[bru-info] ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR ALL: TWO UPCOMING EVENTS

[bru-info at lists.resist.ca]

STUDY: WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?  - Friday, May 18, 7:00pm
@ Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice (672 E. Broadway - at
Main Street)
Join us for an evening of open discussion about environmental justice.  What
does 'environmental justice' mean?  How does it relate to our experiences as
bus riders in Vancouver?  This study will be based on a short reading
(pasted below).  Snacks and coffee will be served.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE FOR ALL PUBLIC FORUM - WEDNESDAY, MAY 23rd, 7:000
@ Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House (800 East Broadway)


Call the BRU at 604-215-2775 or email busridersunion at gmail.com for more
information


***

Volume 6, Number 1
Fall/Winter 2003
www.ejrc.cau.edu


TRANSPORTATION EQUITY
A Newsletter of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta
University

NEW ROUTES TO TRANSPORTATION EQUITY
Why Race Still Matters
By Dr. Robert D. Bullard

The 100th anniversary of W. E. B. Du Bois' classic The Souls of Black Folks
was celebrated this year. Writing from his home in Atlanta, Du Bois ably
predicted that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the
color line." He wrote his famous book just seven years after the infamous
Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, the U.S Supreme Court decision that codified
"separate but equal" as the law of the land. In 1892, 30-year old black
shoemaker Homer Plessy was arrested and jailed for sitting in the "White"
car of the East Louisiana Railroad.1 Plessy's refusal to sit in the
"Colored" section brought the weight of the Louisiana's Separate Car Act,
"separate but equal" law, on him. On May 18, 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson
U.S . Supreme Court decision upheld Louisiana's segregated "white" and
"colored" seating on railroad cars. Plessy provided legal basis for racial
segregation not only in transportation, but extended the doctrine in many
other areas of public life, such as restrooms, theaters, and public schools.

This ruling was not overturned until the Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka decision in 1954. In 1955, Rosa Parks ignited the Montgomery Bus
Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. Today, Rosa Parks would have a
difficult time sitting on the front or back of a Montgomery bus today, since
the city dismantled its public bus systemÑthat served mostly blacks and poor
people.

Follow the Dollars
Follow the transportation dollars and one can tell who is important and who
is not. While many barriers to equitable transportation for low-income and
people of color have been removed, much more needs to be done.
Transportation spending programs do not benefit all populations equally. The
lion's share of transportation dollars is spent on roads, while urban
transit systems are often left in disrepair. Most are strapped for funds.
Nationally, 80 percent of all surface transportation funds is earmarked for
highways and 20 percent is earmarked for public transportation. Generally,
states spend less than 20 percent of federal transportation funding on
transit.2 Some states even restrict the use of the gas taxÑthe single
largest source of transportation funding. For example, Georgia and 29 other
states restrict use of the gasoline tax revenue to funding highway programs
only.3 From 1998-2003, TEA-21 transportation spending amounted to $217
billion. This was the "largest public works bill enacted in the nation's
history."4 Public transit has received roughly $50 Billion since the
creation of the Urban Mass Transit Administration over thirty years ago.
While roadway projects have received over $205 Billion since 1956.5

In the real world, all transit is not created equal. In general, most
transit systems have tended to take their low-income and people of color
"captive riders" for granted and concentrated their fare and service
policies on attracting middle-class and affluent riders out of their
cars.6Moreover, transit subsidies have tended to favor investment in
suburban
transit and expensive new commuter bus and rail lines that
disproportionately serve wealthier "discretionary riders."

Transportation's Share of Household Budgets
Lest anyone dismiss transportation as a tangential issue, consider that
Americans spend more on transportation than any other household expense
except housing. On average, Americans spend 19 cents out of every dollar
earned on transportation expenses. Transportation costs ranged from
17.1percent in the Northeast to
20.8 percent in the South. Americans spend more on transportation than they
do on food, education, and health care. A large share of that money is
devoted to transportation and housing. The nation's poorest families spend
more than 40 percent of their take home pay on transportation. This is not a
small point since African American households tend to earn less money than
whites.7 Nationally, African Americans earn only $649 per $1,000 earned by
whites. This means that the typical black household in the United States
earned 35 percent less than the typical white household.

