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Many climate policies adopt improving equity as a key objective. A key challenge is that policies often conceive of equity in terms of individuals but introduce strategies that focus on spatially coarse administrative areas. For example, the Justice40 Initiative in the United States requires 518 diverse federal programs to prioritize funds for “disadvantaged” census tracts. This strategy is largely untested and contrasts with the federal government’s definition of equity as the “consistent and systematic fair, just and impartial treatment of all individuals (Executive Office of the President, Federal Register, 2021).” How well does the Justice40 approach improve equity in climate adaptation outcomes acrossindividuals? We analyze this question using a case study of a municipality that faces repetitive flooding and struggles to effectively manage these risks due to limited resources and public investment. We find that the way the Federal Emergency Management Agency implements the Justice40 Initiative can be an obstacle to promoting equity in household flood-risk outcomes. For example, in this case study, ensuring the majority of benefits accrue in “Justice40 Communities” does not reduce risk for the most burdened households, does not reduce risk-burden inequality, and produces net costs. In contrast, we design simple funding rules based on household risk burden that cost-effectively target the most burdened households, reduce risk-burden inequality, and accrue large net benefits. Our findings suggest that “disadvantaged community” indicators defined at coarse spatial scales face the risk of poorly capturing many climate risks and can be ineffective for meeting equity promises about climate-related investments.
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From state of the practice to state of the art: improving equity analysis in regional transportation plans
Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in the United States develop long-range Regional transportation plans (RTPs), which are required in order for municipalities to receive federal funds for transportation projects. Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires MPOs to submit an equity analysis to demonstrate that their RTPs do not discriminate against protected groups. This paper (i) identifies and evaluates the current range of practices in transportation equity analysis in RTPs for the largest MPOs, and (ii) provides practical steps for MPOs to improve their equity analyses. To identify the range of practices, we assess how MPOs define equity goals, identify populations of concern, integrate their equity analysis into their RTP documents, use community input, and whether they meet or exceed legal standards. Additionally, we evaluate how MPOs use travel forecasting models in their equity analyses and the quality of their models; we also describe practical steps for MPOs to improve their equity analyses along this dimension. We find significant variability in how MPOs define fairness in their equity goals, define populations of concern, use community input, and use travel forecasting models in their equity analyses. For example, several MPOs conduct in-depth equity analyses using advanced travel forecasting models, synthetic populations of households, and various classifications of populations of concern. In contrast, other MPOs only display the locations of RTP projects on a map with geographies labeled as disadvantaged or non-disadvantaged. We also find that MPOs with more restrictive state requirements than federal guidelines produce higher quality equity analyses—an important finding considering the Biden Administration’s review of Executive Order 12898, a potential avenue to alter guidelines to improve MPO equity analyses.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2125560
- PAR ID:
- 10524026
- Publisher / Repository:
- Transportation
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Transportation
- ISSN:
- 0049-4488
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Equity Accessibility Title VI Regional transportation plans Metropolitan planning organizations
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-023-10439-4
