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The following links provide access to environmental justice-related guidance documents, research materials, and reports. If you would like to suggest additional research, documents, or reports on this topic, please submit a short description to AASHTO (including any pertinent links) on the Share Info with AASHTO form.
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| Federal Highway Administration |
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- An Overview of Transportation and Environmental Justice is an FHWA web site that identifies the three fundamental environmental principles, reiterates that environmental justice is already embodied in many laws and regulation, is a key element in improving transportation decision-making, includes minority and low-income populations (and identifies these groups), and applies to all transportation decisions.
- Environmental Justice and Transportation: Building Model Partnerships describes proceedings from a 1995 conference held in Atlanta, GA that was co-sponsored by the FHWA, FTA, Federal Railroad Administration, and Clark Atlanta University.
- FHWA Environmental Guidebook provides Title VI and environmental justice information about legislation, regulations, FHWA policy and guidance, and other guidance and information.
- FHWA Environmental Policy Statement (1994) describes a framework to strengthen the linkage between environmental and highway policy.
- FHWA Transportation Planning Capacity Building “Peer Program” Identifying and Engaging Low Literacy and Limited English Proficiency Populations in the Transportation Decisionmaking Process held in Atlanta, GA on May 5, 2004.
- Transportation & Environmental Justice: Case Studies (December 2000) describes 10 case studies that show, when properly implemented, environmental justice principles can improve all levels of transportation decision-making – from the first thought about a transportation plan through project development, right-of-way, construction, and operations and maintenance.
- Transportation & Environmental Justice: Effective Practices (January 2002) describes effective practices taken by transportation agencies, community-based organizations, and other grassroots and advocacy organizations to advance the fundamental principles of environmental justice (U.S. Department of Transportation, FHWA, and Federal Transit Administration (FTA)).
- Implementing Title VI Requirements in Metropolitan and Statewide Planning is an October 7, 1999, memorandum from the FHWA Administrator to all FHWA Division Administrators and FTA Regional Administrators. Included with this memorandum are a list questions MPOs are frequently asked as part of there FHWA certification review.
- Planning Assistant Tool (2004) is divided into three parts: questionnaire, public involvement summary profile, and suggested techniques and considerations. The planning assistant questionnaire leads you through a series of questions on activity description, public involvement purpose and key activities, and schedule and resources. Based on responses to the questionnaire, the planning assistant generates a public involvement summary profile—a report of your inputs—and a list of suggested techniques and considerations. These suggestions displayed are based on their relevance to your public involvement activity.
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| Federal Transit Administration |
| Environmental Protection Agency |
| Council on Environmental Quality |
| U.S. Commission on Civil Rights |
| State Departments of Transportation |
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- Alaska
- Alaska Department of Transportation site has a pull-down menu with a Title VI work plan and policy, and a PowerPoint presentation (dated March 2004) with guidance on environmental justice.
- Arizona
- California
- Community Impact Assessment is Volume 4 of California Department of Transportation’s Environmental Handbooks (1997). This document includes key topics such as social, economic and public services impacts, land use, and growth.
- Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning and Investments (January 2003) is California Department of Transportation's Desk Guide.
- Standard Environmental Reference (Chapter 25) is California Department of Transportation’s on-line resource to help state and local agency staff plan, prepare, submit, and evaluate environmental documents for transportation projects. This chapter includes a basic overview of the principals of environmental justice and how they are incorporated into the environmental process. Definitions of minority and low-income populations, and other terms related to environmental justice are presented. Laws, regulations and guidance pertaining to environmental justice are also included within this chapter.
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Florida
- Idaho
- Indiana
- This Market Research document was developed for the Indiana Department of Transportation to use as a basis for identifying potential policy, technical analysis, community outreach, and training initiatives.
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Environmental Justice Draft Guidance (August 1998) prepared by Minnesota Department of Transportation
- Hear Every Voice is the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Public Involvement process (approach, techniques, and case studies), environmental justice guidance, and reports on dialogues with non-traditional stakeholders.
- Missouri
- New Jersey
- New York
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Rhode Island
- Texas
- Washington
- Wisconsin
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| Metropolitan Planning Organizations |
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- San Francisco Bay Area
- Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
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“…and Justice for ALL” (September 2001) is Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s strategy for fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people. It uses a “degrees of disadvantage” overlay of six indicators – minority, Hispanic, low-income, elderly, transportation dependent (those without vehicles), and handicapped populations using an overlay GIS approach. In addition, the transportation network is overlain (with transit routes having 0.25-mile buffers), and quality of life factors are identified (hospitals, significant employment sites, etc. The Fiscal Year 2005 TIP projects and the 2025 Long-Range Transportation Plan are evaluated based on this overlay approach. Other planning documents are available for purchase from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, The Bourse Building, 111 South Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, PA 19106, phone (215) 592-1800.
