MEMORANDUM

DATE      January 17, 2013

FROM      Alicia Wilson, MPO Staff

TO           Boston Region MPO

RE            2013 Environmental Justice Outreach in the Transportation Equity Program

INTRODUCTION

This memorandum outlines the next steps the MPO staff plans to take in its outreach to environmental justice communities.

As described in the MPO’s Long-Range Transportation Plan:

The federal environmental justice circular requires the MPO to examine the allocation of benefits and burdens, historically and currently, and planned for the future; to ensure that minority and low-income communities are treated equitably in the provision of transportation services and projects; and to provide full participation for minority and low-income communities to advise the MPO during its planning and decision-making process.

The MPO’s environmental justice outreach program supports the latter portion of this description. The information gleaned through its outreach helps the MPO understand the transportation needs of environmental justice neighborhoods throughout the planning and decision-making processes.

The outreach program has used several methods to gather this information, including regional environmental justice forums, targeted surveys, and small-group meetings. MPO members have been periodically briefed on the information gathered, and has shared it with the entities responsible for taking action. The program has yielded useful data that informed the transportation equity section of the Long-Range Transportation Plan’s Needs Assessment and shaped the criteria used to evaluate projects for the Transportation Improvement Program.

Understanding peoples’ needs is a key reason for engaging in outreach. It is also important to educate people who are interested in transportation planning about how transportation decisions are made and to explain how they can become more engaged in the process. Presenting this type of information will improve public understanding and lead to more informed participation in the MPO’s work.

OBJECTIVES

The MPO staff has identified several objectives for its upcoming outreach to organizations and individuals in environmental justice communities. The objectives of the staff are to:

• Improve public awareness of the Boston Region MPO and its functions  
• Improve understanding of the transportation-planning process
• Attract participation from low-income persons, minority persons, autoless households, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and persons with limited English proficiency (LEP)
• Increase the number of responses to the MPO’s online transportation equity survey (available at www.bosotnmpo.org , under Transportation Equity; click on the Survey link)
• Increase public awareness of the MPO’s Regional Transportation Advisory Council (Advisory Council) and attract groups that address environmental justice concerns to participating in the Advisory Council’s work
• Learn about transportation needs in the environmental justice communities from which few or no survey responses have been received

STRATEGIES

Four key strategies are planned for the MPO’s upcoming environmental justice outreach.

Strategy 1: Conduct meetings with organizations that serve low-income and minority persons, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and limited-English-proficiency communities in the region

The MPO staff plans to attend regularly scheduled meetings hosted by umbrella groups, such as Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) and area agencies on aging, which can reach a broad audience. The staff will request time on the meeting agendas of these organizations to present basic information about the MPO, similar to the information provided during the MPO orientation that was held in November 2011, but abbreviated and tailored for the new audience. The meetings will also present an opportunity for the staff to develop professional relationships with trusted advocates who can help the MPO communicate with traditionally underserved populations. Doing so will help the MPO engage groups that may not be aware of how transportation decisions are made, or that may have a low level of familiarity with or trust of public agencies. (A list of targeted organizations is in the appendix.)

The staff will also strive to better understand the needs of the communities by engaging in structured small-group discussions following staff presentations at meetings. An objective of the discussions will be to understand which transportation needs are the highest priorities of a given community.

Strategy 2: Update the MPO’s online equity survey and seek additional responses

The current survey, developed in 2010, focuses on gathering information about the needs of environmental justice communities. Additional questions will be added to the survey to help the MPO understand the priorities of the communities. These questions may take the form of a rating scale in which respondents are asked to express their feelings about the relative importance of various types of improvements or transportation policies. A postcard promoting the updated survey will be distributed at the meetings and by mail to all of the Transportation Equity Program contacts so that people who are not able to attend a meeting can provide input at their convenience using the online survey. The updated survey will be available on the MPO’s website, www.bostonmpo.org, in several of the most commonly spoken languages of the region.

