Transportation Apartheid

Abstract

Transportation policy in the United States has historically been the locus of social change, playing a signifcant role in social policy – like the 20th century Civil Rights movement – and economic policy. This research suggests that current transportation policymaking practices favor certain groups, primarily automobile users and suburban commuters, at the expense of other groups, mostly poor and urban minority populations who rely on public transportation modes. Transportation policy in the United States is socially unjust because it does not reward the costs and benefits of public policy equally; current policies have negative implications for the efficacy of democracy. Public administrators are poised to play a significant role in ameliorating such injustices, and this research suggests a few ways all public agencies and their employees can contribute to a more just transportation policymaking environment.