The Boundaries of Justice: The Challenges of Environmental Justice Assessments for Transportation Projects

Over recent decades, federal guidelines for transportation projects have required increasing attention to impacts on communities. Executive Order 12898 requires federal agencies to conduct environmental justice (EJ) assessments to determine if negative effects from projects will fall disproportionately on minority or low-income populations. Yet transportation agencies have not given specific guidance on the method for conducting such assessments. Therefore practitioners and researchers apply a variety of analytical techniques. This paper uses a case study of a planned road widening project in Daytona Beach, Florida, to compare the various methods currently used in EJ assessments. The choice of reference area and of method for determining the decision threshold for a finding of disproportionality are shown to have important implications for the outcome of an assessment. Because the spatial distribution of racial/ethnic and low-income groups will vary widely from place to place, practitioners and transportation agencies should not decide on the precise method, but carefully consider the characteristics and distribution of the data being used and select the method that most fairly represents the data distribution. Conducting genuine EJ assessments is not only required by federal regulations, but can head off conflicts, better reveal the true costs of projects, and allow for more equitable distribution of costs and benefits by better targeting mitigation efforts. Thus rather than shying away from EJ assessments, transportation agencies and practitioners should continue to explore methods and approaches.Master of City and Regional Plannin