Travel Behavior
The private automobile is still the most dominant travel mode of every
segment of the American population, including the poor and people of color.
Clearly, private automobiles provide enormous employment access advantages
to their owners. Car ownership is almost universal in the United States with
91.7 percent of American households owning at least one motor vehicle.
According to the 2001 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), which was
released in 2003, 87.6 percent of whites, 83.1 percent of Asians and
Hispanics, and 78.9 percent of blacks rely on the private car to get
around.8 Thus, lack of car ownership and inadequate public transit service
in many central cities and metropolitan regions with high proportion of
"captive" transit dependents exacerbate social, economic, and racial
isolationÑespecially for low-income people of color residents who already
have limited transportation options.

Having a seven-lane freeway next door, for instance, is not much of a
benefit to someone who does not even own a car. Nationally, only 7 percent
of white households own no car, compared with 24 percent of African American
households, 17 percent of Latino households, and 13 percent of
Asian-American households. African Americans are almost six times as likely
as whites to use transit to get around. In urban areas, African Americans
and Latinos comprise over 54 percent of transit users (62 percent of bus
riders, 35 percent of subway riders, and 29 percent of commuter rail
riders).

Race and Space Matters
In 2000, The United States' population was 69 percent white, 12 percent
black, 12.5 percent Hispanic, and 3.6 percent Asian American. People of
color comprise nearly half of the population in the nation's 100 largest
cities. For the 36.4 million African Americans,9 race underlies and
interpenetrates with the other factors in explaining the socio-spatial
layout of most of our cities, suburbs, and metropolitan regions, including
quality of schools, location of job centers, housing patterns, environmental
quality, transportation, land use, streets and highway configuration,
commercial and business development, access to health care, and a host of
other quality of life indicators.

In the major metropolitan areas where most African Americans, Latinos, and
Asians live, segregation levels changed little between 1990 and 2000.
Black-white segregation is still significantly higher than the segregation
levels for other ethnic groups. The average white American lived in a
neighborhood that was 80 percent white, 8 percent Hispanic, 7 percent black,
and 4 percent Asian. Similarly, the typical black lived in a neighborhood
that was 51 percent black, 33 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, and 3
percent Asian.10

Three-fifths of all blacks live in ten states: New York, California, Texas,
Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, and
Louisiana. Almost 55 percent of the nation's blacks live in the South. The
Northeast and Midwest were each home to 19 percent of the black population
in 2000, and the West home to about 10 percent. Between 1990-2000, Florida
and Georgia gained 674,000 and 632,000 blacks. Texas added 453,000 blacks,
and Maryland and North Carolina each gained over 300,000 blacks over the
same period.

Over 88 percent of blacks live in metropolitan areas and 53.1 percent live
inside central cities. About 60 percent of blacks live in the 10
metropolitan areas. The metropolitan areas with the largest black population
include New York ( 2.3 million), Chicago (1.0 million), Detroit
(0.7million), Philadelphia (
0.6 million), Houston (0.5 million), Baltimore (0.4 million), Los Angeles (
0.4 million), Memphis (0.4million), Washington, DC (0.3 million), and New
Orleans ( 0.3 million).

The Southeast is especially attractive to middle-class, post-baby boomer
blacks. Over 79 percent of blacks in the South and 98 percent of all blacks
outside of the South live in metropolitan areas.11 Black in-migrants to the
South tend to reside in the suburbs or metropolitan areas. Seven of the ten
fastest growing counties for blacks are in the suburbs of metro Atlanta.
Black suburbanization has often meant re-segregation. Still, separate
translates to unequal even for the most successful and affluent blacks.

