189548 Bay Area Freight Transportation Justice: Policy and Community-Based Initiatives

Monday, October 27, 2008: 10:50 AM

Swati R. Prakash , Community Strategies for Sustainability and Justice, Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA
  
The volume of freight moving through the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to double by 2020, which will necessitate significant land use changes to accommodate expanding infrastructure, and will fundamentally change the landscape of many neighborhoods. The communities most impacted are rarely able to meaningfully engage in these land use decisions because of the time demands of influencing such decisions, a lack of political power relative to the freight transportation industry, and a lack of access to the planning and environmental knowledge that can help frame community needs in the language of industry, planners, and regulators.

In this presentation, I will discuss the Freight Transport Justice Project whose goal is to help create a sustainable freight transportation infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay Area region with minimal community health impacts and maximum local economic benefits. The Community Strategies program works with residents of low-income communities of color that currently shoulder a disproportionate burden of the costs of freight transportation infrastructure. We build the power and capacity of these residents to participate in decision-making regarding freight transportation infrastructure and related land use decisions. I will also discuss our use of capacity-building, trainings and leadership development for impacted residents and community organizations; direct engagement with stakeholders who have influence over freight transport in California; and technical analysis & assistance on the environmental health impacts of freight transport, and on local and regional land use and transportation policy to achieve the project's goal.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe the policy efforts of the Bay Area Transportation Justice Project to create a sustainable freight transportation infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay Area 2. List the community-based initiatives and strategies of the Bay Area Transportation Justice Project 3. Discuss the successes of the project in capacity-building, community leadership on environmental health issues, and improving the local built environment through policy changes

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an environmental justice and health expert with over ten years of experience in the field. I have been working at the Pacific Institute for several years on Port of Oakland, built environment, environmental justice, and public health issues.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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