Our history of infrastructure inequity runs long and deep. It encompasses a monolithic, car-centric culture that often purposefully isolates poor and minority neighborhoods.
So, Jim McDonough, Commissioner of Ramsey County, Minn., recalled a time in 1955 when a spanking new highway carved through the heart of a thriving African American community in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Speaking at the recent Building Inclusive Infrastructure conference, McDoungh explained how residents were given a 30-day notice to evacuate, leaving “open wounds” with “distrust and fear” that lingers to this day.
(This situation was common throughout the United States. For instance, Anthony Foxx, Transportation Secretary during the Obama administration, had his childhood neighborhood fractured by highways, an experience that guided much of his transportation policy.)
Given this history, in the early 2000s, when a light-rail project was planned in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, residents of this same black community fought it, said McDonough. They had good reason, since more affluent, and whiter, neighborhoods could expect light-rail stations every half mile, while the black neighborhood was to receive stations only every mile. At one meeting, McDonough recalled a resident saying “we will get nowhere on the Central Corridor light-rail line until you apologize for what happened in 1955.”
Fortunately, the situation ended happily, when the Obama administration changed funding rules that allowed three additional light rail stations to be constructed, fully serving all communities. But what if the federal government hadn’t been so forthcoming?
Local governments work for an inclusive transit future
Inclusiveness in infrastructure means going beyond the physical apparatus, seeking the human touch, gathering input from as many communities as possible. It also means acknowledging past planning decisions that have divided communities by wealth, race, and access to transit and other critical infrastructure.
These were the principle themes at Building Inclusive Infrastructure, which followed up on the work of Brookings Fellow Adie Tomer, as he discussed in a series of articles.
For Tomer, the one statistic that stands out is that necessary housing and infrastructure bills—including transportation and utilities—exceeds income for the lowest quintile. This means that millions of Americans have a horrendous juggling act between food, housing, and other bills. Our society’s failure to provide transit access alongside affordable housing presents a daily crisis, which may mean multiple buses and a two-hour daily trip to work, if not unemployment or even homelessness.
Redlining and missed opportunities
Racial exclusion has a long history in America. “Redlining” was government policy that kept black people and other minorities out of the most desirable neighborhoods, with effects that continue to this day.
This racism has economic costs. Achieving racial parity would boost the economy of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region by some $32 billion by 2040, said Shauen V.T. Pearce, director of economic development and inclusion policy for the City of Minneapolis. She pointed out that the region is one of the most prosperous in the United States, but has some of the worst equity gaps based on race, age, and inequality.
Partly due to the legacy of neighborhoods without transit access, there are over 100,000 job vacancies in the region, she said. Furthermore, small local businesses owned by people of color generate “three times more wealth in a community than . . . would a Walmart coming into that same block.”
But in today’s economy, transit connections are not enough. High-speed Internet access is a necessity, but is inaccessible for many people.
“Digital redlining is real,” said Angela Siefer, executive director, National Digital Inclusion Alliance. “There is not investment in poor neighborhoods.” This affects both urban and rural areas, making it difficult, for instance, for students to finish homework assignments that assume high-speed access.
A smart phone with a limited data plan is insufficient for numerous activities those of us in access-rich areas now take for granted, from banking to applying for jobs to working from home. And digital access has become vital for fully partaking of transit (and now bikeshare) networks, finding out arrival times and best options, calling a ride-hailing service, and so on.
Go local and bridge divides
The solutions to exclusion from transit and other infrastructure may seem unachievable in the current political environment. Yet progress is possible, particularly at the local level. Political engagement is surging and the consensus favoring transit is stronger than the partisan divisions of national politics would imply.
Indeed, 71 percent of transit referenda have passed since 2000, explained Brooks Rainwater of the National League of Cities. Because every community has a vision, federal funds should also be allocated in a way “as local as possible,” said Stephanie Gidigbi of the Healthy People & Thriving Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Access to resources provides communities an opportunity to shape their own needs, to build inclusive transportation. This is particularly true if previously marginalized communities are given voices in projects from beginning to end.
Still, success in creating inclusive transit means reaching out to political interests and groups that may not seem natural allies. The business community is often a strong ally, as is happening in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Mark Fisher, chief policy officer at Indy Chamber, pointed out the need to speak to suburban and rural leaders in his state of Indiana, where transit and inclusion have not always been a priority.
Furthermore, if transit boosts the urban economy, opportunity rises across the state. Pearce reinforces the point that inclusiveness means reaching out for new alliances, explaining that “our responsibility as people who work at a local level is to get rid of the urban-rural divide.”
Old history, new activism
But there’s another obstacle: Gidigbi describes a “trauma” in combination with “planning fatigue,” based on decades of racial exclusion, that can undermine good projects – like new bikeshare stations that prompt fears of rising rents – in marginalized communities.
Yet history can also be our friend. “In the black community . . . we have a legacy of actually being bicyclists,” as well as “owners, operators and educators” said Pearce. “We’ve actually used our bike trails and our park system as a way of reconnecting people to that history.”
None of these solutions will happen, however, without access to a broader array of voices. The traditional public meeting, where a dozen people show up to discuss a plan already approved behind the scenes, will no longer do. As Mobility Lab has discussed, voices from multiple communities must be actively sought out from early planning through project completion and beyond. Inclusion means reaching out to everyone in a continuing dialogue. It means breaking psychological and social barriers between communities, as well as physical ones.
Photo by Drew Jacksich on Flickr.