2021

Fuel poverty captures the inability to afford adequate energy use for household heating and other activities, primarily related to the residential sector. In the US, domestic energy burden disproportionately affects low-income households. In addition to residential energy use, transportation is a major US energy-consuming sector systematically excluded from fuel poverty calculations. Transportation energy use facilitates access to opportunities in the US sprawled, car-oriented development. Long commuting and high fuel prices can impose a burden on meeting household travel needs and raising the share of transportation expenses relative to a household’s income. American car dependence, low neighborhood density, and unreliable public transport service can increase the population share vulnerable to transportation energy use changes.

Transportation planners conduct equity analysis to ensure that transportation benefits are distributed equally across populations. While some equity evaluation methods focus on access
to the transportation system, such as distance to transit stops, our approach evaluates equity by measuring access to opportunities. People are becoming increasingly interested in choosing
lifestyles that allow them more travel options and municipalities are investing in shared and active transportation modes, highlighting the need to measure accessibility across modes.
Consequently, it is critical to evaluate how well shared and active transportation options serve disadvantaged populations that often have more limited access to private vehicles.

Hurricane Michael was the first Category 5 hurricane ever to hit the Florida Panhandle, leaving thousands of residents without housing for weeks, if not months. The evacuation was particularly challenging for vulnerable communities since they needed more time and assistance before the hurricane hit. Evacuating the elderly takes on additional complexity because any extra time they incur in reaching safety can be especially confounding in light of their potential health problems. This paper proposes a Geographical Information Systems-based methodology to assess the vulnerability of two Florida counties, namely Bay and Gulf, substantially impacted by Hurricane Michael.

We explore data, spatial resources and technologies to assess and build capacity for community resilience to climate impacts affecting vulnerable and marginalized communities. Considering climate effects as an essential component of community impact analysis begins with a recognition that everyone is affected in different ways. Many social, cultural, racial, ecological, and economic factors affect people’s sensitivity to these impacts and their ability to adapt to a changing climate and recover from climate-related events. We share examples of ways these factors can be identified and integrated into a community assessment of resources and impacts to proactively assess resiliency of these communities related to specific climate events.

Public engagement has long been an important piece of the project development process. Over the last several decades, virtual tools have helped agencies reach broader audiences in a way that is meaningful and consistent with the expectations of the modern stakeholder. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought conversations around virtual public engagement to the forefront and demonstrated the irreplaceable value that virtual tools have to reach new stakeholder demographics. Our poster will highlight virtual strategies and present on our data driven approach to evaluating the effectiveness of reaching Environmental Justice communities and other historically underrepresented demographics. We will also demonstrate how this data can be readily utilized as part of the NEPA documentation process.

A critical dimension of a transportation project is its impact on community noise levels.  Noise analyses are routinely conducted as part of the project’s environmental review process,often in response to federal NEPA and state level requirements. A challenge with such analyses is the cost they add to project review, both for data collection and analytic work. In addition to an increased project cost, an opportunity cost is that such analyses may not be performed until later in the project development process—meaning stakeholders have less opportunity to influence a project’s direction than would be the case if they possessed knowledge of noise impacts at the time of project conception.

Consistent with the TRB 100th annual meeting theme that calls for a focus on quality of life, the PHEAL principles re-conceptualize our approach to transportation practice by centering health equity and racial justice in our work. The Planning for Health Equity, Advocacy & Leadership (PHEAL) blueprint is a tool for professionals and technical experts working at public, private, and non-profit organizations that operate in urban, suburban, rural, and other settlement contexts in the following broad fields: planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, transportation, community development, real estate, parks and recreation, sustainability and resilience, green building, public health, and any other professions concerned with the impact of the built environment and health outcomes.