MTC Failures Spark Review of Fairness Practices

New Civil Rights Investigation Probes Agency Role in Airport Connector Project
 
San Francisco, CA –The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has rejected claims by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) that it is not responsible for civil rights compliance by Bay Area transit operators, and opened a new investigation into MTC’s civil rights practices. The probe comes just six months after FTA withdrew $70 million in federal stimulus funds from BART after finding it had not complied with a range of civil rights protections.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin by recipients of federal financial assistance. As the Bay Area’s regional transportation agency, MTC distributes funds to area transit agencies. It must ensure, and formally certify, that transportation planning and funding decisions in the nine-county region meet all civil rights requirements.

“MTC’s systematic failure to make civil rights a priority in Bay Area transportation spending has now been unmasked,” said Richard A. Marcantonio, Managing Attorney for nonprofit law firm and advocacy group Public Advocates Inc. “FTA’s action confirms that MTC will now have to play by the rules.”
MTC director Steve Heminger took the position in a March letter to FTA that MTC “is relieved of the responsibility of ensuring compliance with FTA grant requirements” with respect to most federal grant programs, and that it would be “unnecessary and duplicative” to monitor the compliance of transit operators, including BART, under the remaining programs.

In its August 12 letter to MTC director Heminger, FTA’s Office of Civil Rights rejected MTC’s contention that it is exempt from civil rights monitoring requirements: “FTA remains concerned that we found BART, a subrecipient of MTC, out of compliance with Title VI in 2009. This fact suggests to us that MTC has not adequately ensured BART’s Title VI compliance.” FTA’s letter asks MTC to respond with information and documents within 30 days, including “[a] description of the actions MTC took to investigate the Title VI complaint filed by Public Advocates against BART” in 2009.

The latest FTA action follows a complaint that civil rights advocates filed against MTC with the FTA in June. The new complaint was filed by Public Advocates on behalf of Urban Habitat and Genesis, two of the groups that filed the complaint that led to FTA’s action against BART. It charges that MTC’s failure to monitor civil rights compliance “played a critical role in BART’s failure” to meet its civil rights obligations.

In practical terms, MTC’s failure to consider civil rights means that it perpetuates a lopsided allocation of resources that favors wealthier, whiter rail transit riders over low-income bus riders of color. The agency has slated 94% of the capital  funding in its expansion plan for rail and only 5% for buses--though bus operators all over the Bay Area are slashing services in response to substantial deficits.

“After the last round of service cuts, friends and neighbors now have to wait for their bus for an hour, with no place to sit, and in other cases now have to walk nearly a mile to get to the stop,” said Carmen Angelandretti, AC Transit bus rider and member of Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency.  “For bus riders, this means arriving late to work, fewer trips to the store, missing school, and missing doctors’ appointments– losing out on the very basic things of life.”

Bob Allen, Transportation Program Director at Urban Habitat, points out that, besides being the law, making fairness a priority makes sense from the perspective of wise planning. “When agencies take a close look to ensure projects are nondiscriminatory, and consider alternatives, we get not only fairer projects, but smarter and leaner ones that offer more bang for the buck. It’s long past time for MTC to get on board.”

“Millions of transportation dollars are flowing into our region, but all too often the residents who depend on transit the most are excluded from the benefits,” said Mahasin Abdul-Salaam, co-chair of the Genesis Transportation Task Force and a resident of East Oakland. “Before making decisions on how valuable taxpayer funds are spent, MTC needs to make sure that all communities benefit equally from these investments.”

Read the complaint and letters.
Learn more about FTA pulling stimulus funds from BART.
Learn more about the class action civil-rights lawsuit against MTC.
For more information visit, www.publicadvocates.org