COMBATING URBAN SPRAWL

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JUST TRANSPORTATION
Dismantling Race and Class Barriers to
Mobility Robert D. Bullard, Ph.D. Environmental
Justice Resource Center Clark Atlanta University
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Why Regional Equity Matters

• Public Investments
• Access to Jobs
• Physical and Economic Mobility
• Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights
• Public Subsidies

• Disparate Car Ownership Rates
• Public Health
• Transit-Oriented Development
• Urban Revitalization
• Representation and Decision Making

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Importance of Transportation

• Transportation touches every aspect of our lives
  where we live, work, play, and go to school
• Transportation plays a pivotal role in shaping
  human interaction, economic mobility, and
  sustainability
• Transportation also provides access to
  opportunity and serves as a key component in
  addressing poverty, unemployment, and equal
  opportunity goals while ensuring access to
  education, health care, and other public services

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Environmental Justice Principle

• Environmental justice embraces the principle that
  all people and communities are entitled to equal
  protection of our environmental, health,
  employment, housing, transportation, and civil
  rights laws

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Benefits of Transit

• Transit gives mobility to millions of Americans
  who do not or cannot drive
• Transit reduces air pollution
• Transit reduces traffic congestion
• Transit makes all Americans, even drivers, freer
  by giving them flexibility and options

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Transportation Barriers

• Lack of Personal Transportation (no privately
  owned car available to travel to work)
• Inadequate Public Transit (limited,
  unaffordable, or inaccessible service and routes,
  and security safety)
• Spatial Mismatch (location of suitable jobs in
  areas that are inaccessible by public
  transportation)

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Americans without Cars

• Lack of car ownership and inadequate public
  transit service in many central cities and
  metropolitan regions exacerbate social, economic,
  and racial isolation
• Nationally, 7 percent of white households own no
  car, compared with 24 percent of black
  households, 17 percent of Latino households, and
  13 percent of Asian-American households
• Over 46.5 of blacks with incomes under 15,000
  do not own cars compared with 14.9 of all U.S.
  households

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Transportation Justice

• Other than housing, Americans spend more on
  transportation than any other household expense
• The average American household spends 19.2 of
  its annual income on transportation
• Americans spend more on driving than on health
  care, education, or food
• The nations poorest families spend about 40 of
  their take home pay on transportation
• Households earning less than 20,000 saw their
  transportation costs increase by 36.5 between
  1992 and 2000.
• Households earning 70,000 and above only spent
  16.7 more on transportation than they did in
  1992

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Transportation Equity

• Procedural Equity (Is the process fair, uniform,
  and consistent?)
• Geographic Equity (Are some spatial communities
  located on the wrong side of the tracks?)
• Social Equity (How are the benefits and costs
  distributed among population groups?)

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Separate But Equal

• Transportation and Civil Rights have been linked
  for more than a century
• The 1896 U.S. Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson
  decision codified Jim Crow segregation

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Frontal Assault on Transportation Apartheid

• U.S. Supreme Court overturned Plessy in 1954
  Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
• The system was later challenged by Rosa Parks in
  December 1955 and Montgomery Boycott
• This December will mark the 50th anniversary of
  the Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Rosa Parks would have a difficult time sitting on
  the front or back of a Montgomery today. The
  city dismantled its public bus system, which
  served mostly blacks and poor people in 1997

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Government Response

• Executive Order 12898 February 1994
• U.S. DOT Order April, 1997
• FHWA Order December, 1998

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(No Transcript)
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Executive Order 12898 February 11, 1994

• EJ Strategies and Guidance
• NEPA
• Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Research, Data Collection, Analysis

• Disproportionate and Cumulative Impact Assessment
• Subsistence Fishers and Wildlife Consumption
• Public Participation

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Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

• No person in the United States shall, on the
  ground of race, color, or national origin, be
  excluded from participation in, be denied the
  benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
  under any program or activity receiving federal
  financial assistance

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Confronting Transit Injustice in Los Angeles

• In 1996, the LA Bus Riders Union won a landmark
  Title VI Civil Rights Consent Decree
• 1.5 billion settlement for clean fuel buses
• Improved services
• Lowered fares
• Even though the Bus Riders Union has won
  repeatedly in court, as recent as January 2004,
  the group has had to wage an uphill battle to get
  the MTA to live up to the ten-year federal
  consent decree

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Transit Racism Can Kill

• Transit discrimination killed 17-year old Cynthia
  Wiggins because Buffalo city buses were not
  allowed to stop at an upscale suburban mall
• The transit discrimination lawsuit was settled in
  November, 1999 for 2.55 million

