Trans­porta­tion equi­ty analy­sis is com­pli­cat­ed, as dis­cussed in my report, “Eval­u­at­ing Trans­porta­tion Equi­ty.” There are sev­er­al per­spec­tives and impacts to con­sid­er, and var­i­ous ways to mea­sure them. Hor­i­zon­tal equi­ty assumes that peo­ple with sim­i­lar needs and abil­i­ties should be treat­ed equal­ly, and so implies that peo­ple should “get what they pay for and pay for what they get.” Ver­ti­cal equi­ty assumes that dis­ad­van­taged groups should receive a greater share of resources. Social jus­tice address­es struc­tur­al inequities such as racism and sex­ism. 

Because of this com­plex­i­ty, the best way to incor­po­rate equi­ty into plan­ning is usu­al­ly to define a set of mea­sur­able objec­tives, such as the fol­low­ing:

Transportation Equity Objectives

• Every­body con­tributes to and receives com­pa­ra­ble shares of pub­lic resources.
• Plan­ning serves non-dri­vers as well as dri­vers.
• Exter­nal costs are min­i­mized. Plan­ning favors resource-effi­cient modes that reduce con­ges­tion, risk and pol­lu­tion imposed on oth­er peo­ple.
• Com­pen­sate for exter­nal costs.
• Accom­mo­date peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and oth­er spe­cial needs.
• Favor basic access (ensure that every­body can reach essen­tial ser­vices and activ­i­ties).
• Favor afford­able modes.
• Pro­vide dis­counts and exemp­tions for low­er-income users.
• Pro­vide afford­able hous­ing in high-acces­si­bil­i­ty neigh­bor­hoods.
• Pro­tect and sup­port dis­ad­van­taged groups (women, youths, minori­ties, low-income, etc.).
• Imple­ment affir­ma­tive action poli­cies and pro­grams.
• Cor­rect for past injus­tices.

I believe that most plan­ners, and the peo­ple we serve, sin­cere­ly want to sup­port these equi­ty objec­tives, but the meth­ods we use are often inef­fec­tive; many are lit­tle more than token ges­tures that allow deci­sion-mak­ers to claim that they are mak­ing an effort with­out impos­ing sub­stan­tial changes. Tru­ly effec­tive solu­tions require struc­tur­al reforms that can be chal­leng­ing to imple­ment but pro­vide large total ben­e­fits.

For exam­ple, senior pas­sen­ger fare dis­counts are prob­a­bly the most com­mon and cost­ly trans­porta­tion equi­ty strat­e­gy. Here in British Colum­bia these include approx­i­mate­ly half-price tran­sit pass­es and taxi sub­si­dies, plus free fer­ry trips on week­days. Why? They are jus­ti­fied with vague claims that pen­sion­ers strug­gle finan­cial­ly and so deserve finan­cial assis­tance. In fact, seniors have low­er pover­ty rates than for oth­er age groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly chil­dren, as illus­trat­ed below.

US Poverty Rates by Age Category 

Pub­lic trans­porta­tion agen­cies also offer dis­counts to oth­er groups includ­ing youths and stu­dents, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and some­times low incomes, and some pover­ty advo­cates are call­ing for fare-free tran­sit. These are prob­a­bly more jus­ti­fied on equi­ty grounds than senior dis­counts, but only address a small por­tion of dis­ad­van­taged groups’ unmet trav­el needs. For exam­ple, these sub­si­dies do not help peo­ple who live in areas that lack pub­lic tran­sit, or where those ser­vices are poor­ly inte­grat­ed, infre­quent or dif­fi­cult to access, and they do noth­ing to reduce the large addi­tion­al time costs required for pub­lic tran­sit trav­el.

Cer­tain­ly, peo­ple with low incomes appre­ci­ate finan­cial sav­ings, but tran­sit fares are a small por­tion of house­hold bud­gets, so fare dis­counts pro­vide tiny over­all sav­ings. A much larg­er finan­cial bur­den is the cost of own­ing and oper­at­ing an auto­mo­bile. Finan­cial­ly strained fam­i­lies could ben­e­fit much more by hav­ing bet­ter alter­na­tives to auto­mo­bile trav­el, plus more afford­able hous­ing options in acces­si­ble, mul­ti­modal neigh­bor­hoods.  

