Transportation Reports and Resources
Urban Habitat's Past Publications
2008: Filling the Gaps: Ensuring Lifeline Service in all of the Bay Area’s Low-Income Communities. This independent evaluation has found the Lifeline Transportation Program- the only Bay Area wide program aimed at improving transit for low-income communities- has fallen far short of its original goals.
2007: Transit-Oriented for All: The Case for Mixed-Income Transit-Oriented Communities in the Bay Area. This Great Communities report assesses the region’s potential for income-diverse communities around transit stations and outlines implementation tools. The paper is intended to spur dialog, enrich policy debates, and advance the practice of mixed-income transit-oriented development.
2006: MTC, Where Are Our Buses? This report details community demands that the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) end funding policies by which it maintains “separate and unequal” transit systems. The release of the report coincides with the 50th anniversary of the end of the year-long campaign to win integrated bus service in Montgomery, Ala.
2005: Moving the Movement. This issue of Race, Poverty and the Environment knits together an analysis of transportation equity that can help build the movement for civil rights and environmental justice. Featuring contributions from leading practitioners in the field and a cross-section of voices from the grassroots, it paints a picture of a transportation and land use system that harms urban quality of life; damages the planetary environment; promotes wars for resource domination; and supports racism and class-based segregation.
2005: How Did We Get Here? A regional history of the Bay Area. This beautifully illustrated comic book provides a vivid description of how's and why's of segregation, gentrification, transportation and land use in the San Francisco Bay Area. Unfortunately, this publication is not available electronically.
1999: Crash Course in Bay Area Transportation Investment. An analysis of the social equity and environmental implications of regional transportation spending. Extensive research reveals that highways and rail serving suburban commuters are favored over inner city transit systems with higher rider-ship. Comprehensively illustrated with computer generated maps and tables. Unfortunately, this report is not available electronically.
Transit Blogs and News
| Living in the O |
Transbay Blog |
Streetsblog |
A Better Oakland |
Allies
Public Advocates: Public Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing and transit equity.
Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency: (BOSS) is an organization committed to helping homeless, poor and disabled people in our community of Alameda County to achieve health and self sufficiency.
ACORN: ACORN members are proud to organize for social justice and better neighborhoods.
Transform: TransForm works to create world-class public transportation and walkable communities in the Bay Area and beyond. We build diverse coalitions, influence policy, and develop innovative programs to improve the lives of all people and protect the environment.
Genesis: Genesis is an emerging multi-issue, multi-racial faith-based network of regional organizations dedicated to building a powerful and effective statewide, grassroots movement that will change public policy for racial, social, and economic justice.
Los Angeles Bus Riders Union: Recognized nationally for its historic civil rights Consent Decree and signature creative tactics, the Bus Riders Union is a multiracial dynamo of 200 active members, 3,000 dues-paying members, and 50,000 supporters on the buses of L.A. The BRU has literally saved public transportation in Los Angeles and become the country's largest grassroots mass transit advocacy organization. From our focus on mass transit, the BRU carries out a wide, multi-issue progressive agenda based in comprehensive principles of unity and strong membership agreement.
Resources by Topic
Transportation Justice
2003: Environmental Justice & Transportation: A Citizen's Handbook
Various approaches to environmental justice are discussed, along with steps in the planning process when citizen involvement is particularly effective, suggestions for how environmental justice can be incorporated into a project, and legal requirements for environmental justice.
Bus Centered Urban Transportation
2009: The Bus Riders Union Transit Model: Why a Bus Centered System Will Best Serve U.S. Cities.
Urban planner Ryan Snyder has taken on the bus versus rail debate since the reincarnation of rail in Los Angeles over twenty years ago. His thesis: if rail fails to meet the most basic planning thresholds to warrant its construction in Los Angeles—the most auto-centered, sprawling city in the nation—then it cannot work in any other similar urban setting.
Metropolitan Transportation Commission
2009: 2035 Regional Transportation Plan
The RTPs is a 25 year plan that contains the region's transportation priorities. This planning process allocates billions of dollars, making it the place where transportation justice makes the biggest wins or losses.
2001: Lifeline Transit Network For the 2001 Regional Transportation Plan For the San Fracisco Bay Area
In this report the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) staff identified gaps in the Lifeline Transportation Network (LTN), the system of buses and trains that low-income, transit-dependent communities use to get to jobs, school and other essential destinations. The MTC then created the Lifeline Transportation Program to fund projects to close these gaps, but have since backed away their commitment. As of 2008, only 5 of the 39 funded Lifeline projects have actually increased regular transit service to further connect the network.
Civil Rights
2010: In the first action of its kind, the Obama Administration pulled $70 million in federal stimulus funds from a proposed Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) project due to multiple civil rights violations by the Bay Area Rapid Transit district (BART). The strong action underscores a recent promise made in the President’s State of the Union address to continue “prosecuting civil rights violations.” The FTA Federal Transit Administration Chief Peter Rogoff today [February 12] sent a letter to BART and MTC rejecting BART’s corrective action plan to address Title VI violations found in an investigation prompted by a complaint from Urban Habitat and allies.
- FTA Letter to BART February 12th Pulling $70 M
- FTA Letter to MTC February 3rd Asking for Civil Rights Oversight
2009: The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Office of Civil Rights is conducting an on-site compliance review of BART’s entire Title VI program based in part on a complaint filed by transit policy experts and community advocacy groups. That complaint charged that in the rush to build the controversial Oakland Airport Connector (OAC), BART officials were evading well-established civil rights obligations.
2009: Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transportation Commission: Court documents
On April 19, 2005, Public Advocates and a coalition including bus riders, labor, and civil rights advocates filed a federal class action lawsuit against the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission on behalf of AC Transit bus riders of color. The suit alleges that MTC violates federal and state civil rights laws by channeling funds in favor of BART and Caltrain commuters while denying equitable funding to AC Transit bus riders of color.
Richard Marantonio and Angelica Jongco from Public Advocates examine civil rights transportation cases.
Health
2008: Life and Death from Unnatural Causes: Health and Social Inequity in Alameda County.
This report takes an in-depth look at transportation related health inequities and underlying social inequities in Alameda County based on local data. Produced with the help of Public Advocates Staff Attorney Guillermo Mayer.
SB 375: Redesigning Communities to Reduce Greenhouse Gases
2009: Joint Policy Committee: Policies for the Bay Area’s Implementation of Senate Bill 375
This document lays out the 7 policies that the Joint Policy Committee (Made up of the Association of Bay Area Governments, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Bay Conservation and Development Commission and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission) has adopted to comply with SB 375.
Transportation and Housing Costs
2009: Bay Area Burden Report and Cost Calculator:
This report examines the combined transportation and housing costs for households in the Bay Are. Try the calculator to see what the average costs are for different neighboods. Notice the high percentage of household income spent on transportation and housing in low income neighborhoods across the region.
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