Cooperation, Competition and the Development of Institutional Capacity: Civil Rights and Public Transportation in Southern Nevada

This study examines the implementation of social goals through government action and the context and relations of agencies charged with demonstrating and enforcing equality in transit. Specifically, I explain complexities involved in the top-down federal mandate to demonstrate equal transit service for minority communities and low income residents. Institutional entrepreneurship by local government agencies influenced the legislation and regulation that they were charged to enforce. The local Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), created to enable a local voice in major capital road projects, acquired new institutional capabilities as federal agencies tasked them with implementing new social goals. Engineers and planners, initially rivals, became allies to negotiate with federal agencies. National agencies mediated these complicated rivalries through a series of national conferences. New technical mandates required the creation of a new profession, that of transportation demand modeler, that in turn further increased institutional capacity. National and local legislation, administrative law, and litigation all played a role in creating cooperative alliances to improve Civil Rights and Environmental Justice compliance reporting by MPOs. All professions at all governmental level achieved a cooperative rapprochement through their mutual response to the continuing challenges. I propose new measurements of equality based on today\u27s institutional capacities