Transportation
Access to transportation impacts every aspect of our lives, from our ability to get to work, access healthcare, and educate our children. With so much at stake, transportation equity is critical to eliminating racism and empowering women. Reimagining the way we think about our roads, buses, and sidewalks is essential for addressing the historical injustices such as segregation and present-day inequities including access to safe transportation in marginalized communities, sexual harassment on public transportation, and roads that are unsafe for pedestrians. These disparities disproportionately affect people of color and low-income individuals, contributing to ongoing economic and social inequalities.
History of Discrimination in Transportation
America’s history of systemic racism continues to profoundly shape how we travel through the world today. Our neighborhoods, highways, railways, and bus routes all bear the marks of past discriminatory practices.
The Green Book was a travel guide published during the segregation era that identified businesses—from restaurants to hotels to beauty salons and more—that would accept Black customers. It was compiled by Victor Hugo Green, a Black postman from Harlem, to assist in making travel safer and more comfortable for Black travelers.
The national interstate highway system, which began to fully take shape after the passage of the Federal Highway Act of 1956, effectively gutted many Black and brown communities by routing highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through those communities. In some of these cases, the government took homes from individuals and families through eminent domain.
The historical retelling of the Montgomery Bus Boycott—which was sparked when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat and lasted from December 1955 through December 1956—often neglects to include the contributions of the many women who organized for years to make the boycott a reality and who helped sustain it for 13 months, including Claudette Colvin, Frances Belser, Carrie Folgate, Donnie Jones, Zecozy Williams, Jamila Jones, Georgia Gilmore, Idessa Williams Redden, Coretta Scott King, Gussie Nesbit, Willie Mae Lee Crews, Virginia Durr, Jo Ann Robinson, and Gwendolyn Patton.
Between 1864 and 1869, more than 10,000 Chinese migrants joined the Central Pacific Union to clear the way for America’s first Transcontinental Railroad, and toiled under horrendous conditions. They worked 10-12 hour days, six days a week, were paid less than other workers, and were denied room and board. After their backbreaking years-long labor was completed, a host of anti-Asian federal legislation was passed including restricting immigration from East Asia, stopping Chinese women from entering the U.S. (under unfounded claims they were sex workers), and making Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization.
Thinking Beyond Cars
While cars rule the road in the U.S., active transportation—including walking, cycling, and rolling—has direct and indirect impacts on both individual and community health. However, these modes of transportation come with disproportionate risks to marginalized people that can be life-altering.
Wheelchair users face a myriad of issues and indignities when attempting to travel by plane, not least of which is damage to their mobility devices. In 2023, more than 11,500 wheelchairs, power wheelchairs, and scooters were lost, damaged, delayed, or stolen during air travel.
Systemic racism also impacts the act of cycling. A national cycling association, USA Cycling, revealed their membership to be 86% white, 83% male, and 50% middle-aged. Further, a review of police data shows that Black cyclists are stopped up to three times as often as their white counterparts, and racial slurs are often a part of the abuse suffered by Black cyclists who are attacked by individuals.
A disproportionate number of pedestrian injuries and fatalities are borne by low-income communities, with American Indian / Alaska Native and Black pedestrians being specifically overrepresented. Black pedestrians are twice as likely, and American Indian Alaska pedestrians are three times as likely, to be fatally hit as white pedestrians.
Transportation, Gender, and Sexuality
Gender inequities impact how we navigate and experience mobility in a multitude of ways that are often invisible to us in our daily lives. Women and LGBTQ+ people are underrepresented among the ranks of urban planners, which means that their needs are much less likely to be reflected in our infrastructure.
While more men than women die in motor vehicle crashes each year, women are more likely than men to be killed or injured in crashes while riding with men or when involved in crashes similar to those experienced by men. For instance, women sitting in the front seat of a car are 73% more likely than men to suffer a severe injury during a car crash, and 17% more likely to die.
People of color are also more likely to experience severe injury or death due to vehicle accidents; in 2020, Black drivers and passengers were 23% more likely and American Indian / Alaska Native drivers and passengers were 11% more likely to die in a car crash than they were in 2019, compared to only a 4% increase for white drivers and passengers.
Women, particularly women and girls of color, face the threat and actuality of sexual harassment when taking public transportation, which impacts their willingness and ability to use public transit. In 2020, a survey of college students found that nearly half of female students avoided using local transit for fear of sexual harassment (compared to 7% of male students), and almost two-thirds of female respondents had experienced some form of intimidation or assault on public transit.
LGBTQ+ individuals face particularly high rates of harassment and violence when using public transit. For instance, 34% of nonbinary and transgender individuals reported experiencing some form of discrimination or harm due to their gender presentation while riding public transit; transgender people of color experienced particularly high fears.
Racial Bias and Traffic Enforcement
In the U.S., the general public is most likely to come into contact with police during traffic stops, and, particularly for people of color, these encounters can turn deadly. Since 2017, more than 800 people have been killed by officers after being pulled over, according to statistics from the Mapping Police Violence database. This alarming trend underscores the urgent need for systemic reform in the way law enforcement is conducted on our roadways.
A 2019 study found disparities in police stops, searches, and arrests, with a disproportionate impact on American Indian / Alaska Native (AI/AN) drivers in the Minneapolis area. AI/AN women comprised 1.42% of the population, but 6.43% of the police stops. Further, AI/AN women comprised only 2% of women stopped for traffic violations, but 24% of all women stopped for being a “suspicious person.” After being stopped, AI/AN women were twice as likely to be searched as women from any other race.
A series of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States opened the door and maintained permissibility for racially biased traffic enforcement. These decisions have led to a disproportionate number of police stops and searches of drivers of color. For instance, an analysis of more than 100 million traffic stops found that Black drivers were 40% more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, and Black and Hispanic/Latino drivers were twice as likely as their white counterparts to have their vehicles searched after being pulled over.
Misidentification of a driver’s race can make it difficult, if not impossible, to track and reduce racial bias in traffic enforcement. For example, in Louisiana, a study of 167 tickets issued to drivers with the last name “Lopez,” 252 issued to drivers named “Rodriguez,” 234 to drivers named “Martinez,” 223 to drivers named “Hernandez,” and 189 to drivers named “Garcia” showed that none of the drivers was labeled as Hispanic/Latino. The failure to collect accurate data on the race of drivers in traffic stops permits officers to cover up potential officer misconduct, including inappropriate racial targeting, and aggressive immigration enforcement.