Benito Pérez, Policy Director at Transportation for America gave this presentation at Forth Design and Fund Equitable Electric Mobility For Your Community workshop on March 14, 2024.

1. t4america.org
@t4america
Centering Equity and Community in Transportation

2. Why do performance measures matter?
Panel
Benito O. Pérez,
Policy Director,
Transportation for America
Moderator
Richard Ezike,
Clean Tech Project Manager,
Argonne National Laboratory
Panelist
Brenna Rivett,
National Policy Manager,
EVHybridNoire
Panelist

3. Who are we designing for?

4. Vehicles, or People?

5. No two communities are the same

6. ● Engagement with the stakeholders
○ Public participation is done late in the process
■ Planners and engineers have defined a problem, proposed
approach, and solicit public consent.
■ Limited instances of participation in definition of problem
○ Imbalance in voices in public participation
■ Inconvenient meeting times or limited accommodations (i.e.
childcare, transportation, food) to access meetings
■ Posture of voices to come to agency vs agency pursue voices
■ Loudest voices in the room (including elected officials) has
priority posture
Current Practices in Transportation Planning
Image from Public Domain Vector

7. Current Practices in Transportation Planning
● Communicating with stakeholders
○ Technical in nature
○ Not account for understandable
experience
○ Leveraging technical drawings and
renderings that are hard to grasp for
the lay person.
Video from Strong Towns: Conversation with a Project Engineer

8. Communities know what they want to do but…
they may not know how to do it

9. Centering Equity in Transportation Innovation
● Innovation brings new opportunities.
● Innovation runs the risk of leaving people behind.
○ Deprived economic opportunities
○ Disparate safety outcomes
○ Disproportionate health/environmental
impacts
● Incorporating and implementing transportation
innovation in Black/brown and other
marginalized communities allows access for all.