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Transit Investments

• All transit is not created equal
• Some communities get buses, others get light
  rail, while some are left out altogether
• Transit equity analysis uses the follow the
  dollars approach

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Follow the Dollars

• Public transit has received roughly 50 billion
  since the creation of the Urban Mass Transit
  Administration over thirty years ago, while
  roadway projects have received over 205 billion
  since 1956
• Generally, states spend less than 20 percent of
  federal transportation funding on transit
• Public transit is a 32 billion industry
  employing more than 350,000 people
• Every 1 invested in public transportation
  generates 6 in local economic activity. Every 1
  billion invested in public transportation
  infrastructure supports approximately 47,500 jobs
• Just 6 percent of all federal highway dollars are
  suballocated directly to the metropolitan regions
• Although local governments within metropolitan
  areas own and maintain the vast majority of the
  transportation infrastructure, they receive only
  about 10 percent of every dollar they generate

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Shortchanging Metro Areas

• Commuters in 176 metro regions paid 20 billion
  more in federal gas tax than they received in
  federal highway trust fund money for both transit
  and highways from 1998 through 2003
• Taxpayers in 54 metro areas lost over 100
  million dollars the six year period
• The top gas tax losers were Los Angeles,
  Dallas-Fort Worth, Phoenix, Atlanta, Detroit, and
  New Orleans
• Such an uneven playing field creates donor
  regions

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Creation of Donor Regions

• From July 1999 thru September 2003, Georgia spent
  620 for every resident in the 13-county Atlanta
  region, a region with the states worst
  congestion and dirtiest air
• In contrast, Georgia spent 1,000 per resident on
  the rest of the state
• During the late 1990s, only about 17 percent of
  the gas tax revenues were returned to the 13
  Atlanta metropolitan countiesa region that
  generates 40 percent of the states collection

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Getting There on Public Transportation

• Nationally, only about 5 percent of all Americans
  use public transit to get to work
• In urban areas, African Americans and Latinos
  comprise over 54 percent of transit users (62
  percent of bus riders, 35 percent of subway
  riders, and 29 percent of commuter rail riders)
• Urban transit is especially important to African
  Americans where over 88 percent live in
  metropolitan areas and over 53 percent live
  inside central cities
• African Americans are almost six times as likely
  as whites to use transit to get around

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MARTA Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta

• The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority
  (MARTA) was conceived as a five-county system in
  the 1960s
• However, the mostly white suburban counties opted
  out and several later created their own separate
  and unequal suburban bus systems

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No State Support for MARTA

• MARTA is the nations largest transit agency that
  does not receive earmarked state funds
• MARTA has received a total of 15 million from
  the state of Georgia since 1993 or an average of
  1.36 million per year
• MARTA is slated to receive a mere 2 million
  toward a new fare collection system in Gov. Sonny
  Perdues proposed 15.5 billion transportation
  package
• By contrast, the Massachusetts Bay Transit
  Authority (Boston) gets 20 of the states 5-cent
  sales tax, or about 680 million a year

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The Iron Triangle of Suburban Sprawl

• Sprawl is random unplanned growth characterized
  by inadequate accessibility to essential land
  uses such as housing, jobs, and public services,
  i.e., schools, parks, and mass transit
• Suburban sprawl is fueled by the iron triangle
  of finance, land use planning, and transportation
  service delivery

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Building Roads to Everywhere

• Between fiscal year 1992 and 1999, states had
  more than 33.8 billion in federal funds
  available to spend on either highways or public
  transportation, but spent only 12.5 of that sum
  on public transit
• Nearly half of that 12.5 was spent by two states
  (New York and California)

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Highways vs Transit

• From 1998-2003, TEA-21 transportation spending
  amounted to over 217 billion
• Some 30 states (including Georgia) restrict use
  of the gas tax revenue to funding highways only
• Between fiscal year 1992 and 1999, states had
  more than 33.8 billion in federal funds
  available to spend on either highways or public
  transportation, but spent only 12.5 of that sum
  on public transit

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Cars and Pollution

• Transportation sources account for 80 of carbon
  monoxide, 45 of nitrogen oxide, 35 of
  hydrocarbons, 32 of carbon dioxide, 19 of
  particulate matter, and 5 of sulfur dioxide
• Over 24 of black households, 17 of Hispanic
  households, 13 of Asian American households, and
  7 of white households do not own cars

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Geography of Air Pollution

• Nationally, 57 of whites, 65 of blacks, and 80
  of Hispanics live in counties with substandard
  air
• Over 61.3 of Black children, 69.2 of Hispanic
  children and 67.7 of Asian-American children
  live in areas that exceed the 0.08 ppm ozone
  standard, while 50.8 of white children live in
  such areas
• Air pollution costs Americans 10 billion to 200
  billion a year
• Air pollution claims 70,000 lives a year, nearly
  twice the number killed in traffic accidents

