SSC2011_Russ Adams PPT

Transportation Equity
Alliance for Metropolitan Stability
612-332-4471
russ@metrostability.org
www.metrostability.org

We are a coalition of advocacy organizations that work together to advance racial, economic and environmental justice in the way growth and development happens in our region.
We support grassroots organizing campaigns that demonstrate how the people, places and issues of the Twin Cities are interconnected – and interdependent.

HUD Sustainable Communities Grant: Community Engagement Team

Bottineau Transitway
Approx $900 M
Northstar Commuter Rail
$317 M ( + additional stations)
Corridors of Opportunity
Central Corridor LRT
Approx $957 M
Gateway Corridor
Approx $750 M
Hiawatha LRT
$715 M
South West LRT
Approx $1.2 B
Cedar Ave. BRT
Approx $256 M

Communities will be grappling with how to optimize the benefits of transitway corridor development for the next 10 – 25+ years
Who Decides & Who Benefits from these publicly subsidized projects?

Equitable Community Engagement:
Bring people and community groups in early for authentic participation in the transitway planning & decision making process to solve problems.

Community Engagement Team:
www.engagetc.org

CASE STUDIES: Twin Cities Transportation Equity

KEY QUESTION:
How can Transitway planning, station area designs, and related development be done in a way that is INCLUSIVE OF & EQUITABLE TOWARDS everyone, including members of nearby Environmental Justice communities?

CASE STUDY #1: CENTRAL CORRIDOR LRT
The Stops For Us Campaign

University Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota

Coalition Partners included:
Aurora/St. Anthony Community Development Corporation (ASANDC)
Community Stabilization Project
District Councils Collaborative of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Hmong Organizing Program, TakeActionMN
ISAIAH
Jewish Community Action
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
Transit for Livable Communities
Housing Preservation Project (HPP)
University United

HISTORY MATTERS

Planners can start by asking the right questions

Maps Matter …

Title VI – Civil Rights Act
"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."
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Retrieved from http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/ej2.htm

Environmental Justice
"Each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations.“
Executive Order 12898, Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations, 1994
“Safety and mobility are two of the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT's) top priorities. Achieving environmental justice is another undeniable mission of the agency.”
Retrieved fromhttp://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/ej2.htm

What is Environmental Justice?
There are 3 fundamental environmental justice principles:
Environmental Justice Communities Exist, and we must prevent “disproportionate impacts” to them, including social & economic effects.
1. To avoid, minimize, or mitigate disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects, including social and economic effects, on minority populations and low-income populations.
2. To ensure the full and fair participation by all potentially affected communities in the transportation decision-making process.
Who Decides? Community Engagement process must include affected communities
3. To prevent the denial of, reduction in, or significant delay in the receipt of benefits by minority and low-income populations.
Who Benefits? The managing agency must protect the rights of minority and low-income communities to equally benefit from the project.
[ from FHWA FTA Environmental Justice http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/ej2000.htm]

The Community Argued:
There were distinct environmental justice populations within the Central section that were not properly identified within the EIS
City of St. Paul, Ramsey County & other public officials and their Planning Staff worked with Community Groups to resolve this issue.

Grassroots groups ranging from Asian shopkeepers to disabled residents clamored for the extra stops, and found a friend in Rogoff. He took it up as a matter of civil rights because of the low-income and minority communities who live along the line.
… while attending a transit conference last fall in Boston. He said he was cornered by a handful of Twin Cities advocates who spotted him while he was ordering coffee.
"Those were the people who found in me in line in Starbucks," he said.
Find Allies in High Places.
Minnesota Public Radio
March 12, 2010
- Laura Yuen
FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff

New Federal Performance Measures
FTA has revised the New Starts evaluation criteria, by balancing the Cost Effectiveness Index (CEI) with other social, economic and environmental factors:
Cost Effectiveness Index - 20%
Land Use - 20%
Economic Development - 20%
Mobility - 20%
Environmental Benefits - 10%
Operating Efficiencies - 10%
Rogoff: the Central Corridor project became the poster child of why the [CEI] policy needed to be changed.