Job Flight
Many jobs have shifted to the suburbs and communities where public
transportation is inadequate or nonexistent. The exodus of low-skilled jobs
to the suburbs disproportionately affects central-city residents,
particularly people of color, who often face more limited choice of housing
location and transportation in growing areas. Between 1990 and 1997, jobs on
the fringe of metropolitan areas grew by 19 percent versus 4 percent job
growth in core areas. While many new jobs have are being created in the
suburbs, the majority of job opportunities for low-income workers are still
located in central cities.12

Central cities contain 20 percent of all workers and 69 percent of all
transit use. On the other hand, suburbs account for half of all workers but
generate 29 percent of all transit trips. Nearly 60 percent of transit
riders are served by the ten largest urban transit systems and the remaining
40 percent by the other 5,000 transit systems.

Suburbs are increasing their share of office while central cities see their
share declining.13 The suburban share of the metropolitan office space is
69.5 percent in Detroit, 65.8 percent in Atlanta, 57.7 percent in
Washington, DC, 57.4 percent in Miami, and 55.2 percent in Philadelphia.
Getting to these suburban jobs without a car is next to impossible. It is no
accident that Detroit leads in suburban "office sprawl." Detroit is also the
most segregated big city in the United States and the only major
metropolitan area without a regional transit system. Only about 2.4 percent
of metropolitan Detroiters use transit to get to work.

Our Right to Pollute
Transportation-related sources account for over 30 percent of the primary
smog-forming pollutants emitted nationwide and 28 percent of the fine
particulates. Vehicle emissions are the main reasons 121 Air Quality
Districts in the U.S. are in noncompliance with the 1970 Clean Air Act's
National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Over 140 million Americans, 25
percent of whom are children, live, work, and play in areas where air
quality does not meet national standards.14 Emissions from cars, trucks, and
buses cause 25-51 percent of the air pollution in the nation's nonattainment
areas. Transportation related emissions also generate more than a quarter of
the greenhouse gases.15

Improvements in transportation investments and air quality are of special
significance to low-income persons and people of color who are more likely
to live in areas with reduced air quality when compared with whites.
National Argonne Laboratory researchers discovered that 57 percent of
whites, 65 percent of African Americans, and 80 percent of Latinos lived in
the 437 counties that failed to meet at least one of the EPA ambient air
quality standards.16 A 2000 study from the American Lung Association shows
that children of color are disproportionately represented in areas with high
ozone levels.17 Additionally, 61.3 percent of Black children, 69.2 percent
of Hispanic children and 67.7 percent of Asian-American children live in
areas that exceed the 0.08 ppm ozone standard, while only 50.8 percent of
white children live in such areas.

Paying the Price with Rising Asthma Rates
Air pollution from vehicle emissions causes significant amounts of illness,
hospitalization, and premature death. A 2002 study in Lancet reports strong
causal link between ozone and asthma.18 Ground-level ozone may exacerbate
health problems such as asthma, nasal congestions, throat irritation,
respiratory tract inflammation, reduced resistance to infection, changes in
cell function, loss of lung elasticity, chest pains, lung scarring,
formation of lesions within the lungs, and premature aging of lung
tissues.19

Air pollution claims 70,000 lives a year, nearly twice the number killed in
traffic accidents.20 A 2001 CDC report, Creating a Healthy Environment: The
Impact of the Built Environment on Health, points a finger at transportation
and sprawl as major health threats.21 Although it is difficult to put a
single price tag the on cost of air pollution, estimates range from $10
billion to $200 billion a year.22 Asthma is the number one reason for
childhood emergency room visits in most major cities in the country. The
hospitalization rate for African Americans is 3 to 4 times the rate for
whites. African Americans are three times more likely than whites to die
from asthma.23

Getting sick is complicated for the nation's uninsured. Blacks and Hispanics
are most at risk of being uninsured. Blacks and Hispanics now comprise
52.6percent of the 43 million Americans without health insurance.
Nearly
one-half of working-age Hispanics (46%) lacked health insurance for all or
part of the year prior to the survey, as did one-third of African Americans
(30%). In comparison one-fifth of whites and Asian Americans (21% and 20%,
respectively) ages 18-64 lacked coverage for all or part of the year.24

Energy Insecurity
Transportation and energy security are also linked. Transportation energy
accounts for about half of world oil demand and road vehicles use over 70
percent of transportation energy consumption. In addition to health and
environment reasons for the U.S. to move our transportation beyond oil to
more secure and sustainable alternative fuels, there are compelling energy
security and economic strength reasons to invest in clean fuels technology.
The U.S. has over 217 million cars, buses, and trucks that consume 67
percent of the nation's oil. Transportation-related oil consumption in the
U.S. has risen 43 percent since 1975.

