Street Spirit April 2006

Transportation Justice Is Derailed by MTC Inaction

by Bob Mills

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) met on March 22, 2006, to decide whether to adopt the long-awaited Environmental Justice principles proposed to reform public transit in the East Bay. These principles would help meet the needs of low-income and minority communities by assuring that the burdens of transportation decisions by the MTC don't fall heavily on them, and the benefits of transportation investments are not denied them.

Grounded in law, these principles are not optional. They are based on President Clinton's executive order on Environmental Justice, on the 1997 Dept. of Transportation Order on Environmental Justice, and on Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Over the last year, more than 100 witnesses have spoken in favor of this proposal, including the executive director of MTC, who went on record as supporting these principles.

As the MTC meeting approached, it appeared almost certain that some action would be taken to adopt the principles of ecological justice; but the proposal fell flat, dashing the expectations of advocates, low-income transit users, and activists with the Transportation Justice coalition.

In previous Street Spirit articles on public transportation issues, I elucidated what must be done to create justice for low-income people using buses and public transit. It is vital that these Environmental Justice principles be adopted, not only because it is the right thing to do and the legally required thing to do; but even more so, because it is a basic human requirement of justice and fairness.

The poor and people of color are being denied full equity in public transportation; and they are being relegated to an inferior level of public transit - still separate and unequal after all these years. The issues brought before the MTC have a great impact on the lives of those who must use public transportation. The decision-making bodies must represent the true interests of poor people and people of color.

Once again, a vast civil rights struggle is under way to fight for these principles. In the struggle for desegregation, when the bus boycotts were at the height of national attention, the poor demanded not to be excluded. Today, the poor, the disabled, and people of color are being denied access and representation in the MTC.

Because the MTC did not adopt the four principles on March 22, they demonstrated that they prefer to continue as a racist body unconcerned about the poor and the disabled. Two years ago, I was shocked by the fact that the MTC board has nearly no one to represent the interests of people of color, and does even less to represent the physically challenged. No one on their board comes from the poorest communities.

So, is it any wonder that there should be little regard for such important matters as affordable fares for the poor? Let alone any serious concern about the environmental impact their policies of investment will have on poorer neighborhoods?

So the Minority Citizen's Advisory Committee (MCAC) worked for more than a year on a proposal to drastically change all that by restructuring the MTC so it would better represent the needs of public transit users, and seriously look at the issues of equity in setting fares.

The MCAC has four simple principles:

1. Create an open and transparent public participation process that empowers low-income communities and communities of color to participate in decision-making that affects them.

2. Collect accurate and current data essential to defining and understanding the presence and extent of inequities, if any, in transportation funding based on race and income.

3. MTC should change its discretionary investment decisions and actions to mitigate identified inequities.

4. Ensure that adverse or potentially adverse disproportionate project impacts on low-income and minority communities are addressed and mitigated by project sponsors prior to MTC project or funding approval.

The MTC turned the principles over to their legal counsel who gutted them to the point of erasing their effectiveness in addressing the issues of injustice, racism, lack of transparency, and lack of full participation in decision-making by poor people and people of color. The issue was tabled for the next meeting for further research.

It is essential for MTC to stop the "word-smithing," as one commissioner put it, and pass these essential principles without further debate and deliberate attempts to water them down. Action on these principles is long overdue.

MTC board members have heard enough testimony and commentary over the last two years to realize that it is time to put these principles to work for better and improved transportation.

It is time to stop shutting the poor and communities of color out of the decision-making process. It is time to stop delaying the day that justice finally arrives at every bus stop in the East Bay.

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