Embracing Equity

By Mr. Ransford McCourt P.E., PTOE posted 02-07-2020 10:05 AM

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Equity (noun): freedom from bias or favoritism, the quality of being fair and impartial.

Discussion of equity can imply broad considerations. Equity is a complex and challenging topic. In the transportation profession, equity reaches deeply into the communities and people we serve. It does not come with checklists, handbooks, or standards. It routinely involves judgement and differences in thought. Because of this, people often prefer to avoid the sensitivity of equity discussions altogether.

When we speak of transportation equity today, the conversation generally turns to topics such as travel modes and social, racial, and economic themes commonly emerge. Growing up in rural northwest Oregon, I remember that the equity of rural/urban funding priorities were a frequent discussion. What happens when equity takes an unexpected turn? Are we working to make transportation safer, more reliable and truly equitable for all, or are we limiting ourselves to checking compliance boxes to convince others we are achieving equity? For the past 40 years, I’ve experienced issues in our industry that leave me wondering if we have a full appreciation of equity. Are we making the best possible choices when selecting professionals to design and plan our transportation systems?

While I would love to have the answers to this, it actually generates more questions for me. Why is it we struggle with consideration of equity in transportation? Is it because of the leaders who try to control the process of ideas and community solutions to fit their narratives, agenda, ego, timeframes, or financial interests? Is it a fear that seeking equity can be a largely unknown territory leading to endless schedules, budget overruns, not looking good, or losing a job? If equity is important, what are its limits? Where the majority benefit, does that mean the needs of the minority can be ignored? Or the reverse, when the minority is favored? When working together, are we fair and impartial toward one another in our work? How do we react to favoritism and bias when it affects transportation? Do we seek refuge in what we see as our truth, the comfort of people we align with, or do we pursue the broader needs of the community? We must demand of ourselves a solution beneficial to all.

Equity in transportation is complex. It challenges us, our budgets, and schedules to serve its purpose. I believe transportation professionals are well positioned to meet this challenge. Seeking equity in the planning, design, and operation of our transportation systems allows us greater understanding of the community context and the underpinnings of why resistance to change exists. Advancing equity when we work together—on proposals, contracts, and projects—will make our industry better for the next generation of transportation professionals.

In this issue of ITE Journal you will find articles that speak to the heart of these topics, contributed by partners including Toole Design Group, Better Bike Share Partnership, Feonix – Mobility Rising, and more. Exploring equity on many fronts, as these articles do, has the potential to make future transportation systems better for all. Find the courage to listen, understand, and seek meaningful change. Don’t miss the opportunity to shape your community by working toward equity.

This blog post is from the President's Message in the January 2020 issue of ITE Journal.

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Mr. Dennis Randolph P.E

02-10-2020 03:53 PM

Ransford McCourt’s introduction to the February issue of the ITE Journal focusing on equity is an important discussion related to change in our profession. In the same issue Jeff Paniati also notes how ITE the organization is also undergoing a significant change. Together, these articles point to the future of our profession. But while timely, I think there is more to say about what equity should mean to us as professionals and to our profession.

As President McCourt did, I like to start discussions with definitions, and it is fitting to keep one in mind. First, while equity means the quality or being fair and impartial, many times we as professionals believe the strict application of our facts, figures, and guidelines is in-fact proof that we do our work in a fair, unbiased, and engineering-like way. However, when we look at the results of our work (and there are many good projects we have done and contributed to, don’t get my comments wrong) despite our facts, figures, and guidelines, we have left many communities severely damaged by streets and highways. Unfortunately, as a profession we still strive to build, systems that cater to the whims and needs of the automobile. Especially those big, multimillion-dollar projects that in our profession build resumes and win promotions.

While we do not like to admit it, many of those damaged communities are low income and majority-minority populations. These are the communities that suffer the most when there is a lack of equity. These are also the communities that our work in environmental justice, try to protect and help. Often these communities lack the financial and political power necessary to battle and overcome unfairness. More importantly, our facts and figures and especially our guidelines often have built into them elements that implicitly support acts of unfairness and environmental injustice that carry the imprimatur of “good engineering.”

Unfortunately, one of the unsettling things I have learned after 50-years as a transportation engineering professional is that I can make numbers say many different things. Moreover, guidelines leave much room for opinions and preconceived notions that are tantamount to unfairness. In simpler terms, and consistent with recent discussions in the general media, even artificial intelligence systems use implicit biases they learn from people. All people, even transportation engineers, have these implicit biases, and whether the bias is implicit or explicit, it results in that lack of fairness, or equity we should all be concerned about.

But most important, in expanding our conversation on equity, we must understand there is more to the matter of equity than fair and impartial, there is the matter of justice. Equity means that we apply justice equally to everyone, and one of Webster’s definitions for justice is the quality of being just, impartial, or fair.

When we place the burden or negative impacts of our decisions on people who lack the power to fight the decision then we have been unjust. even if our facts and figures and engineering judgement says it might be “good engineering” we have done an injustice to them. For example, dividing neighborhoods with limited-access, multilane freeways is an injustice even if it means benefit to others. Sometimes it may be a necessary action, but when we must build something like this, then it is important that the people and communities we burden, receive justice one way or another. This is what we have forgotten so many times. It is the reason we must consider equity, before we build, or even retime a signal, or consider the alternatives to wider roads such as transit and non-motorized travel.

In the Pledge of Allegiance, we commit ourselves to the pursuit of “liberty and justice for all.” “For all” is inclusive and means we aim to provide and protect liberty and justice for all people regardless of gender, race, economic status, political ideology, religious background, or any of the reasons we use to distinguish ourselves from each other. When we engineer to preserve liberty and justice for a privileged few, we are mouthing a shallow doctrine and an uninformed patriotism.

Webster’s says engineering is the application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to people. Not some people, or those who have the most power, money or influence… all people. When we do not do our engineering equitably, then there is a problem. At that point, the question: does equity mean we should abandon engineering? really becomes: if we do not provide equity and justice in our work, is our work really ENGINEERING? I suggest it is not because we have not truly made our work useful to people!

For years we have rationalized burdening communities in the name of good engineering and claims of a greater good. We often promise that we would come back and make things better when funding allowed. But the funding never comes, and the burdened suffer, even as we go on to bigger and more impressive projects.

As Congress and our profession look to the future, some with grand ideas to renew the Interstate System and to increase the federal fuel tax, we should look at this as an opportunity for redemption. The big programs of the future should be promoters of equity and proving that we have learned to not only build equably for the future, but correct the inequities and injustices of the past. If we accept this challenge, then we will prove how much our profession and our organization have changed, and changed in a positive way.

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