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Paying for Ozone Pollution

• Air pollution has been linked to rising asthma
  rates
• Asthma hits poor, inner city children the hardest
  
• African Americans are two to six times more
  likely than whites to die from asthma
• Asthma hospitalization rate for African Americans
  and Latinos is 3 to 4 times the rate for whites

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An Asthma Epidemic

• Asthma affects 15 to 17 million people, including
  5 million children in the U.S.
• Six percent of U.S. children have asthma
• Asthma is now the nations number one childhood
  illness
• Asthma is the number one reason for childhood
  emergency room visits and school absenteeism

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Widening Disparities

• Highway sprawl is aiding in the creation and
  perpetuation of separate and unequal housing and
  residential areas
• Sprawl is heightening the economic divide between
  the haves and the have nots
• Sprawl is also a threat to public health

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Atlantas Heat Island

• NASA scientists have discovered that Atlantas
  sprawl development pattern is creating thunder
  storms

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Economic Activity Centers
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Losing to the Suburbs

• The city of Atlanta share of the regions jobs
  dropped from 40 in 1980, 28 in 1990, and 19 in
  1997
• Between 1990-1997 Atlantas Northern suburbs
  added 272,915 jobs or 78 of all jobs add in the
  region
• Baltimores share of metro private jobs dropped
  from 33.3 in 1993 to 30.4 in 1996
• Washingtons, DCs share of metro private jobs
  dropped from 28.8 in 1993 to 26.0 in 1996

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Spatial Mismatch BetweenBlacks/Whites and Jobs

• In 2000, no group was more physically isolated
  from jobs than blacks
• Over 50 of blacks would have had to relocate to
  achieve an even distribution relative to jobs
  the comparable figures for whites are 20 to 24
  percentage points lower
• Black/white dissimilarity index for total
  employment 2000 Atlanta (53.9/39.6)
  Los Angeles (61.2/37.3) Chicago
  (69.5/34.5) and Detroit (71.4/36.5)

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Metro Jobs Location

• Washington, DC (3-mile radius 18.9 10-mile
  radius 52.7 outside 10-mile ring 47.3
• Atlanta, GA (3-mile radius 11.3 10-mile
  radius 38.1outside 10-mile ring 61.9
• Baltimore, MD (3-mile radius 17.6 10-mile
  radius 56.5 outside 10-mile ring 43.5
• Los Angeles, CA (3-mile radius 6.9 10-mile
  radius 38.1 outside 10-mile ring 61.9)

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Office Sprawl and Spatial Mismatch in Metro Areas

• Share of office space located in suburbs
  Detroit (69.5), Atlanta (65.8), Washington, DC
  (57.7), Miami (57.4), Philadelphia (55.2), Los
  Angeles (48.5)
• Nationally, 23 percent of Americans worked
  outside their county of residence in 2000 - up
  from 20 percent in 1990 and 18 percent in 1980
• Across the largest 100 metro areas, only 22 of
  people work within three miles of the city center

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Access to Entry Level Jobs

• Only 54.4 of American households have any access
  to public transit, and only 28.8 claim to have
  satisfactory public transit
• More than one-third of all entry-level jobs in
  the Baltimore region cannot be reached without a
  car
• The majority of entry level jobs in metro Atlanta
  are not within a quarter mile of public
  transportation
• Metro Atlanta households pay an extra 300 per
  month for the lack of transportation choices or
  3,600 per year
• African Americans in metro Atlanta earned only
  700 per 1,000 earned by whites in 2000

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Growing Smarter

• Smart Growth is defined as growth that is
  economically sound, environmentally friendly, and
  supportive of community livability - growth that
  enhances our quality of life
• Smart growth is development that serves the
  economy, the community and the environment

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Linking Transportation Equity to Smart/Fair
Growth

• Enforce Civil Rights and Anti-Discrimination Laws
  
• Broad Coalitions Across Political Jurisdictions
• Coordinated and Linked Regional Transportation
• More Funds for Public Transit
• Build Equity Analysis into Regional Planning
  (RTP/TIP)
• Making Metropolitan Planning Organizations
  Accountable
• Transit-Oriented Development
• In-Fill Development
• Plans to Minimize Displacement and
  Gentrification
• Streets for Walking, Bicycles, and Transit
• Gas Tax Reform
• Energy Efficient Vehicles and Clean Fuels

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For Information on the EJRC Contact

• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• E-Mail ejrc_at_cau.edu
• Web Page www.ejrc.cau.edu