Central Corridor Final Map

Don’t Let Them Tell You It’s Impossible

Community Summit Vision
To be successful, the light rail line must not only improve mobility, but must also serve as a catalyst to strengthen and enhance existing and future neighborhoods, workforces and businesses along the line.
Saint Paul &
Minneapolis
Community Summit,
March, 2009

CASE STUDY #2:
HIRE Minnesotawww.hiremn.org
HIRE Minnesota Video
(Emmy-nominated production by MBTV)
http://blackmusicamerica.com/ummg/about_us.htm

The purpose of the HIRE Minnesota campaign is to seek equitable investments in infrastructure development.

In 2009, the Minnesota Department of Transportation only hired 3.4 percent women, &
only hired 6.0 percent people of color in the Twin Cities metro area
compared to a goal of 6 percent women
compared to a goal of 11 percent people of color

Our allies also wanted MnDOT to allocate the maximum amount allowed by federal law to job training programs for women and people of color (one-half of 1 percent).

For 18 Straight Years, MnDOT had failed to meet its hiring goals.

Infrastructure:Improve reporting on workforce demographics, increase transparency in how contracts are awarded and contractors’ workforce goals are enforced, and accountability for firms that do not meet workforce goals.
Green Jobs: Maximize jobs that are accessible to and inclusive of low-income people and people of color, that improve our energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, and that create long-term and family-sustaining career paths.

Minnesota’s alarmingly high unemployment rate

Employment gap (White-U.S.-born Black)
Source: Integrated Public Use Microdata Series from U.S. Census Bureau data.
Minnesota Compass graph
http://www.mncompass.org/economyworkforce/key-measures.php?km=Proportionadultsworking#7-3732-g

We started making our case at the State Legislature …

… we filled legislative hearing rooms …

… marching to MnDOT Headquarters …

… and demonstrated at MnDOT Contractor Work Sites.

We caught the attention of local officials and candidates for high office.
Mark Dayton

Young People Became Involved, Top Local Music Talent Performed at Our Rallies – Advocacy Was Fun Again!

So What Have We Accomplished?

MnDOT Hiring Goals:
A 45% Increase in women and workers of color during the 2010 construction season

MnDOT Hiring Goals 2011 Update:
Only one of the top fourteen projects is meeting or exceeding the goals for both women and minorities.
No other project is meeting the goal for women.
Seven of the remaining projects are meeting the goals for people of color, meaning that six projects are below the goals for both groups.

MnDOT Job Training Goals:
MnDOT committed to fully fund the federal highway job training program to identify, hire and train women and people of color for construction jobs - an investment of $6.2 million over 5 years.

Met Council Hiring Goals:
Met Council sets goal to hire 18 percent people of colorand 6 percent women to help build out of the Central Corridor Light Rail Project

Met Council Hiring Goals 2011 Update:
Both main contractors on CCLRT construction are at or above 17% for minority participation, while the goal is 18%
Both main contractors are above the 6% goal for women
Both contractors submitted projections at the beginning of the project indicating they would be above goal at this point
We cannot rely on the federal government because the hiring goals from a federal level are an incredulously low 2.9% (according to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance – OFCCP)
That number has been the same for more than 30 years

CASE STUDY #3: VAN WHITE STATION
SW LRT
This is about Access vs. Isolation

HarrisonNeighborhood
2010 Census:
African American 40%
S.E. Asian 17%
European American 28%
Latino 9%
37% of Harrison’s population is under the age of 18 & of those, 63% live in poverty.
Retrieved from City of Minneapolis Neighborhood Profiles: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/neighborhoods/harrison_population.asp#TopOfPage

