User:Fastfoodfanatic/Race and transportation in the United States

Race and transportation in the United States are closely linked.

Roads

When roads, especially highways of the Interstate Highway System were being built, they were often built straight through neighborhoods populated primarily by people of color, especially African Americans, even when a white neighborhood or other alignment (such as an old railroad track) would be more direct, requiring residents' homes to be demolished, or built to separate white neighborhoods with neighborhoods populated primarily by people of color. In some cases, highway revolts were started, to protest said construction.

Public transit

Public transit in the United States, especially local buses, and to a lesser extent passenger rail, have a huge stigma associated with them, specifically that they are mainly used by poorer people, especially racial minorities, who have no other way of getting around, which creates obstacles for funding, as well as implementation, such as local opposition to buses running to richer areas and malls on the grounds that it would bring criminals to the area.

On the other hand, many forms of public transit (primarily heavy or light rail, streetcars, bus rapid transit and park-and-ride buses), in addition to walkability and bike lane projects, have been accused of gentrification at the expense of people of color.

Examples

• In Atlanta, it is often argued that racial politics play a role in the operation and future service planning for MARTA, the city's transit authority. Opponents of Georgia's transportation policies have alleged a race-based two-tiered system, where billions are spent by the state on highway expansion to aid the automobile commutes of mostly White residents of the suburbs and rural areas (like GRIP), while service cuts at MARTA have hurt mostly African Americans in low-income areas where residents cannot afford automobile ownership. Proponents contest that a portion of state funding for highways comes from the gasoline tax, a user fee analogous to the fare MARTA riders pay. Supporters of MARTA have alleged that the lack of participation by other metro Atlanta counties is rooted in racism and classism. In 1987, David Chesnut, then chairman of MARTA, stated, "The development of a regional transit system in the Atlanta area is being held hostage to race, and I think it's high time we admitted it and talked about it." As part of its Title VI plan, MARTA data revealed that 75 percent of MARTA riders were Black in 2015. MARTA is often given the racially charged backronym "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta", referring to its mostly African American ridership, particularly outside of rush hours.
• In the 1990s in Buffalo, New York, Walden Galleria management opposed a bus from the majority Black inner city — and not those from majority white suburbs and even Canada — from stopping on the mall grounds. As a result, bus riders from the inner city getting off the bus had to cross seven lanes of traffic without a crosswalk to reach the mall. This led to the death of a 17-year-old Black teenager, Cynthia N. Wiggins, who was crossing the street from the bus stop to her job when she was hit by a dump truck, after which the mall was accused of racism. In settling a wrongful death claim against Walden Galleria and NFTA Metro and to prevent a boycott of the mall, the bus stop was soon moved to a point inside the mall, where it remains today.

• Washington Metro's College Park station was built further from the University of Maryland than planned due to opposition from university leaders. At the time, Washington D.C. was overwhelmingly Black, and the university was overwhelmingly white. In 2017, former Maryland Governor and Prince George's County Executive Parris Glendening admitted the university's decision to have the Metro station as far away from campus as possible (1.6 miles) was a "disaster" and racially biased, primarily due to administrators and community residents saying they did not want crime or undesirable people coming to campus on the Green Line from the poorer neighborhoods of Washington.
• In the 1960s in San Francisco, BART was designed to speed white commuters past minority neighborhoods. For example, it has stop spacing of 2.75 miles in the racially diverse and dense urban neighborhood of San Antonio, Oakland, but 1.75 miles in majority-white suburban Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill. Despite this, in modern times, Blacks and Latinos are overrepresented in its ridership, with whites and Asians underrepresented.

Policing

See also: Race and crime in the United States

Policing on many city transit systems, including New York City Transit, is often unfairly biased towards people of color, particularly Blacks and Latinos.

Racial representation in leadership

Minorities are regularly underrepresented in public transit leadership, despite being overrepresented (in most cases) in lower-level staff and system ridership. This causes issues.

See also

• NIMBY
• White flight
• Redlining
• Environmental racism