- Miami-Dade County
- Miami-Dade County MPO’s Interactive Web-based GIS System helps users determine appropriate public involvement strategies for identified target populations. Its transportation and community mapping is an interactive, web-based GIS System that can be used to generate customized demographic, project related reports for any selected area within Miami-Dade County.
- Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission
- Volusia, County, Florida
- Strings and Ribbons: A Public Involvement Success Story. A presentation made by Karl Welzenbach of the Volusia County MPO (Florida) in January 2005 at Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting in Washington, DC. Stings and Ribbons was the MPO’s primary public involvement tool for its 2025 Long Range Transportation Plan. Detailed information about Strings and Ribbons can be found on the Volusia County MPO’s web site.
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| National Academy of Sciences, Transportation Research Board, NCHRP, TCRP |
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- NCHRP Report 456: Guidebook for Assessing the Social and Economic Effects of Transportation Projects
- NCHRP Report 500 Vol. 9: A Guide for Reducing Collisions Involving Older Drivers
- NCHRP Report 500 Vol. 10: A Guide for Reducing Collisions Involving Pedestrians
- NCHRP Report 532: Effective Methods for Environmental Justice Assessment (2004)
- NCHRP Legal Research Digest 48, Civil Rights in Transportation Projects (June 2003)
- NCHRP Project 8-36(11), Technical Methods to Support Analysis of Environmental Justice Issues (April 2002)
- TCRP Project J06, Task 47, Case Studies in Environmental Justice and Public Transit Title VI Reporting (August 2005) describes five case studies that address examples of environmental justice solutions, and Title VI reporting and implementation that demonstrate commitment to equitable distribution of public transportation resources. One case study focuses on a racial group, American Indian and Alaska Natives, and the other four focus on environmental justice issues related to different geographic areas.
- Measuring Racial Discrimination (2004) National Academy of Science’s National Research Council Report
- America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences, National Research Council, Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001
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- Adult Literacy
- Commonly Asked Questions and Answers Regarding Executive Order 13166, Providing Meaningful Access to Individuals Who Are Limited English Proficient to Federally Assisted and Federally Conducted Programs and Activities provides 16 questions and their responses.
- Executive Order 13166: Improving Access for Services to Persons of Limited English Proficiency
- How to Communicate with a Public that May Have Low Literacy and Limited English Proficiency. A presentation made by Anne Morris of PBS&J at the June 2005 Regional Community Impact Assessment Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.
- How to Engage Low-Literacy and Limited-English-Proficiency Populations in Transportation Decision-making describes tools and techniques that have been successfully used nationwide by Federal, state, MPO, and county agencies and their consultants to identify, locate, and engage low-literacy and limited-English-proficiency populations.
- National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) webcast summary (2003) provides new types of data, technical resources, and reports planned for the NAAL.
- National Institute for Literacy Website
- The State of Literacy in America (1998) is a report commissioned by the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) to estimate the number of adults in every city, county, Congressional district, and state with low literacy skills. The report combines 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) data and 1990 Census data.
- Age
- Community Involvement
- A Citizen's Guide to Using Federal Environmental Laws to Secure Environmental Justice (2002) Environmental Law Institute
- Community Impact Assessment, A Quick Reference for Transportation (1996) was published by FHWA as a quick primer for transportation professionals and analysts who assess the impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities. It outlines the community impact assessment process, highlights critical areas that must be examined, identifies basic tools and information sources, and stimulates the thought-process related to individual projects.
- Community Impact Assessment and Environmental Justice for Transit Agencies: A Reference was developed through a grant from the National Center for Transit Research and the Florida Department of Transportation, Public Transit Office. The objectives of the research included identifying information and materials on issues and resources related to environmental justice, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, social equity, and the use of community impact assessment techniques (CIA) in the transit industry. The purpose of this guide is to provide tools, techniques, and references that may be used to assess transit actions.
- Community Impact Assessment Handbook: A Handbook for Transportation Professionals expands on FHWA’s Community Impact Assessment: A Quick Reference for Transportation. Provides methods and indicators that practitioners can use to identify and evaluate the community impacts of transportation projects and strategies for reducing adverse impacts.
