Urban transit systems in most American cities have become a genuine civil rights issue - and a valid one - because the layout of rapid-transit systems determines the accessibility of jobs to the black community. If transportation systems in American cities could be laid out so as to provide an opportunity for poor people to get meaningful employment, then they could begin to move into the mainstream of American life.
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968
Equity, also called justice and fairness, refers to the distribution of impacts - benefits and costs. Transportation planning decisions have
significant and diverse equity impacts: The quality of transportation available affects people’s opportunities and quality of life. Transportation facilities, activities and services impose many indirect and external costs, such as congestion delay and accident risk imposed on other road users, infrastructure costs not funded through user fees, pollution, and undesirable land use impacts. Transportation expenditures represent a major share of most household, business and government expenditures. Price structures can significantly affect financial burdens. Transportation planning decisions affect the location and type of development that occurs in an area, and therefore accessibility, land values and developer profits. A significant amount of valuable land is devoted to transportation
facilities. This land is generally exempt from rent and taxes, representing an additional but hidden subsidy of transportation activity. Transportation investments are often used to stimulate economic development and support other strategic objectives. The location and nature of these investments have distributional impacts.
Books, Articles, Papers
The Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Center for Community Change. 2003. Moving to equity: Addressing inequitable effects of transportation policies on minorities.
Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. 2003. Environmental justice and transportation: A citizen�s handbook.
National Cooperative Highway Research Program. 2001: Report #456: Guidebook for assessing the social and economic effects of transportation projects.
Victoria Transport Policy Institute. 2007. Evaluating Transportation Equity: Guidance For Incorporating Distributional Impacts in
Transportation Planning (http://www.vtpi.org/equity.pdf).
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