Environmental Justice (EJ)
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 Environmental
Justice Report. The report, available in .PDF
format below, demonstrates our progress to date with EJ
compliance. The document delineates concentrations
of minority and low-income populations in our region,
provides an overview of public participation activities,
evaluates our plans and programs against EJ principles,
and describes monitoring tools used to measure our
success with EJ implementation.
Early last year, we moved into a second phase of our EJ
analysis. Our Accessibility and Mobility Report,
released in January 2007, assesses the transportation
challenges faced by other constrained
communities in our region. These Transportation
Justice (TJ) groups include the
elderly, the disabled, and zero-car households.
Tackling the transportation issues faced by our TJ
communities from a universal design perspective,
the report argues that practical,
cost-effective measures (improved access to bus stops,
greater frequencies of fixed-route buses to and from key
locations, and enhanced walkability within and around
“targeted” neighborhoods) 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
An update to the 2003 EJ study is underway.
Returning to our region's low-income and minority
groups, the updated plan will re-designate constrained
areas, provide an enhanced technical analysis, and
create a path forward to better engage our region's EJ
communities.
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. The
maps contain their corresponding census block group IDs.
If you would like to view the identified neighborhoods
in Google Earth,
please download this
zipped file. The KML files it houses may be
opened up with the software.
Environmental Justice
Neighborhoods (low-income and minority groups)
Transportation Justice Neighborhoods (elderly,
disabled, and zero-car households)
Transportation Justice Study
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 predominately black, low-income
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 will oversee a traffic circulation
study in the coming year.
Southbridge community members point out
transportation issues
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
Boston MPO Environmental Justice Homepage
San Francisco's MTC Environmental Justice Report
Environmental Justice Scorecard
05/09/2008
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