- Community Impact Assessment (CIA) web site seeks to inform transportation officials and the general public about the potential impacts of proposed transportation actions on communities and their subpopulations. Several environmental justice resources are available on this page.
- Measuring the Effectiveness of Community Impact Assessment prepared by the Florida Department of Transportation.
- Environmental Justice & Transportation: A Citizen’s Handbook (2003), prepared by the Institute of transportation Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, helps those who are new to transportation policy and projects. The report discusses various approaches to environmental justice along with steps in the planning process when citizen involvement is particularly effective, suggests how environmental Justice can be incorporated into a project, and provides legal requirements for environmental justice.
- Data Sources
- American FactFinder provides a search feature of the Census Bureau’s web site that helps users locate data quickly and easily. Access to thematic maps and reference maps that include roads and boundary information is available via FactFinders.
- EconData.net is designed to help practitioners, researchers, students, and other data users quickly gain access to relevant state and sub state socioeconomic data.
- FedStats offers a range of official statistical information made available to the public by the federal government.
- U.S. Census Bureau Minority links page
- U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service web site provides a variety of thematic maps of county-level information for 1990 and 2000 populations, migration by environmental justice populations, and 1999/2000 labor, education, income, poverty, and welfare.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service field office website provides the names and addresses of each state officer in charge who can provide a list of all businesses that accept Food Stamps.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development web site provides data related to a community and a locator tool to find HUD services.
- Modern Language Association website provides language mapping by county and zip code by State based on 2000 Census information.
- National Center for Education Statistics provides number of students by race and number of students eligible for the Free and Reduced Price Meals programs for every public school in the nation.
- Policy Development and Research Information Service website provides housing research and information including over 800 datasets and publications, most available as free downloads.
- QuickFacts provides frequently requested Census Bureau information in a user-friendly website at the national, state, and county levels.
- Environmental Justice Analysis: Theories, Methods, and Practice, Feng Liu, CRC press, LLC, Boca Raton, FL, 2001
- Disabilities
- Disaster Planning/Evacuation - Low-income and minority populations often live in areas that are vulnerable to natural disasters because the price of land is cheap. In addition, they are often transportation-dependent because they cannot afford personal transportation. In 2005, the scale of the recent disaster experienced in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has caused a re-evaluation of transportation and land use planning and environmental justice populations.
- Lessons From Katrina and Rita, What Major Disasters Can Teach Transportation Planners examines failures in Hurricane Katrina and Rita emergency response and their lessons for transportation planning in other communities. Katrina’s evacuation plan functioned relatively well for motorists but failed to serve people who depended on public transit. Rita’s evacuation plan failed because of excessive reliance on automobiles, resulting in traffic congestion and fuel shortages. Equitable and compassionate emergency response requires special efforts to address the needs of vulnerable residents. Improved emergency response planning can result in more efficient use of available resources. This paper identifies various policy and planning strategies that can help create efficient, equitable, and resilient transport systems.
- Louisville and New Orleans discusses the similarities in these two cities. It points out that the conditions that exacerbated the New Orleans disaster—deep, segregated urban poverty—still exist in Louisville and in most major American cities today.
- Helping D.C.'s Lower Ninth Wards discusses how the sort of concentrated urban poverty that affected places like New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward resembles Washington, D.C.’s most troubled neighborhoods.
- Root Shock Institute’s Assisting Cities During Post-Hurricane Diaspora discusses the often overlooked need to re-knit social connections at the level of the family, the neighborhood, the city and the region. This reconnection serves as a crucial psychiatric function of restoring natural networks that are essential for health and daily functioning.
- Limited English Proficiency
- How to Engage Low-Literacy and Limited-English-Proficiency Populations in Transportation Decision-making, Federal Highway Administration, February 2006. The recent immigration of non-English speaking populations has added limited English-proficiency to the challenges of conducting a public involvement program and considering issues of environmental justice. The combination of non-English speaking populations and low literacy among English-speaking populations has reinforced the conclusion that “one size fits all” communication techniques are not effective. In order to provide meaningful access to transportation decision-making information, public involvement must be tailored to the population's abilities and constraints. This FHWA report describes tools and techniques that have been successfully used nationwide by Federal, state, MPO, and county agencies and their consultants to identify, locate, and engage low-literacy and limited-English-proficiency populations. It provides information on ways to access reliable data on literacy and limited English proficiency at the sub-State level, and ways to access documented indicators and/or surrogates of literacy and limited-English-proficiency at sub-Sate levels. In addition, it identifies special approaches that are needed to achieve outreach with these populations, the best ways to contact these populations, the impact of low-literacy and limited English proficiency on these populations’ abilities and constraints to participate in public involvement, and how to engage these populations and provide them with meaningful access to decision-making information and opportunities.
