Ubochi, Chima
Instructors Melissa Ott, Alex Hoffman
Kresge 99F
March 14, 2014
An Urban Roadblock
People Power: Final Project
Introduction
My People Power: Engaging Sustainable Transportation Solutions final report is regarding the issue of social justice, and transportation, both public and private. I was very inspired and I feel very honored to be able to do my research and final project on this issue, because it is mostly overlooked in society. Transportation is a vital part of our society. It is the part of the fabric in American, or any society, in general, that connects individuals from point A to point B. Everybody partakes in it any way, shape, or form at any point in their lives. There are many forms of racism and other injustices and inequalities in American society, and I am very certain that racism/injustices with respect to public transportation is overlooked because of racism/injustices in the criminal justice system, education system, employment, housing, environmental etc.
For the majority of my internship I spent 24 1/2 hours reading about social justice in the book Highway Robbery. I then had a meeting with Tawn Kennedy, the director of Greenways to school, the local youth advocacy group for bicycling. I spent a lot of time learning more and more about the difficulties that people of color and of low socioeconomic positions have to face with regards to issues of public transportation. I learned a lot during the entirety of this class.
My experiences
Prior to Friday, January 10, 2014, my first day of class, I have experienced social justice and transportation in Santa Cruz. I did my best to observe what type of people use the Santa Cruz public transportation system. Based on my observations, I have come to a conclusion that most of the individuals that use the transportation system are of lower socioeconomic classes. Besides the UC students that use the busses, I tried to do my best to categorize the riders by race. I realized that many of the riders were Latino, some were white. Also, there were a very few African-Americans, due to the fact that their population in the city in general is very low. I then tried to look at the type of forms of private transportation, I looked at the cars around town as a way to separate the affluent with the less affluent, the “haves” from the “have-nots,” the whites from the minorities, and the rich from the poor. I saw many regular vehicles, then I came across the many luxury vehicles. I then thought about how this relates to social justice, access to public transportation, etc.
After January 10, 2014, I thought about what all of this means. Prior to that date, I fondly remember associating private transportation with affluence, and being independent, which is a very common association among people. Conversely, I associated public transportation to people of lower socioeconomic statuses, and poorer people that were unable to afford a private automobile. Additionally, I associated bicycling, skateboarding, scooter riding, etc. with teenagers and others who were too poor to afford a private car. I also remember that in the city that I live in, Tracy, California, I see a lot of middle aged Latino men who may be recent immigrants riding bicycles while collecting bottles and cans to sell.
During the first few weeks of being a member of this class, I learned about the importance of bicycling in this class, due to the fact that bicycling reduces the carbon footprint and is an alternative to a motorized vehicle which burns fossil fuels that emit CO2 and other GHGs into our atmosphere that lead to global climate change and global warming that accelerate the degradation of the U.S. Also, many places that could be reached can be reached by using bicycles as opposed to cars, but more people drive or ride cars due to the fact that it is more convenient. Additionally, we learned about the health benefits of riding bicycles.
Highway Robbery
The book Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes To Equity by Robert D. Bullard, Glenn S. Johnson, Angel O. Torres, is the book that I read in order to learn more about my internship topic. What I really like about this book is that it started off with a Foreword from the U.S. Congressman John Lewis, an African-American representative who recalled his experience with the Freedom Rides. He was a Freedom Rider who travelled from Washington D.C. throughout the Deep South, and into Louisiana by bus. He and his fellow riders saw the signs for colored and white residents. He and his fellow riders were attacked for trying to confront white supremacy in its many forms. He then compared that undesirable experience to today’s modern equivalent to how poor people and people of color in large urban settings are unable to use certain public transportation services. What is vital is that he connects the past with the present in order to envision a better more inclusive future. He talks about the powerful legacy of Jim Crow transportation.
The book talks about four significant metro centers in the United States: New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, the San Francisco Bay Area, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. I have read about all of those areas except for the last two places.
Generally, the problems that occurred was due to the fact that most of the funding was spent on the affluent, mostly white suburbs. The least amount of money was spent in the poorer, mostly minority, less affluent inner-cities.
The Atlanta area case was unique due to the fact that this is the only city located in the Southeastern region of the U.S. that was analyzed by this book. Atlanta’s metropolitan area has a regional transit that is called the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, or MARTA, for short (52). In the chapter “Dismantling Transit Racism in Metro Atlanta”, I read that in inner-city Atlanta, the mostly poor African-Americans and other people of color have to content with substandard, subpar transportation services, and “dirty” diesel buses, which were the oldest, most dilapidated, and most pollution-generating buses (63).
The Atlanta area did a great job by going green. They added new “clean” CNG buses to their fleet. Well, there was a problem, most of those new “clean” busses where only available in affluent, mostly white, richer suburban areas. Meanwhile, in inner-city Atlanta, the poor, less affluent, mostly African-American and other minority populations had to contend with old “dirty’ diesel buses. This city, dubbed the capital of the South, made a substantial attempt to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly, unfortunately only the more affluent reap the full benefits. Not to mention, the poor minorities in Atlanta have to inhale the harmful fumes from the old “dirty” diesel busses, which opens the door to the issue of environmental injustice/racism.
