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Entries tagged: Equity Summit

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the fourth national Equity Summit in Detroit. Hosted by PolicyLink, the four-day event brought together nearly 3,000 leaders of the movement to share their visions and advance a policy agenda to address equity in our communities. Among those present were advocates, elected officials, agency staff and foundations working on sustainable and equitable transportation.

Nearly every breakout session included a piece on public transportation with some reference to the role of biking and walking in addressing equity issues. What are the benefits of our transportation systems? Who benefits? Who is making these decisions? These are some of the questions that were asked and that inspired the vision coming out of the week.

Detroit is a city challenged with the task of overcoming an industrial fall-out. The car-pride of Michigan still carries strong, and partially as a result the transit system is in disrepair and there’s a serious lack of bike lanes.

A special Thursday-morning session featured Peter Rogoff, administrator for the Federal Transit Administration, who addressed the need to repair our nation’s crumbling transit systems but there is also a need to ensure safe connections to bus and rail lines that are cut short or close early. The failure to provide pedestrian walkways and bike lanes that are accessible to people of all communities and provide key corridors to school, job, and opportunities is an equity issue that must be addressed.

In a country where traffic injuries and fatalities are at $200 billion, 11 percent of motor vehicle access deaths are pedestrians and bicyclists, and the societal costs of obesity is $117 billion, we must take a complete approach to transforming our transportation systems and it begins with the work of local advocates.

Many Alliance organizations, like the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and the Community Cycling Center, are leading the way in making sure all residents are at the table for these important discussions about the future of our streets and our communities. Thanks, in part, to an Advocacy Advance grant, the LACBC has hired a bilingual bicycle safety instructor. In Portland, the Community Cycling Center has helped establish bicycle committees at local public housing developments and committed to a “collaborative advocacy” model in its programming.

Moving forward, the Alliance will is certainly committed to raising up these best practices, compiling the best research on transportation equity, acting as an active partner in the Equity Caucus, and incorporating these issues into our 2012 programming, including Mutual Aid Calls and discussions at our Leadership Retreat.

In the meantime, we’re beginning to build an Equity section in our Resources Library. If you have items to share, please send them to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).