DOT Launches New Tools to Strengthen Communities Through Equitable Transportation Investments
Posted by Clean Fuels Intern on May. 8, 2023 / Awards & Grants / Subscribe 0
Today, the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) released the Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer and accompanying Story Map to support the agency’s implementation of the Justice40 initiative. The Justice40 initiative, created by the Biden-Harris Administration through Executive Order 14008 Tackling the Climate Crises at Home and Abroad, is a key component in USDOT’s efforts to confront and address decades of underinvestment in transportation.
The ETC Explorer is an interactive web application that uses 2020 Census Tracts and data to explore the cumulative burden communities experience caused by underinvestment in transportation. Its purpose is to provide a deeper understanding into how communities experience transportation disadvantage to help ensure the benefits of investments address the transportation-related causes of disadvantage. The ETC explorer assesses transportation disadvantage in five components: Transportation Insecurity, Climate and Disaster Risk Burden, Environmental Burden, Health Vulnerability, and Social Vulnerability. It is designed to complement Council for Environmental Quality’s Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST).
The USDOT Justice40 Story Map introduces DOT’s implementation of the Justice40 initiative and presents three case studies to demonstrate how a project’s benefits can reverse or mitigate how a community is experiencing disadvantage. The USDOT’s Justice40 website includes information on how stakeholders can address the “Three Major Components of DOT’s Justice40 Initiative” and provides links to more than sixty Technical Assistance resources offered by USDOT.
USDOT is committed to addressing gaps in transportation infrastructure and public services. When decision makers at all levels have the tools to understand how a community is experiencing disadvantage and can identify projects that create benefits that will reverse or mitigate those causes, the result is a higher quality of life and economic prosperity in communities across the country.
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