Paper Details

TRB 91st Annual Meeting (January 22-26, 2012)

Event Number:	279
Event Title:	Environmental Justice, Transit, and Mobility
Event Date:	Jan 23 2012 10:15AM- 12:00PM
Event Location:	Hilton, Columbia Hall 5
Event Description:
Event Agenda:

Impacts of Environmental Justice on Transportation: Applying the Environmental Justice Maturation Model to Benchmark Progress (12-3331)

The Presidential Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice (EJ) was signed in 1994, and the US Department of Transportation issued regulatory guidelines for addressing EJ in transportation in 1997. Transportation agencies have since adopted a range of policies, programs and activities to identify and address disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects of their policies, programs and activities on minority and low-income populations. Based on relevant literature and structured interviews, this paper assesses how State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are addressing EJ issues in their decision-making processes, and identifies common and effective practices. The results show that several state DOTs have implemented public involvement programs and other procedures to assess the burdens of transportation investment. However, fewer agencies assess the equity of benefits; fewer assess outcomes of EJ actions, and fewer still link EJ analysis outcomes with future funding and policy decisions. Based on existing practices and the regulatory guidelines, the researchers formulate a performance-based maturity-scale model that agencies can use to benchmark the effectiveness of their external and internal EJ activities, allowing them to evaluate how their practices are achieving EJ outcomes in Transportation. The model is applied anonymously to selected agencies to demonstrate different maturity levels in addressing EJ. The EJ maturity-scale model is a resource that transportation agencies can use to benchmark and increase the effectiveness of their EJ policies, programs and activities.

Authors
     Amekudzi, Adjo A., Georgia Institute of Technology
     Smith, Mshadoni , Federal Highway Administration
     Brodie, Stefanie R., Georgia Institute of Technology
     Fischer, Jamie Montague, Georgia Institute of Technology
     Ross, Catherine , Georgia Institute of Technology