The United States accounts for almost one-third of the world's vehicles.
With just five percent of the world's population, Americans consume more
than 25 percent of the oil produced worldwide.25 More important, almost 60
percent of our oil comes from foreign sources. War for oil looms as a
growing scenario. The burdens of war fall heaviest on poor, working class,
and people of color Americans—who make up a disproportionately large share
of the all-volunteer military. For example, African Americans represent 13
percent of the U.S. population and 20 percent of the war deaths in the
conflict with Iraq.26

Conclusion
Discrimination still places an extra "tax" on poor people and people of
color who need safe, affordable, and accessible transportation. Many of the
nation's transportation-related disparities accumulated over a century. It
will likely take years, with much effort, and plenty of resources to
dismantle the deeply ingrained legacy of transportation racism.

Grassroots leaders from New York City to Los Angeles are demanding an end to
transportation racism. They are spreading the word that transportation
dollars are aiding and abetting the flight of people, jobs, and development
to the suburban fringe. Groups are fighting to get affordable fares,
representation on transportation boards and commissions, and to get their
fair share of transit services, bus shelters, handicapped accessible
vehicles, and other amenities. Some groups are waging grassroots campaigns
to get "dirty diesel" buses and bus depots from being dumped in their
neighborhoods. Some grassroots leaders are also struggling to get public
transit systems linked to jobs and economic activity centers and to get
workers paid a livable wage so that they can also have transportation
options—include car ownership.

