transportation and social justice

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Dave Feucht

Sorry if this gets a little heavy for people, but I think about these kinds of things, so I want to share my thoughts.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about transportation and how it relates to social justice. I won’t aim to make this an exhaustive post, but rather just to bring up some thoughts I’ve had, in hopes of maybe getting others thinking about some things they may not have thought about.

I don’t think transportation is often thought of as a social justice issue, but in reality, it has huge effects on different populations of people. In a city or country where the primary mode of transportation is the personal automobile, huge portions of society are then left with no convenient means to get from home to the places they need to go. If a city or country spends all its transportation planning on making systems of roads to accommodate automobiles, then you leave those who are too young to drive, those who can’t afford to own and operate an automobile, and those who would choose not to with no viable means of transportation. Not only that, you force people to make difficult decisions about their place of living, their finances, their consciences in some cases, simply in order to be able to get anywhere safely and reliably. In a time when we are trying to focus on rebuilding our economy, I think this is a very important issue, because if we want a flourishing economy, we want as many people as possible to be contributing to it, and gaining benefit from it.

Let’s think about this – a person who lives in a suburb of a large city loses their job. They are getting unemployment, which pays for their apartment, but almost nothing else. They need to find a new job, but they cannot afford to drive the 30 miles a day it would require to get around to businesses in the area to look for job opportunities, because the suburb is very spread out, and this person has no expendable income. There is very little public transit in the area, and because it is so spread out, it is not feasible to walk, the distances are just too far. All the main roads are 4 traffic lanes or more, wide open, with no speed-limiting except a few stoplights, and none of the side streets connect the main streets, they all dead-end in housing developments, so to ride a bicycle, you would have to ride on the main streets in traffic with cars going 40-50mph around you.

Another situation – a person living on the streets is looking for a job, but all the jobs in the immediate area seem to be taken up. There are, however, several job openings across town 10 miles away, for which the person is qualified. The problem is, obviously this person does not own and cannot afford to own a car. There is no bus, lightrail, train or tram in this city that goes to the area of town those job openings are in, and it is an industrial area, with a lot of large maintenance vehicle traffic, and again nowhere to ride a bicycle except in with all the traffic. Even if this person gets the job, how are they supposed to get there?

Another situation – A person makes enough money to own and operate a vehicle, but just barely. Finances are tight and the person is often just barely making bills, food and rent. Getting rid of the car could give them up to an extra $200-300 per month considering car payment, gas, insurance and maintenance. However, that is only possible if they can either walk everywhere they need, ride a bike everywhere they need, or take public transit everywhere they need.

A transportation system that is centered around the personal automobile is inherently catering to people in the upper percentages of income, and disadvantaging those in the middle to lower percentages.

On the other hand, a well planned, easily accessible public transit system allows a person with even a very low income to get within easy walking distance of nearly anywhere, in the city center or the suburbs. If the city and the suburbs are then accommodating for pedestrians, all the better. If a person is able to get to everything they need on a daily basis within about a 20 minute walking distance from home, and their neighborhood is arranged in such a way that it’s safe to walk, they really have no need of owning an automobile in order to live. If a city has a well-established and well-maintained network of quiet, speed-controlled or car-free streets that make it easy for a person to ride a bicycle to most places in the city, then you allow a person to have nearly the entire city accessible to them, at an absolute minimum monetary cost: the one-time purchase of a bicycle. This also makes the donation of bicycles a particularly useful thing for those who can’t afford to buy one – they then don’t have ongoing costs of insurance and fuel.

These are just some preliminary thoughts and musings, I’m sure this topic could go much deeper than what I’ve laid out here, and if any of you have more thoughts on the issue, I’d be happy to hear them. It seems very clear to me that a very balanced transportation system between automobiles, public transit options, and human-powered transportation (walking and cycling) is a great way of providing opportunity to all levels of society, and that an automobile-only transportation system is one of the best ways of making sure that whose with limited means are denied opportunity.

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  • portlandize.com

    One obvious thing I forgot is the elderly, and I mentioned youth as well, but didn’t really go into it much. They both have multiple factors that may restrict their usage of automobiles, and so, if they don’t have some other way to get around, they either have to rely on others for their transportation, or just stay at home.

  • Clever
  • portlandize.com

    Thanks for that article, it’s really interesting (I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m about halfway).

    I think one of the biggest problems in the US in general is that we have a very hard time seeing that consuming less in any sense might be a good thing. We’ll go to any lengths to make the consumption more palatable so that we don’t have to consume less.

    Clearly, once you require consumption of non-human-generated energy in order to function in society you create gaps in society, because that energy is not equally available to everyone, the way human-generated energy is, and increasing dependence along with increasing scarcity just continues to widen that gap.

    I think the focus of that essay represents a *massive* shift from how America thinks and operates today, as a whole.

  • Zweiradler

    Good points. I think equality is also mentioned in the list of 28 reasons to bike.
    What we don’t need are people who drive around in big cars and want others to stay off the roads as long as they can’t afford such a car.

  • Adrienne Johnson

    I think about this all the time, too. The car is the international symbol of ‘arrival’. To drive indicates success and affluence, the public badge of not being poor. To not drive indicates lack of success, lack of money, lack of initiative… one does not just pull up one’s boot straps for the hell of it, it is to help get your leg into the car.