Employment Rate:
Harrison overall 20.5%
African Americans 32%
City of Minneapolis 6.5% (1st Quarter, 2011)
Due to foreclosures, Harrison has lost 23% of the neighborhood while north Minneapolis in general has lost over 7000 persons.
Retrieved from City of Minneapolis Neighborhood Profiles: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/neighborhoods/harrison_population.asp#TopOfPage
HarrisonNeighborhood

HISTORY MATTERS: 1935 Planning Map

Bassett Creek Valley Master Plan
For over 10 years, Harrison Neighborhood Association and Northside residents have been planning for the redevelopment of Bassett Creek Valley to provide quality affordable housing, living wage jobs, avoid displacement, and build community assets that will directly benefit the current residents.
Over 650 residents and other
stakeholders participated in the
planning process.

A commitment to full public participation
Bassets Creek Valley Community Benefits Meeting, 2007

Bassett Creek Valley
Master Plan
EXPECTED REDEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES:
3,000+ housing units
2.5 M sq ft commercial
space (office and retail)
5000 - 6000 jobs
40 ac. new green space
After TIF repayment,
future projected tax
revenue of $82 - $128 M

The Interchange is proposed to be the terminus station
for these commuter rail lines:
Image Concept by HDR prepared for Hennepin County Intermodal Facility Report, Minneapolis, MN January 2009
Midwest High Speed Rail Assoc.

Can we fully develop Linden Yards East if there are 14 - 18 Commuter trains parked there, storing between 80 - 100 rail cars per work day on this site?

2800 Jobs [cut by 1/3rd]
500 New Mixed-Income
Housing Units;&1000
new residents [all cut]
Millions of dollars in
new tax base [cut ?]
Humphrey Institute, Opportunity Cost Study, December, 2009

What are the Environmental Impacts of having a diesel locomotive storage and maintenance yard on the neighborhood?
How would air quality be impacted?

HOW DOES ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION DECISION MAKING?
Environmental justice is more than a set of legal and regulatory obligations. Properly implemented, environmental justice principles and procedures improve all levels of transportation decision making.
This approach will:
Make better transportation decisions that meet the needs of all people.
Design transportation facilities that fit more harmoniously into communities.
Enhance the public-involvement process, strengthen community-based partnerships, and provide minority and low-income populations with opportunities to learn about and improve the quality and usefulness of transportation in their lives.
Improve data collection, monitoring, and analysis tools that assess the needs of, and analyze the potential impacts on minority and low-income populations.
Partner with other public and private programs to leverage transportation-agency resources to achieve a common vision for communities.
Avoid disproportionately high and adverse impacts on minority and low-income populations.
Minimize and/ or mitigate unavoidable impacts by identifying concerns early in the planning phase and providing offsetting initiatives and enhancement measures to benefit affected communities and neighborhoods.

Allied Partners and Advocacy Organizations

Regional Transitways participant groups
1000 Friends of Minnesota
African Development Center
Council on Black Minnesotans
CURA Community Growth Options
District Councils Collaborative of Saint Paul & Minneapolis
Family & Children’s Service
Fresh Energy
Growth & Justice
Harrison Neighborhood Association
Housing Preservation Project
ISAIAH
Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers
MICAH
Midtown Community Works Partnership
Midtown Greenway Coalition
Minneapolis Urban League
MN Center for Environmental Advocacy
Native American Community Development Institute
Smart Growth America
Somali Action Alliance
Twin Cities Local Initiative Support Corporation
Transit for Livable Communities
Co-convened by AMS & the Housing Preservation Project

Regional Transitways table: Equity Statement
“To ensure fair and equitable access to transit, jobs, and affordable housing for low-income communities and communities of color by promoting an inclusive public input process and influencing future corridor alignment, stops locations, land use plans, and development opportunities along regional transitways.”

SSC2011_Russ Adams PPT

by National Housing Conference & the Center for Housing Policy on Oct 03, 2011

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SSC2011_Russ Adams PPT — Presentation Transcript