure Study-II*. (March 2000).

[^35]: ^3^

[^36]: ^3^

[^37]: ^3^

[^38]: ^3^

[^39]:
    > ^340^ [Edwards, J., S. Walters, et al. "Hospital Admissions for
    > Asthma in Preschool Children: Relationship to Major Roads in
    > Birmingham, United Kingdom". *Archives of Environmental Health.*
    > 49(4): 223-7 (1994).]{.underline}

[^40]: ^3^

[^41]: ^4^

[^42]: ^41^ http://www.epa.gov

[^43]: ^42^ California Environmental Protection Agency, Air Resources
    Board, April 2002

[^44]: ^43^ Fresno Asthmatic Children's Environment Study (FACES)

[^45]: ^44^ Analytical Procedures to Support a Congestion Management
    Systems, Technical Memorandum 2:, Task B- Initial Performance
    Measure, 1994; Ewing, Ried, Transportation Service Standards -- As
    If People Matter, Transportation Research Record 1400,
    Transportation Research Board, 1993

    ^45^ Analytical Procedures to Support a Congestion Management
    Systems, Technical Memorandum 2:, Task B- Initial Performance
    Measure, 1994

    ^46^ Transportation Service Center Analysis, Glenn C. Robinson,
    Stephanie McDonald, Richard Nellet, 1997

[^46]: ^4^

[^47]: ^4^

[^48]: ^47^ Pirie, G.H. 1979. Measuring Accessibility: A Review and
    Proposal. *Environment and Planning A*, 11, 299-312.

[^49]: ^48^ Garrison, William L. 1968. Connectivity of the Interstate
    Highway System in Brian J.L. Berry and Duane F. Marble, eds.
    *Spatial Analysis*, 239-249, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey,

    ^49^ Rietveld, Piet. 1989. Employment Effects of Changes in
    Transportation Infrastructure: Methodological Aspects of the Gravity
    Model. *Papers of the Regional Science Association*, 66, 19-30.

[^50]: ^450^ Wilson, A.G. 1971. A Family of Spatial Interaction Models
    and Associated Developments. *Environment and Planning*, 3, 1-32.

[^51]: ^51^ Weibull, J.W. 1976. An Axiomatic Approach to the Measurement
    of Accessibility. *Regional Science and Urban Economics*, 6,
    357-379.

[^52]: ^52^ Wachs, Martin and T. Gordon Kumagai. 1973. Physical
    Accessibility as a Social Indicator. *Socio-Economic Planning
    Science*, 7, 437-456.

[^53]: ^53^ Black, J. and M. Conroy. 1977. Accessibility Measures and
    the Social Evaluation of Urban Structure *Environment and Planning
    A*, 9, 1013-1031.

[^54]: ^5^

[^55]: ^54^ Baltimore Region Environmental Justice In Transportation
    Project, Community Dialogue, November 2004