    This is why I am always telling people that opposition to bike lanes is not about bikes. To admit that bicycle infrastructure is important means recognizing that the international symbol of power and social integration is not what we thought it was. All of that work has been put into something that was not what we were promised. On a social level , it is a bit like finding out your husband never really loved you and is leaving today.

    No one ever really thinks about how enslaved they are to their cars- how much time they expend working to pay for it and keep it up. Having to get up at the crack of dawn to move it before the street cleaners come. How often they keep their children inside so they won’t get run over by one. So it makes sense that seeing something as truly free as a person on a bicycle is would be threatening. It threatens so much more than just the car, it brings into question the foundation of how we live day to day life.

    I will return your blog back to you now ; )

  • portlandize.com

    No, that’s good, I want to have dialog about these things. Thanks for writing!

  • She Rides a Bike

    I couldn’t agree more. I worked in community mental health in my past career and so many of my clients struggled with reliable transportation. If they had a car, it was often broken and they had no money for repairs, or they couldn’t afford car insurance or renewing their tags. I had other clients whose bus routes were canceled, leaving them unable to get to their job or medical appointments. My husband and I have a 6 figure income between us but found that two car ownership in our very expensive community just too much. Though we live simply we struggle to save and ultimately decided to sell one car and bike work as much as possible. The decision freed up a lot of cash but we still worry about the expense of an unexpected car repair. We’d love to see public transit come to our side of town so we could possibly go car free.

    Car ownership is becoming beyond the reach of even middle class people as we see wages stagnate and savings dwindle. It is sad that people don’t start taking the issue into consideration until the upper middle class are affected. Even now, I still see my state largely catering to cars. It is even more bizarre when my state is among those hit the hardest, people’s homes are worth half of what they paid, and workers must replace good executive level jobs with low wage service sector jobs (if they can find them).

    We must have the courage as a nation to admit we have a life style that is on the personal level unsustainable and inequitable on the social level. This will mean huge changes for some but I believe it would lead to an improved standard of living for most. I question whether or not
    Americans are willing to commit to change, however. Our society possesses an unhealthy obsession with individualism and the fantasy of making one’s own way. Strange. I come from an upper middle class upbringing and nobody that I have ever known from that world ever did anything on his or her own or without a boost. I have enjoyed numerous boosts and wish we could all be just a bit more honest about the haves and have-nots. Transportation priorities would be an excellent place to begin this conversation and take action.

  • portlandize.com

    @She Rides A Bike:

    Something I’ve been thinking about since reading that essay above that Todd posted the link to, is the issue of speed and density of city development. Even if we have automobiles in our mix of traffic (and we always will, and that’s good if they’re used appropriately), if we set limits on speed not much higher than the speed at which a non-motorized vehicle can move (at least within the city), and develop densely so that a person doesn’t have to go more than a few miles for most of their daily needs, then we not only increase the equity of our transportation (as then it’s not necessary to have a car to travel those distances), but we also reduce everyone’s living cost, as even if they do drive, they don’t have to drive 20-30 miles on a daily basis, and they choose to travel large distances less often, and therefore travel less overall.

    For instance, in Portland, we own a car, but we bought a used one (a 1974 VW Beetle) that was quite cheap, runs well, doesn’t cost us much in insurance, costs us very little in maintenance, and we only probably drive 20-30 miles a week, sometimes almost none at all, because the places we do drive to (my wife drives to work often especially in winter, and we sometimes drive to get groceries, or to go to Goodwill or other places), are all within just a few miles of home.

    I’m also a bit cynical about the willingness of many Americans to change significantly, but on the other hand, I see people doing it here in Portland, so that gives me hope. Maybe we can be one of the places that shows what is possible, and what the benefits of such change can be. There are a whole mess of problems related to this that will be very, very difficult to reverse, but even if it’s a slow process, I hope we will move towards it.

    Thanks for your comment, you bring up a lot of good points, and I hope you can get some people in Arizona really thinking about them seriously. If you guys ever come to Portland again, my wife and I could give you a bit of a bike tour and/or chat over coffee or a beer or something :)

  • Sarah Hagstrom

    Our society's dependence on cars also gives a huge advantage to the able bodied and, as you point out, those in the prime of their lives. If you have eyesight issues, driving may not be a safe or even viable option for you. If you have any number of other common disabilities or conditions, like epilepsy, narcolepsy, MS, hearing problems, or any condition requiring medication which impairs alertness, driving a car can be unsafe or not possible, putting you at an even more dramatic disadvantage than the original medical condition alone would otherwise dictate. People who can't or shouldn't be driving are often forced to continue driving even if it is patently unsafe for them to do so because they are situated in a place which does not accommodate any other mode of transport very much or at all. This problem is currently making it hard for many in the baby boomer generation to "age in place" in their life-long homes in the suburbs, which is heartbreaking to many people, and might serve as the beginning of a wake up call for U.S. policy makers and voters. The social justice implications of our chosen primary/exclusive mode of transport are extremely pervasive and far reaching, in my view. Thanks for your post.

  • Dave

    Sarah – yeah, funny how our system gives huge advantage to the able-bodied, while at the same time slowly debilitating them.

    I think a lot about that fact that a ton of people who really shouldn't be driving are, and are allowed to, simply out of necessity, there is no other way for them to get anywhere.

    I think this topic could probably flesh out a book, if you were to go really in-depth. I'm glad to have gotten a few people thinking about it (or maybe thinking more about it).