Streetsblog recently featured some remarks about Ohio transportation policy from the Town Hall on Transportation Disparities Among Disadvantaged Communities event.
Ohio’s Car-Centric Transpo Policy Harms the Poor, Elderly & People of Color
by Samuel Gresham Jr. on June 6, 2011Good evening. My name is Samuel Gresham Jr. and I am the executive director of the Ohio Commission on African-American Males. Our mission is to help African-American males take responsibility for the improvement of the quality of their lives, by dismantling structural inequality through public policy advocacy, community organizing, and research.
…Transportation investment in Ohio has produced an inhospitable landscape for low-income people, people with disabilities, and the elderly. People of color are disproportionately disadvantaged by the current state of transportation through the cost of car ownership, under-investment in public transportation, and thoroughfares that have isolated low-income people and struggling families from jobs and services.
This is the civil rights dilemma of Ohio: Our laws purport to level the playing field, but our transportation choices have effectively barred millions of people from getting across it. Traditional nondiscrimination protections do not protect the people for whom opportunities are literally out of reach.
For this reason, our transportation policies [must] expand and improve access to people for whom the cost of car ownership is prohibitive and for those who may depend on public transportation, including older adults, people with disabilities, people in rural areas, and low-income people. Thoroughfares have exacerbated transportation inequities by extending the gaps between housing and jobs. Equity agendas should favor fixing existing infrastructure and incentivizing fill-in development in metro areas.
Ohio invests 99 percent of its transportation resources on highways, leaving less than 1 percent for public transportation, putting it 40th in the nation. All the states in the nation that spend less on transit then Ohio are more rural states, with an average population of only 20 percent of Ohio’s. Nearly 9 percent of Ohio’s households have no vehicle. Despite the need for public transportation, Ohio’s transit agencies have been forced to slash transit services and raise fares. A decade ago, federal operating funds for public transportation systems serving communities of more than 200,000 were severely cut. Most states dramatically increased support for public transportation; the state of Ohio has cut funding by 75 percent since 2002.
Ohio’s transportation policy needs to support a wide range of choices and users, not just car travel on highways and roadways. Studies show that 60 percent of bus trips in Ohio are work-related, and that people under the age of 40 are less likely to own cars. Ohio’s younger adults need access to education, jobs, and entertainment without needing a car. Seniors or people with disabilities may not be able to use a car or may not want to drive. Innovative transportation solutions are needed in Ohio’s suburbs and rural areas; these communities have a tremendous need to access employment and services.
It seems obvious, but people without cars can’t get to work to participate in the economy if there is no transit access to the jobs or if the transit is excessively slow or unreliable. Public transportation and transit-supportive land use policies are one way to give people a hand up instead of hand out. More people with jobs means fewer people receiving government assistance and more government tax revenue. It probably would also lead to less segregation, better schools, and safer neighborhoods. Who wouldn’t love that?
It harms the whole regional economy in as much as a healthy and popular transit system is something business leaders seek when exploring locations for new operations- especially in national and international enterprises. Instead Columbus’ elites perform a ritualistic small-town mouthing of ‘problems’ such as the abundance of COTA patrons on High Street, tacitly approving the notion that transit customers are not desireable. Common sense suggestions such as Evans’ are not considered in an environment where leaders could only be made happier if downtown bus patrons were segregated even more and made to wear a yellow star on their clothing.