Approaches and Barriers to Addressing Equity in Transportation: Experiences of Transportation Practitioners

Abstract

The importance of advancing transportation equity has become more visible as other structural inequities in our society have received increasing attention. Articulating approaches that practitioners use to address equity in their work, including experience-based strategies and research-developed equity metrics, contribute to supporting the achievement of transportation equity goals. However, a gap exists between knowing these approaches and integrating them into regular professional practice, in part because of barriers that span across different transportation-related contexts. To investigate practitioners’ approaches to transportation equity, as well as barriers they encounter in trying to achieve improved equity, interviews were conducted with 59 transportation practitioners from the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors. Findings revealed that a majority of the transportation practitioners in the study engaged in addressing equity in their work, including through collaborating with other organizations and sectors, integrating non-transportation-related data, and considering the contextual needs of vulnerable communities. They identified key barriers to their implementation of transportation equity approaches, including the lack of sufficient and quality equity-related data, challenges with accessing and collecting data, and a lack of standards and metrics for measuring equity-related outcomes. These findings can guide work that supports the explicit integration of transportation equity approaches into practitioners’ practices.

Performative versus Authentic Equity Work: An Assessment of Current Practices in Transportation Planning

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A quantitative methodology for measuring the social sustainability of pavement deterioration

“…The populations are linked by geography and societal characteristic. For this context, populations which have historically faced disproportionate transportation burden such as racial minorities, low income groups, and immigrant status are especially salient 45 , 46 . Since these definitions vary, it is suggested that the definition of vulnerable community come from relevant decision makers and/or discussions with the community of interest to ensure that the appropriate groups have been identified.…”

Greening Roadway Infrastructure with Vetiver Grass to Support Transportation Resilience

“…More collaboration across disciplines, including biology, ecology, geology, hydrology, engineering, planning, and landscape design is needed, along with stronger education and outreach with professional and community organizations (including vulnerable socio-economic communities) involved in environmental stewardship, and collective action to improve the resilience and sustainability is also needed. Holistic, integrative, collaborative approaches to planning, design, engineering, and construction are needed to improve fairness, equity, and justice across and within communities [3,[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. In addition to the inherent complexities and challenges of introducing green technologies in transportation planning, there is a need for stronger advocacy [35].…”