Environmental Justice (EJ)
- Our EJ Analysis was presented at the 2009
URISA
Conference. (PDF,
8MB)
- The 2009 Environmental Justice Report has been
endorsed. Download a copy today! (PDF,
11MB)
Introduction
Environmental Justice is an initiative to ensure that
federal funds are not used in ways that would
discriminate against minority and low income populations.
It is an outgrowth of
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which stated:
"No person in the United States shall, on the ground of
race, color, or national origin be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be
subjected to discrimination under any program or
activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
In response to a Federal mandate to incorporate
Environmental Justice (EJ) considerations into our
planning process, we developed the 2003 EJ Report. The report, available in .PDF
format below, demonstrated our progress to date with EJ
compliance.
Four years later, we moved into a second phase of EJ
analysis. Our Accessibility and Mobility Report,
released in January 2007, assesses the transportation
challenges faced by the elderly, the disabled, and
zero-car households. Tackling the issues faced by
these Transportation Justice (TJ)
communities from a universal design perspective,
the report argued that practical, cost-effective
measures (improved access to bus stops, greater
frequencies of fixed-route buses to and from key
locations, and enhanced walkability) will work best to
improve mobility and combat isolation.
Senior transit patrons
await the arrival of DART's Route 10 along Delaware
Avenue in Wilmington
A new EJ report, adopted in March 2009, revisits
the issue of transportation equity in the Wilmington
region. Returning to our low-income and minority
groups, the 2009 EJ Report provides a fresh,
comprehensive analysis of the burdens and inequities
these communities face. It makes practical
recommendations to break infrastructural and policy
barriers. The study also considers ways to improve the
public participation of limited English proficient and
low literate groups. Key highlights of the 2009 EJ
Report include:
-
Identification of EJ areas
-
Trends in project
equity
-
Transit analysis: accessibility of bus stops,
supermarket and employment connectivity
-
Non-motorized analysis: accessibility of
pathways and bike routes, crash data summary, field
survey with over 500 individual pedestrian
recommendations
-
Equity of newsletter distribution
-
Identification of areas with limited
English-speaking and low-literacy populations
Bill Swiatek gets some
help from Latin American Community Center campers
identifying pedestrian issues in Hilltop
- 2009 Transportation Equity Report: An
Environmental Justice Study of the WILMAPCO Region
-
Executive Summary
-
Full Report
(11 MB)
- 2007
Accessibility and Mobility Report: A Transportation
Justice Study of the WILMAPCO Region
-
Executive Summary
- Full
Report
(3 MB)
-
2003 Environmental Justice
Report: Transportation Equity Analysis for the
WILMAPCO Region
- Full Report
(2 MB)
Maps
Click on the links below to see which neighborhoods
we have identified as having significant or moderate
concentrations of EJ and TJ populations. As
discussed in the reports above, these areas were
identified through an analysis of census data.
Environmental Justice
Neighborhoods (low-income and minority groups)
-
Significant EJ Areas (Google)
-
Moderate EJ Areas (Google)
-
All EJ Areas (PDF)
Transportation Justice Neighborhoods (elderly,
disabled, and zero-car households)
-
Significant TJ Areas (Google)
-
Moderate TJ Areas (Google)
-
All TJ Areas (PDF)
Walkability Recommendations
A highlight of both the 2009 EJ Report and the 2007
TJ Report are their walkability sections.
Fieldwork in EJ and TJ neighborhoods resulted in
hundreds of recommendations to improve pedestrian
accessibility.
- 2009 EJ Pedestrian Field Survey (Google)
- 2007 TJ Pedestrian Field Survey (Google)
Recommendations to improve a dangerous
intersection near Seller's Park (Google Maps)
EJ Initiatives
WILMAPCO consistently strives to better
incorporate Environmental Justice into all aspects of
our planning process. Perhaps most importantly is the strong
incorporation of EJ and TJ into our
project prioritization process. Transportation
projects that fall within EJ and TJ areas receive points
within our technical scoring system, with the hope to
streamline many towards implementation.
Our ongoing involvement with
the South Wilmington Special Area Management Plan (SAMP)
also exemplifies our commitment to EJ. The plan centers on the re-development
of Southbridge, a black, working-class
Wilmington neighborhood. Partnering with the Delaware’s
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental
Protection (DNREC)—the lead agency—and other
governmental and civic groups, WILMAPCO staff have
offered countless hours of staff time, data, and
expertise. We produced a
Walkable
Community Report for the neighborhood in the early
summer of 2007 and completed a
Traffic Circulation
Study in 2008. Today, we are working with the
community and other agencies to implement the
recommendations in the neighborhood's circulation study.
Southbridge community members point out
transportation problems
EJ Links
Follow some of the links below to learn more about
Environmental Justice, or to see how this initiative is
being addressed by other agencies and MPOs.
FHWA Overview of Transportation and Environmental
Justice
EPA Environmental Justice Homepage
Center
for Community Change: Transportation Equity
EJ Resource Center at
Clark Atlanta University
Baltimore Region
Environmental Justice Project
DVRPC Environmental Justice Homepage
San Francisco's MTC Environmental Justice Report
Environmental Justice Scorecard
10/07/2009
|