Strategy 3: Encourage public participation through the Advisory Council

The MPO staff is actively reaching out to some of the organizations from the list of targeted organizations that serve the identified populations to elicit interest in attending Advisory Council meetings and encouraging active participation. Information on Advisory Council activities and meetings, along with a call for new members, will be included in the flyer that will be sent to all of the targeted organizations in the MPO’s Transportation Equity database (a draft of the flyer’s text is in the appendix).

Strategy 4: Target outreach to hard-to-reach audiences

Through written communication, the staff will solicit invitations to attend meetings of organizations that serve environmental justice communities. A flyer will be sent to each group listed in the MPO’s updated database of contacts (see Tables 1, 2, and 3 at the end of the memorandum, in the appendix), asking them to provide the MPO an opportunity to discuss the Transportation Equity Program. Staff will also target organizations in neighborhoods or communities where participation has historically been lower than in other communities. Seeking an invitation to meetings at institutions, such as community centers, charitable organizations, senior centers, health care facilities, and places of worship, will help to reach residents who have difficulty participating in a traditional public process. Organizations offering to host a meeting will be invited to help recruit community members and other organizations to participate in the Transportation Equity Program. MPO staff will follow up with telephone calls to encourage higher response rates from organizations.

Because responses to the last round of surveying were concentrated in the urban core of the region, staff will pay special attention to organizations that are geographically dispersed. The following communities should be targeted during outreach efforts because the MPO received little or no response from them during the last round of surveying:

• Chelsea
• Everett
• Framingham
• Lynn
• Malden
• Peabody
• Randolph
• Revere
• Salem
• Waltham

CONCLUSION

The MPO’s environmental justice program is ongoing; these next steps in the outreach program will continue throughout 2013. The staff will update the MPO during the latter half of 2013 about the comments and concerns expressed through the meetings and the equity survey.

AW/aw

Table 1
Transportation Equity Contacts: Agencies and Community Development Groups

Table 2
Transportation Equity Contacts: Organizations Serving People with Disabilities

Table 3
Transportation Equity Contacts: Veteran’s Groups

BOSTON REGION MPO:

Transportation Information Resource

Invitation to Participate

The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) conducts the federally required transportation planning process for 101 cities and towns in eastern Massachusetts. The MPO makes decisions about which transportation projects receive federal funds for construction in the region and in your community. There are several reasons to be aware of the MPO and participate in the transportation planning process.

TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION RESOURCES FOR YOU

The MPO’s website, http://www.bostonmpo.org, hosts a variety of transportation data for the Boston region. For example:

• Transit on-time performance and vehicle passenger crowding
• An interactive intersection database that includes bike and pedestrian crashes, traffic volumes, and bus routes
• A listing of transportation services available to senior citizens
• A large variety of interactive maps and applications such as a database and a map showing proposed highway projects.

In addition, the MPO’s website provides information on transportation planning, the MPO process, and copies of reports pertaining to different transportation modes and policies.

PARTICIPATE IN TRANSPORTATION ISSUES THAT AFFECT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

The MPO gathers information about the transportation concerns of minority and low-income communities, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and persons with limited English proficiency as part of its Transportation Equity Program. The program encourages and facilitates involvement in the Boston Region MPO’s regional transportation planning process. It is a way to be involved in decisions on how to allocate funds for transportation projects.

Contact us to start a conversation on how you can become involved. Take a survey and share your views via the website. Invite MPO staff to your organization’s meetings. Attend MPO meetings and its Advisory Council’s meetings. All meetings are open to the public. Meeting agendas and other planning information for these meetings for these meetings are posted on the MPO’s website. Contact Alicia Wilson at (617) 973-8008 or awilson@ctps.org for additional information.

THE MPO’S NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY: The MPO fully complies with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related statutes and regulations in all programs and activities. The MPO does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, English proficiency, income, religious creed, ancestry, disability, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or military service.