An unseen aspect of inequality is that government funding for public transportation does not help the disadvantaged people in rural areas. The elderly and disabled individuals in those respective areas receive only 7% of the government funds for public transportation. There are rarely bus stops in those areas.
In many metropolitan areas, especially Atlanta, it is notable that white people in richer, more affluent neighborhoods, generally do not like people of color, especially African-Americans living alongside them. It is often subtle, but yet so obvious.
Internet articles
Another aspect of my internship was reading internet articles regarding my topic. Many topics struck out of me. One of the most influential topics that I read about was regarding the unfortunate tragedy of Raquel Nelson incident.
Raquel Nelson was a Georgia woman, and mother of three that received a year of probation due to the jaywalking death of her 4-year-old-son (Hanson, 2012). She was unfortunately convicted by a jury of vehicular homicide by letting her young son to jump into a busy street north of Atlanta on the night of April 10, 2010. She could have received as much as three years in prison. On that April day, she tried to cross the street with her three children when her 4-year-old son was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Ultimately, since she led her children onto a median instead of crossing at a crosswalk, she was then charged and convicted of vehicular homicide. There were petitions for her sentence to be more lenient. The main cause of her son’s death was due to poor/deteriorating infrastructure.
According to grist.org:
Transportation systems, and streets, need to be not only smart and equitable They also need to be safe. According to the Leadership Conference’s report, Hispanic pedestrians suffer a death rate 62 percent higher, and African Americans almost 70 percent higher, than non-Hispanic whites (Adler, 2011).
She was hit by Jerry Guy, a guy who was drinking earlier while on pain medication. Furthermore, he was partially blind and had two previous hit-and-run convictions from 1997, according to the records. He, who fled the scene, pleaded guilty to hit-and-run charges, thus he was sentenced to only six months in prison (Hanson, 2012).
These are questions that have to be answered:
What would you have done if you were in Raquel Nelson’s shoes and you needed to get your three kids home? Would you have chosen the shorter route and jaywalked or walked a little over half a mile to the cross walk before heading home (HLNtv.com Staff, 2013)?
This transportation justice issue is intertwined with a criminal justice issue.
Tawn Kennedy Meeting
Originally, I was supposed to meet him on Monday, February 24, 2014, but due to the fact that he fell ill, our meeting had to be rescheduled. Therefore, our meeting took place on Tuesday, March 11 at his office to talk with him about social justice, transportation, and youth empowerment.
I talked to him about his profession. He told me about how he orders bicycles for the teenagers of Santa Cruz, towards the end of our meeting we both took a walk to the Teen Center that was named after the African-American slave. I had a feeling that the teens present in that program come from lower income households, probably the Beach Flats area.
I could remember that I brought up a scenario involving a poor person living in the inner-city. I referred to Oakland, CA, since I am familiar with that inner-city, because I lived there when I was younger. I referred to Stockton, CA, because during the Spring 2012 semester at San Joaquin Delta College, I was enrolled as a student. The scenario was what happens if someone living in an inner-city public housing project, has to go somewhere? Let it be work, school, place of worship, store, etc.? This person is too poor to afford a private automobile. This person has to walk to the bus stop, and wait for a period of time for a bus to come and pick them up. We then discussed the violence that could claim the life of that person. We then discussed how this scenario has to deal with food justice and food deserts, because in inner-cities, there are many liquor stores, fast food restaurants, etc., and not many grocery stores where they sell fresh fruits and/vegetables. If that person wanted to go to the grocery store, they would have to catch the bus, walk a significant distance, and then get to the store. That person would obviously not be able to afford the nutritious food due to their level of income. This is obviously an undesirable, severe inconvenience. As a result, that person would be restricted to processed, high fructose corn syrup saturated food that is detrimental to one’s health, and causes obvious health problems. Due to financial limitations, that poor person most certainly not be able to afford the hospital bills.
I had to include the violence, because it goes hand-in-hand. Violence, poverty, drugs, despair, etc. When a person is limited due to their financial situation, this impacts what type of jobs are available to them. Most people understand that the majority of the best jobs available are located in the suburbs. Next, you must understand the type of jobs that are located in the inner-cities. These are minimum wage, fast food, jobs, since our inner-cities are full of fast food restaurants. This obviously is not justice.
As I have been working on my project, I have come to a realization that if the United States of America, probably the most affluent nation on the face of the earth, wants to improve as a nation, we must confront inequalities at all levels. The issues of social inequalities/racism with respect to education, employment, the environment, transportation, criminal justice, etc. are all intertwined. I have come to a conclusion that the common denominator is urban decay, and social structure. If we do not fix our deteriorating infrastructure in our once proud cities, we would not be able to solve our problems.
Works Cited
1. "Ben Adler." Grist. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
2. Hanson, Hilary. "Raquel Nelson Fights Murder Charges In Son's Jaywalking Death In Georgia." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
3. "Jaywalking Mom Avoids Retrial for Son's Death." HLNtv.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