Let’s be spe­cif­ic. Accord­ing to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics’ Con­sumer Expen­di­ture Sur­vey, in 2020 the low­est income quin­tile spent an aver­age of $101 on pub­lic tran­sit fares, rep­re­sent­ing 0.4% of their total expen­di­tures. If we assume that all tran­sit expen­di­tures are made by the 28% of low­est-income quin­tile house­holds that own no vehi­cle, they spent $361 on pub­lic tran­sit fares, rep­re­sent­ing 1.3% of total expen­di­tures. These amounts are tiny com­pared with their $4,262 aver­age expen­di­tures motor vehi­cles, rep­re­sent­ing 15% of their expen­di­tures. If we assume that all of those expen­di­tures are made by the 72% of house­holds that own vehi­cles, they spent $5,919 on auto­mo­biles, rep­re­sent­ing 21% of their total expen­di­tures, far high­er than the 15% max­i­mum that is con­sid­ered afford­able. These are low­er-bound esti­mates because con­sumer expen­di­ture sur­veys over­look indi­rect vehi­cle expens­es, such as res­i­den­tial park­ing costs.

To be tru­ly equi­table our trans­porta­tion sys­tem should ensure that non-dri­vers receive a fair share of trans­porta­tion invest­ments, and com­mu­ni­ties pro­vide a high lev­el of acces­si­bil­i­ty to peo­ple who for any rea­son can­not, should not, or pre­fer not to dri­ve for most trips. This requires more than tar­get­ed sub­si­dies.

Categorical Versus Structural Equity Solutions

There are two gen­er­al types of equi­ty strate­gies. Cat­e­gor­i­cal solu­tions are pro­grams that pro­vide spe­cial ben­e­fits to a des­ig­nat­ed group. These include, for exam­ple, uni­ver­sal design prac­tices to ensure that facil­i­ties and ser­vices accom­mo­date wheel­chair users, tran­sit fare dis­counts for seniors and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, and spe­cial com­muter bus ser­vices in high pover­ty areas. These may be use­ful, but as illus­trat­ed above, they are gen­er­al­ly inad­e­quate. For exam­ple, uni­ver­sal design stan­dards are of lit­tle ben­e­fit in an auto­mo­bile-depen­dent com­mu­ni­ty that has few side­walks, tran­sit fare dis­counts  are of lit­tle val­ue in com­mu­ni­ties with min­i­mal pub­lic tran­sit ser­vices, and spe­cial bus ser­vices for low-income work­ers tend to be inef­fi­cient in sprawled areas where roads are dis­con­nect­ed, and homes and jobs are spread apart.

Struc­tur­al solu­tions reform plan­ning prac­tices to cre­ate more com­pact and mul­ti­modal com­mu­ni­ties where it is easy to get around with­out dri­ving. These include mul­ti­modal plan­ning that improves afford­able and inclu­sive modes, pric­ing reforms to inter­nal­ize exter­nal costs, and Smart Growth devel­op­ment poli­cies that cre­ate more afford­able hous­ing options in walk­a­ble neigh­bor­hoods. The table below com­pares these approach­es.

Categorical Versus Structural Solutions

Cat­e­gor­i­cal solu­tions often seem eas­i­er and more cost effec­tive because they pro­vide clear­ly-defined ben­e­fits to a spe­cif­ic group, but struc­tur­al reforms tend to pro­vide larg­er and more diverse ben­e­fits and so are gen­er­al­ly most effi­cient and ben­e­fi­cial over­all. Struc­tur­al solu­tions can be chal­leng­ing to imple­ment, but pro­vide  diverse eco­nom­ic, social and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits, in addi­tion to equi­ty goals. Com­pre­hen­sive plan­ning gen­er­al­ly applies both cat­e­gor­i­cal and struc­tur­al solu­tions, with empha­sis on reforms that increase trans­porta­tion sys­tem diver­si­ty, afford­abil­i­ty and effi­cien­cy.

Reductionist Versus Comprehensive Solutions

This is a spe­cif­ic exam­ple of a broad­er issue. Con­ven­tion­al plan­ning tends to be reduc­tion­ist; indi­vid­ual prob­lems are assigned to agen­cies with nar­row­ly-defined respon­si­bil­i­ties. This often results in agen­cies imple­ment­ing solu­tions to prob­lems with­in their respon­si­bil­i­ty that exac­er­bate oth­er prob­lems fac­ing soci­ety, and under­valu­ing solu­tions that pro­vide small­er but mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits.

For exam­ple, trans­porta­tion agen­cies are respon­si­ble for reduc­ing con­ges­tion, and so often sup­port road­way expan­sions, although this induces more vehi­cle trav­el and sprawl, and so tends to increase crash risk and pol­lu­tion emis­sions, and reduce acces­si­bil­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly for non-dri­vers. Sim­i­lar­ly, envi­ron­men­tal agen­cies are respon­si­ble for reduc­ing pol­lu­tion, and so encour­age vehi­cle elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, although by reduc­ing vehi­cle oper­at­ing costs, also induce addi­tion­al vehi­cle trav­el and there­fore traf­fic con­ges­tion, crash­es and sprawl. More com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis iden­ti­fies win-win solu­tions that help achieve mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ty goals, and so are usu­al­ly more cost-effec­tive over­all, con­sid­er­ing all impacts.