- Limited English Proficiency Federal Interagency Website, LEP.gov promotes a positive and cooperative understanding of the importance of language access to federally conducted and federally assisted programs. The site acts as a clearinghouse, providing and linking to information, tools, and technical assistance regarding limited English proficiency and language services for federal agencies, recipients of federal funds, users of federal programs, and federally assisted programs, and other stakeholders.
- Low Income and Poverty
- Public Health - The relationship between poverty, poor health, and hazardous waste siting has existed for decades. Because of the emphasis that the Executive Order on Environmental Justice places on “human health”, this issue is being re-examined in light of the proximity of environmental justice populations to air pollution, noise, vibration, etc.
- Race and Ethnicity
- African American Yearbook provides information about African American Federal, state, and city elected officials, conventions and events, Federal and state offices of minority health within each state, historically Black colleges and universities, organizations, publications, radio stations, and faith-based organizations by city.
- Air of Injustice: How Air Pollution Affects the Health of Hispanics and Latinos contains information relative to Hispanic communities disproportionately suffering health problems that result from living with pollution from power plants.
- Environmental Justice Resource Center's People of Color: Environmental Groups Directory: 2000 provides information about environmental groups at the State and city levels.
- FHWA Native American Program Coordination website provides guidance and technical assistance to federally recognized tribes on a government-to-government basis. The website address issues such as programs, topic areas, state activities, references, tribal planning, tribal programs and tribal technical assistance programs.
- FHWA’s Travel Patterns of People of Color (June 2000) provides basic characteristics of travel by people of color. It shows that not only do we need to look at race and ethnicity (especially as it reflects the time from immigration for many Hispanics and Asian residents), but also the combination of gender with race and ethnicity.
- Hispanic Yearbook provides information in English and Spanish about Hispanic Federal, state, and city elected officials, conventions and events, Hispanic-serving institutions (colleges and universities), organizations, publications, radio stations, and faith-based organizations by city.
- Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and Tribal Technical Assistance Program (TTAP) Website links to several Native American related websites.
- Mobility and Mode Choice of People of Color for Non-Work Travel explains that travel by people of color is of strong policy interest because it is a growing and changing share of the total travel market and is expected to continue to grow much faster than overall travel well into the 21st century.
- PBS's companion to their documentary RACE - The Power of an Illusion
- The EthnoMed site is prepared by Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington and provides cultural profiles on several Asian, African, and Hispanic populations.
- Working with Native American Communities: A Practical Guide to Connecting with Tribal Populations. A presentation made by Dexter Albert and Susan Springer at the June 2005 Regional Community Impact Assessment Conference in Scottsdale, AZ.
- Moving To Equity: Addressing Inequitable Effects of Transportation Policies on Minorities, by Thomas Sanchez, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta Ma, The Civil Rights Project, 2003.
- Tolling and Congestion Pricing
- Equity and Congestion Pricing: A Review of the Evidence. This report features a study sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund and performed by Rand Corp. that examines equity issues associated with congestion pricing projects, which require motorists to pay higher tolls based on the level of traffic congestion.
- Environmental Justice Considerations Involving Toll Roads. Equity issues and transportation have long been intertwined, however, the dependence on tolling revenue to fund and maintain new and existing roadways has placed new emphasis on their effect on environmental justice populations. This is a presentation made by Jimmy Tyree (TxDOT) and Gerald Torres (University of Texas School of Law) at the June 2005 Regional Community Impact Assessment conference held in Scottsdale, AZ.
- Transportation Planning
- Environmental Justice and Transportation Investment Policy (1997) by David Forkenbrock and Lisa Schweitzer, is available for purchase from the University of Iowa, Public Policy Center, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
- Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning (1999) is available for purchase from the American Planning Association’s Planners Book Service, 122 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 1600, Chicago, IL 60603, 312-786-6344 (phone), 312-431-9985 (fax)
- Environmental Justice, Transportation and Local Governments. A presentation made by Bob Rackleff, a Leon County Commissioner, at the Southeast Regional Environmental Justice Conference in Tallahassee, Fla.
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