Endnotes
1. For an in-depth account of the Plessy v. Ferguson court case see Brook
Thomas, ed., Plessy v. Ferguson: A brief History with Documents. New York:
Bedford/St. Martin, 1997.
2. Thomas W. Sanchez, Rich Stolz, and Jacinta S. Ma, Moving to Equity:
Addressing Inequitable Effects of Transportation Policies on Minorities.
Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 2003.
3. R. Puentes and R. Prince, Fueling Transportation Finance: A Primer on the
Gas Tax. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2003.
4. D.C. Gardner, "Transportation Reauthorization: A Summary of the
Transportation Equity Act (TEA-21) for the Twenty-First Century," 30 Urban
Law Journal (1998):1097, 1099-1101.
5. Hank Dittmar and Don Chen, "Equity in Transportation investments," Paper
presented at the Transportation: Environmental Justice and Social Equity
Conference Proceedings, July 1995.
6. Mark Garret and Brian Taylor, "Reconsidering Social Equity in Public
Transit," Berkeley Planning Journal 13 (1999): 6-27.
7. G. Scott Thomas, "Racial Income Gap is More Like a Chasm," Business First
of Buffalo, December 16, 2002 found at
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2002/12/16/story2.html .
8. John Pucher and John L. Renne, "Socioeconomics of Urban Travel: Evidence
from the 2001 NHTS," Transportation Quarterly 57 (Summer 2003): 49-77.
9. U.S. Census Bureau, Facts for Feature: African American History Month,
February 2002," (January 17, 2002) found at
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2002/cb02ff01.html.
10. John R. Logan, Separate and Unequal: The Neighborhood Gap of Blacks and
Hispanics in Metropolitan America. Albany, NY: Lewis Mumford Center for
Comparative Urban and Regional Research, University of Albany (October 13,
2002).
11. William H. Frey, Census 2000 Shows large Black Return to the South,
Reinforcing the Region's 'White-Black' Demographic profile," PSC Research
Report No. 01-473, Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social
Research, University of Michigan (May 2001) also found at
http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/papers/rr01-473.pdf.
12. Qin Shen, "Location Characteristics of Inner-City Neighborhoods and
Employment Accessibility of Low-wage Workers," Environment and Planning B:
Planning and Design 25 (1998): 345-365.
13. Robert E. Lang, Office Sprawl: The Evolving Geography of Business.
Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, Center on Urban & Metropolitan
Policy, October 2000 found at
http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/officesprawl/lang.pdf.
14. American Lung Association, State of the Air 2002 Report, Executive
Summary, www.lungusa.org/air2001/summary02.html .
15. James S. Cannon, "Statement of James S. Cannon on Behalf of INFORM,
Inc." Testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Washington, DC (July
10, 2001).
16. Dee R. Wernette and Leslie A. Nieves, "Breathing polluted air:
Minorities are disproportionately exposed," EPA Journal 18 (March/April,
1992): 16-17.
17. American Lung Association, "Fact Sheet: Children and Air Pollution,"
(September 2000) found at
http://www.lungusa.org/air/children_factsheet99.html . Accessed December 1,
2002.
18. McConnell, R, Berhane, K, Gilliland, F, London, SJ, Islam, T, Gauderman,
WJ, Avol, E, Margolis, HG, and Peters, JM, "Asthma in Exercising Children
Exposed to Ozone: A Cohort Study. The Lancet, 359 (2002): 386-391.
19. U.S. EPA, "Review of National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone,
Assessment of Scientific and Technical Information," OAQPS Staff Paper.
Research Triangle Park, NC: EPA, 1996; Ozkaynk, H, Spengler, JD, O'Neil, M,
Xue, J, Zhou, H, Gilbert, K, and Ramstrom, S. "Ambient Ozone Exposure and
Emergency Hospital Admissions and Emergency Room Visits for Respiratory
Problems in Thirteen U.S. Cities," in American Lung Association, Breathless:
Air Pollution and Hospital Admissions/Emergency Room Visits in 13 Cities.
Washington, DC: American Lung Association, 1996; American Lung Association,
Out of Breath: Populations-at-Risk to Alternative Ozone Levels. Washington,
DC: American Lung Association, 1995.
20. Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts, "Air Pollution Fatalities Now Exceed Traffic
Fatalities 3 to 1," Earth Policy Institute, September 17, 2002,
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update17.htm .
21. Richard J. Jackson and Chris Kochtitzky, Creating a healthy environment:
The impact of the built environment on public health. Atlanta: Centers for
Disease Control, 2001.
22. D. Bollier. How smart growth can stop sprawl: A briefing guide for
funders. Washington, DC: Essential Books, 1998.
23. Centers for Disease Control. Death rates from 72 selected causes by
year, age groups, race, and sex: United States 1979-98. Hyattsville, MD:
National Center for Health Statistics, 2000.
24. Karen Scott Collins, Dora L. Hughes, Michelle M. Doty, Brett L. Ives,
Jennifer N. Edwards, and Katie Tenney, Diverse Communities, Common Concerns:
Assessing Health Care Quality for Minority Americans. A report from The
Commonwealth Fund (March 2002) found on the Fund website at
http://www.cmwf.org/programs/minority/collins_diversecommunities_523.pdf.
25. Joanna D. Underwood, "Weaning Oil Dependence Helps World Security," The
Earth Times November 8, 2001.
26. David R. Segal, "Alumni Perspective: U.S. Forces in Iraq – Whose Lives
were on the Line," Binghamton Alumni Journal 11 (Summer 2003) found on the
State University of New York at Binghamton website at
http://web.naplesnews.com/03/04/naples/d928607a.htm; Thomas Hargrove
"Conflict with Iraq: Study Shows 20 Percent of War Deaths are Blacks,"
Naples Daily News April 12, 2003 found at
http://web.naplesnews.com/03/04/naples/d928607a.htm.




-- 
Bus Riders Union
672 East Broadway St.
Vancouver BC
V5T 1X6
http://bru.vcn.bc.ca/
604-215-2775
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