In fact, some of most effec­tive ways to help dis­ad­van­taged groups are not gen­er­al­ly clas­si­fied as equi­ty strate­gies. They include, for exam­ple, least cost trans­porta­tion plan­ning that allows funds cur­rent­ly ded­i­cat­ed to road and park­ing facil­i­ties to instead be used to improve non-auto modes, com­plete streets poli­cies which ensure that all streets accom­mo­date diverse modes and activ­i­ties, and park­ing pol­i­cy reforms that that reduce the sub­si­dies that car-free house­holds must pay for cost­ly park­ing facil­i­ties they don’t need. Because they pro­vide diverse ben­e­fits, these strate­gies can gain sup­port from numer­ous inter­est groups includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ists who want to reduce pol­lu­tion emis­sions and habi­tat dis­place­ment, devel­op­ers who want  to build more com­pact hous­ing with unbun­dled park­ing, and pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als who want to cre­ate more walk­a­ble and bike­able com­mu­ni­ties.

In gen­er­al, auto­mo­bile depen­dent trans­porta­tion sys­tems are inher­ent­ly inequitable and inef­fi­cient because they fail to serve non-dri­vers and they favor expen­sive and resource-inten­sive trans­porta­tion over more inclu­sive, afford­able and effi­cient alter­na­tives. This is not to say that auto­mo­biles and bad and should be for­bid­den, but every­body, includ­ing motorists, ben­e­fit from mul­ti­modal plan­ning that favors diverse and effi­cient trav­el options: walk­ing, bicy­cling and micro­modes for local errands; rideshar­ing and pub­lic tran­sit for trav­el on busy urban cor­ri­dors; and unsub­si­dized auto­mo­bile trav­el for use when it is opti­mal over­all, con­sid­er­ing all impacts.

Examples of Integrated Thinking

I am hap­py to see that sev­er­al major orga­ni­za­tions have recent­ly pub­lished doc­u­ments that sup­port inte­grat­ed plan­ning that includes equi­ty objec­tives. 

• Bet­ter Access to Urban Oppor­tu­ni­ties: Acces­si­bil­i­ty Pol­i­cy for Cities in the 2020s, by the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and the OECD for the Coali­tion for Urban Tran­si­tions, iden­ti­fies poli­cies to inte­grate cli­mate emis­sion reduc­tion and social equi­ty goals into pan­dem­ic recov­ery pro­grams by cre­at­ing more acces­si­ble, trans­porta­tion effi­cient cities. 
• Trans­port Strate­gies for Net-Zero Sys­tems by Design by the Orga­ni­za­tion for Eco­nom­ic Coop­er­a­tion and Devel­op­ment (OECD), applies a well-being lens to trans­port emis­sion reduc­tion plan­ning. It con­cludes that induced demand, urban sprawl and the ero­sion of active and shared trans­port modes results in car depen­den­cy and high emis­sions. It pro­vides pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions to reduce emis­sions while improv­ing well-being includ­ing rad­i­cal street redesign, more com­pact devel­op­ment and favor­ing shared mobil­i­ty. It con­cludes that these poli­cies increase the effec­tive­ness and pub­lic accept­abil­i­ty of car­bon pric­ing and vehi­cle elec­tri­fi­ca­tion.

• Draft Advice for Con­sul­ta­tion, by the New Zealand Cli­mate Change Com­mis­sion eval­u­ates emis­sion reduc­tion strate­gies based on the degree they sup­port oth­er strate­gic goals. It rec­om­mends urban plan­ning reforms, active mode improve­ments, freight man­age­ment, reli­able and afford­able shared trans­port, plus elec­tric or low-emis­sion vehi­cles.
• Co-Ben­e­fits of Cli­mate Action is a research project that maps cli­mate action co-ben­e­fits, show­ing the com­ple­men­tary nature between cli­mate inno­va­tion and oth­er actions that con­tribute to more sus­tain­able devel­op­ment path­ways.
• LADOT Strate­gic Plan, by the city of Los Ange­les, address­es five major goals: equi­ty, health and safe­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, eco­nom­ic growth, and COVID action. To accom­plish this, a city which was once famous for its car cul­ture is now imple­ment­ing mul­ti­modal projects and inte­grat­ed trans­porta­tion and land use plan­ning.
• Cli­mate Emer­gency Action Plan, by the city of Van­cou­ver, which will also achieve equi­ty goals by mak­ing low-cost sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion options easy, safe, and reli­able.

These exam­ples illus­trate oppor­tu­ni­ties for struc­tur­al reforms that help achieve equi­ty objec­tives plus oth­er eco­nom­ic, social and envi­ron­men­tal goals by cre­at­ing more afford­able and resource-effi­cient trans­porta­tion sys­tems, and more com­pact, mul­ti­modal com­mu­ni­ties where it is easy to get around with­out dri­ving.