The Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO) and the New Castle and Cecil Counties’ Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), released a draft version of a social equity analysis of the region’s transportation system for public review.
The 2019 Transportation Justice (TJ) Plan examines the experiences of disadvantaged populations within the transportation system and public planning processes.
While WILMAPCO uncovered transportation inequities for people with low incomes and Hispanics, a draft report indicated that African Americans experienced more inequities.
These inequities include: more difficulty reaching activities (also true of low-income residents), higher rates of bike and pedestrian crashes, more road traffic, and less community transportation project funding than expected based on population size.
The Transportation Justice Plan makes several recommendations for how to begin to balance the social inequities it uncovered. For example, the report recommends changing WILMAPCO’s project prioritization process so that projects located in African American neighborhoods receive higher priority for funding to help correct for chronic underfunding.
Other areas examined include analyses and recommendations for other populations challenged with mobility, destination connection analyses, a food desert analyses, updated public outreach considerations, and a language assistance plan to assist people with low-literacy and limited English language skills in getting involved with WILMAPCO.
The draft plan is available at WILMAPCO’s office at the University of Delaware STAR Campus, 100 Discovery Blvd., Suite 800, Newark; or online at www.wilmapco.org/tj though September 9.
