Transportation is central to human life. Healthcare, education, economic opportunities, and recreational and cultural spaces are all made accessible by transportation. Transportation access had been directly linked to higher employment rates and better health outcomes, but also has immeasurable benefits in connecting people to opportunities. But the reliability, safety, and affordability of transportation is not the same for everyone. Specifically, low-income, minority populations are less likely to have access to transportation than wealthy, white populations. This disparity is what the Transportation Justice movement is attempting to fix.
Portland, Oregon is often ranked among one of the most “Green Cities” in America, but the bike paths and sustainable eateries which give Portland this title are mostly located on the west side of the city. East Portland struggles with many more environmental issues than West Portland and is also the location of most low-income, minority communities in the area. Therefore, the environmental problems the eastside of the city faces are issues of environmental justice, because in the same city, income and race are the difference between healthy and unhealthy environmental quality.
Specific to transportation, there is a clear, unmet need for transit in low-income, minority communities compared to high-income areas in Portland. The public transit systems do not properly service these communities; there are less stops and routes which run through them. To add to this issue, Portland’s highways run through low-income, minority communities. Therefore, the people who can afford cars end up polluting neighborhoods of transit-dependent people, meaning the people who are not polluting are the ones experiencing the negative health effects of poor air quality. Moreover, affordability of public transportation is also an issue. A monthly bus pass in Portland is 33% more than the national average, creating even more of a barrier to transit access.
The lawmakers and city planners in Portland do not purposefully ignore low-income, minority communities when they make decisions. But even without that intention, Portland’s transportation systems still end up having an unjust impact on the city’s low-income, minority communities, showing a systemic failure in the ability of government to protect all its constituents. The planning and law-making process excludes these groups, because they are not reflected in most decision-making bodies and, often, any chance for public participation is during work hours. Therefore, when plans are being made, the needs of low-income, minority communities are excluded, because they do not have representation in the planning process. But if the viewpoint of these communities were better incorporated in the process, it would help the Portland Bureau of Transportation make more just decisions. It would be a first step towards the inclusion of transportation justice in the city’s political agenda, which would make
transportation more accessible and affordable for all.
But even with advocates for low-income, minority communities in decision-making roles, transit justice cannot be achieved by only focusing on transportation methods and systems. Transportation inequity is a symptom of a larger issue of injustice in city planning. Cities are not built for low-income people, but rather they are built to cater to the people with the most influence’s needs, which typically is people of high socioeconomic status. Without the proper considerations made towards fixing inequity, transit systems can deepen those injustices.
In 2017, Portland Department of Transportation proposed implementing a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in East Portland. BRT has the potential to address the lack of service in the area. The new system would connect low-income, minority communities to opportunities around a city, but would also increase housing prices along the route and lead to gentrification. In a Portland State University research study, it was found that the areas the route would run through were extremely vulnerable to changes in housing prices because most people living in the area are “housing cost burdened,” meaning they spend over 30% of their monthly income on rent. Therefore, there is a need for transit development and methods of low-income housing to be developed in tandem, so people are not priced-out of their homes and forced to relocate.
Transportation justice is a piece of the larger environmental justice movement, so these intersectional issues of transportation, housing, and environment need to be addressed together in order to achieve equitable solutions. In the era of climate change, well-implemented public transportation is key to making cities sustainable, but also can lead to a more just community. The effects of climate change will be felt first and the worst by low-income, minority communities, so efficient, environmentally friendly systems, especially public transit, need to be developed before climate change can further exacerbate issues of environmental justice.
 Arcury, T. A., Preisser, J. S., Gesler, W. M. and Powers, J. M. (2005), Access to Transportation and Health Care Utilization in a Rural Region. The Journal of Rural Health, 21: 31-38. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0361.2005.tb00059.x
 Karel Martens, Aaron Golub, Glenn Robinson, “A justice-theoretic approach to the distribution of transportation benefits: Implications for transportation planning practice in the United States,” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Volume 46, Issue 4, 2012, Pgs. 684-695, ISSN 0965-8564, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2012.01.004.
 Portland in Motion Retrieved (2011), “A Five-Year Implementation Strategy for Active Transportation,” from https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/372607
 Martens, K. (2017). Transport Justice. New York: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315746852
 When Public Transportation Leads to Gentrification. (2019, March 11). Retrieved from https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/when-public-transportation-leads-gentrification
 National Institute for Transportation and Communities. (2017). Planning Ahead for Livable Communities along the Powell–Division Bus Rapid Transit: Neighborhood Conditions and Change (NITC-RR-912). Retrieved from https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/NITC_912_Planning_Ahead_for_Livable_Communities_along_PowellDivision_BRT.pdf