Evaluating the Distributional Effects of Regional Transportation Plans and Projects

Abstract

Sponsoring Agency Code Supplementary Notes AbstractMetropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have long been required to consider the equity implications of their regional transportation plans and processes. Funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, this research aims to provide additional guidance to MPOs on how to evaluate distributional equity in regional plans and projects. The report begins with an overview of federal requirements related to equity in transportation planning. We then synthesize contemporary methods for measuring transportation equity and the distributional effects of plans and projects from a review of the literature and MPO plans and studies. The report concludes with exploratory case studies of equity analysis in two regions representing distinctly different planning contexts and stages of addressing equity, and a summary of key methods to serve as a resource for use by MPOs in integrating equity into the regional transportation planning process. We also thank the following for their helpful responses to our queries during the project. Doug Johnson, the Principal Transportation Planner for Land Use and Social Equity, and Vikrant Sood, Senior Planner, both of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Bay Area (San Francisco, CA); Richard Marcantonio, the managing attorney for Public Advocates, Inc., specializing in civil rights advocacy and transportation equity; and Alex Karner, the assistant professor for the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology, an equity analysis specialist.Finally, the authors acknowledge the efforts of Graduate Research Assistants Joshua Barber, Austin Gibble, Monica Martin, and Katherine Selin, for their extensive efforts in reviewing literature and MPO long-range transportation plans and studies, assisting with case study documentation, and cataloguing practices for inclusion in the final report. DISCLAIMERThe contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are solely responsible for the facts and the accuracy of the material and information presented herein. This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction and ObjectivesMetropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) have long been required to consider the equity implications of their regional transportation plans and processes. Federal law and guidance relative to Title VI and Environmental Justice requires MPOs to engage historically disadvantaged communities in the planning process, to address the equity effects of MPO plans and projects, and to systematically incorporate these analyses into their planning processes. Despite widespread evidence that MPOs are making efforts to address equity goals, the role of equity analysis in shaping long-range transportation plans and project decisions is often unclear and undefined. More guidance is needed on best practice methods and performance measures for addressing equity in a regional transport...

Equity Analysis and New Mobility Technologies: Toward Meaningful Interventions

“…Both transit agencies and the metropolitan planning organizations must conduct analyses of the benefits and burdens of their actions to ensure burdens do not fall disproportionately on disadvantaged communities. In these analyses, agencies often use neighborhoods with disproportionate concentrations of low-income and racial minority populations as proxies for disadvantaged populations region-wide, labeling them as “communities of concern” (Williams and Golub 2017). Planners then overlay proposed transport projects onto maps of communities of concern to estimate the distributions of benefits and burdens of proposed investments (Manaugh, Badami, and El-Geneidy 2015).…”

Advancing the practice of regional transportation equity analysis: a San Francisco bay area case study

“…Studies have focused on how to define and identify vulnerable communities (Delbosc and Currie 2011;Gaffron 2012;Rowangould et al 2016), indicators of transportation equity (Ramjerdi 2006;Manaugh et al 2015;Martens et al 2019), and definitions of transportation equity (Golub and Martens 2014;Marcantonio et al 2017). The most common approaches for transportation equity analysis of regional plans involve the use of spatial analysis tools to map the residential proximity of vulnerable communities to proposed transportation project(s) (Amekudzi et al 2012;Williams and Golub, 2017). These approaches measure the level of benefit to these communities, assuming that greater proximity to projects is associated with a higher-level of benefit.…”

“…Further, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination, denial of benefits, or exclusion from participation in federally funded activities, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin (Sanchez 2005;Chakraborty 2006;Marcantonio et al 2017). Agency-level orders and directives were subsequently adopted, such as the 1999 Memorandum on Implementing Title VI Requirements in Metropolitan and Statewide Planning for the U.S. Federal Highway and Federal Transit Administrations (Williams and Golub 2017).…”

“…The objective of such transportation equity analyses is to evaluate how the benefits and costs of planned transportation and land-use changes are likely to be allocated among various segments of the population, particularly vulnerable communities. Notably, a study by Williams and Golub (2017) offers a comprehensive summary of the various equity analysis methods used by MPOs across the U.S. and offers two regional scale demonstrations of equity analysis using recommended approaches. Nevertheless, there remains a critical need for guidance on the application of travel demand models for regional transportation equity analysis, which are prevalent analysis tools used for a range of transportation planning activities.…”

Understanding the Accessibility, Economic and Social Equity Impacts of Urban Greenway Infrastructure

“…Commonly used environmental justice (EJ) indicators include unemployment, household income, elderly residents, children, and ethnic/racial minorities (Foth, Manaugh and El-Geneidy, 2013), and other indicators may include zero-vehicle households, limited English proficiency, single-parent households, residents with disabilities, etc. Once the indicators are selected, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) generally utilize threshold-based methods to identify concentrations of highly disadvantaged or vulnerable populations, including 1) equal shares of target and non-target communities; 2) equal percentage or standard deviation greater than regional mean; 3) top or bottom decile/quintile groups (Williams and Golub, 2017). In addition, combinations of different indicators might be applied to reflect degrees or levels of disadvantage (Rowangould, Karner and London, 2016).…”