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* Environmental Justice Report for the 2001 Regional Transportaiton Plan for the San Francisco Bay Area (PDF)
At the Local Level
MTC is taking a grass-roots approach to identifying barriers to mobility and working to overcome them. With its Community-Based Transportation Planning Program, MTC has created a collaborative planning process that involves residents in minority and low-income Bay Area communities, community and faith-based organizations that serve them, transit operators, county congestion management agencies (CMAs) and MTC.
Launched in 2002, the Community-Based Transportation Planning Program evolved out of two reports completed in 2001 - the Lifeline Transportation Network Report and the Environmental Justice Report.
The Lifeline Report identified travel needs in low-income Bay Area communities and recommended community-based transportation planning as a way for communities to set priorities and evaluate options for filling transportation gaps. Likewise, the Environmental Justice Report identified the need for MTC to support local planning efforts in low-income communities throughout the region.
MPO actions to address EJ -
Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Whether in response to non-compliance determinations, litigation, or because it’s just “the right thing to do”, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) have become increasingly involved in identifying, providing special outreach, and engaging environmental justice populations in the development of transportation plans and programs. Resources on this topic include the following:
Regional transportation plan gets cold response from feds, state board
By Jim Redden
The Portland Tribune, Feb 13, 2007 (28 Reader comments)
For months Metro leaders have said that the old way of solving transportation problems no longer works.
Led by Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder, officials at the regional planning agency repeatedly have said that building new highways is no longer the solution for the area’s growing congestion problems.
Instead, Burkholder and the others have said that the Regional Transportation Plan to be adopted next year will stress such land-use goals as encouraging people to live closer to where they work and shop, in part by encouraging more mass transit.