Conclusions from the US experience

Abstract

This chapter describes how the environmental justice movement in the United States (US) has been recognizing transportation inequalities for accessing transportation since the mid-1960s. The problem was raised by Martin Luther King when he called for structural reforms to deal with race and poverty. The US case studies have shown that there has been a gradual, but far from problem free, shift toward both formal government recognition of the problem and a policy commitment for resolving it. The question is whether this has made a visible difference on the ground. Clearly, there are numerous contributory factors in transportation disadvantage, including people not being able to afford their own vehicle; lack of public transportation to and from work or other means of transportation; public transportation not being offered on the weekends or evenings when jobs are available; lack of childcare; no public transportation in rural areas; and the job market locating further distances away from the center of cities and urban sprawl. Equally evident, given the multiple and complex nature of the situation is that there is no single solution to the problem.