Karner Receives Three Grants to Study Impacts of Transportation Decision Making

Transportation policy and planning decisions shape local and regional land uses, dictate how much time and money households spend on transportation and housing, and affect how easily people can reach and engage in the activities they need to lead a meaningful life. Community & Regional Planning Associate Professor Alex Karner focuses his teaching and scholarship on quantifying the social, environmental, and public health impacts of transportation projects and developing frameworks and tools for communities to address and mitigate them. A critical part of this work involves partnering with advocates, non-profit organizations, and affected communities to understand and atone for the historical and ongoing negative impacts of transportation and land-use policies. He recently received three grants to study the impacts of transportation decisions on different communities and at different scales:
 
“Racial Equity, Black America, and Public Transportation,” a project funded by the Transportation Research Board, coordinated in partnership with Thrivance Group
Throughout the 20th century, publicly funded transportation projects have had negative impacts on Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. The transportation industry is only beginning to reckon with the role that transportation policy, urban planning, and infrastructure construction have played in harming Black people in the US.  The objective of this research project is to understand and document the extent of this damage and to chart a path forward.
 
The final deliverables will include:

• a review of the economic, health, and social impacts of past transportation policies and practices;
• a methodology that can be used to calculate an estimated investment in public transportation over a 20-year period to meet equity goals for communities of the African diaspora that were destroyed or impacted by racially biased policies, practices, and programs;
• community outreach materials to help open a dialogue with communities on issues of equity disparity in public transportation;
• a primer for elected officials; and
• a final report that documents the entire project.

 
For more information about the project, visit: http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5071
 
“Voter Turnout and Accessibility Measurement,” awarded by the Democracy Fund
Accessibility, or how easily people can reach and engage in activities they need, is one of the key elements of transportation planning – and exercising ones’ right to vote is one of those important and necessary activities. Working in partnership with the Democracy Fund, Karner will pilot a new analytical framework for characterizing voter access that considers transportation options, land use patterns and socio-economic characteristics. Using exploratory methods for assembling and geocoding large voter registration databases and estimating accessibility at various geographic scales, Karner’s team will examine the effects of reduced voting locations and spatially evaluate hotspots in three pilot geographies: Atlanta, Georgia, Harris County, Texas, and the state of Ohio. The results will be useful for members of the public interested in assessing the effect of polling location closures on different demographic groups and voter turnout.
 
Comprehensive Housing and Transportation Cost Analysis Tool, granted by the City of Austin. Co-PI, Assistant Professor Gian-Claudia Sciara
Transportation costs are an important indicator of the City of Austin’s affordability performance and influence the extent to which residents can equitably and cost-effectively access destinations and multimodal transportation choices. Often, transportation costs can be traded off against the cost of housing. Households can choose to live further away from the city center and pay less for housing. But this often leads to increasing transportation costs. This relationship means that a simultaneous assessment of both housing and transportation costs is needed to understand affordability. To support the City of Austin, Karner and Sciara will develop a locally tailored method for assessing both transportation and housing costs as an overall share of a household’s total budget for all neighborhoods in the region. This comprehensive tool can subsequently be used and reproduced by City of Austin staff when new data become available, providing the city with a lasting resource to understand combined housing and transportation costs for Austinites into the future.
 
Photo: "Last Night in Austin" by Trey Ratcliff is licensed under CC BY 2.0