“The development of a regional transit system in the Atlanta area is being held hostage to race, and I think it's high time we admitted it and talked about it.”
—J. David Chestnut, Chairman of Atlanta’s Transit Authority, 1987
This thirty-five-year-old quote from Atlanta has become a touchstone for scholars trying to find a clear and convincing way to describe what should be obvious to almost anyone living in America: American public transportation sucks, and racism is the reason why.
Extensive research conducted over the past several decades has, in great detail, described the ways that racial politics and structural racism affect the development of transportation systems in the United States. Access to transportation is systematically unequal, and that inequality is correlated with residential segregation that is based upon racial identity. To a considerable degree, it is because of structural racism in transportation systems that the myriad social benefits made accessible by transportation—including but not limited to economic opportunity, health, recreation, and social connectivity—have been distributed unequally along racial lines at least since the end of World War II. The rather obvious reality that transportation systems compound the effects of racial segregation is easily understood by almost all residents of the United States. Indeed, talking about “the wrong side of the railroad tracks” is a longstanding vernacular to describe American segregation. This situation is accepted as a problem by actors across the political spectrum, in large measure because improved access to transportation aligns with social justice priorities as well as business-friendly concerns around enabling workers and consumers improved access to the economy. However, there is wide disagreement, of course, over the specifics of any intervention that might address the systematic lack of access to transportation for marginalized communities across the US.
A common source of opposition to transit reforms stems directly from racism, embedded within American political frameworks. Transportation systems, by their very nature, must cut across racially segregated regions as they connect city with suburb, urban with rural areas. Of course, most American policymakers and political advocates clearly understand the racist reasons why the trains and busses run (or fail to run) as they do, and why the construction of urban interstate highways caused the destruction and social isolation of certain neighborhoods (mostly Black, urban) instead of other neighborhoods (mostly White, suburban). Many policymakers and advocates further understand that transportation infrastructure can be a powerful tool for wealth generation. In addition to lucrative public contracts for the construction of transportation infrastructure, economic activity tends to cohere around major road intersections, near train stations, and around bus stops. New transportation amenities can raise property values, attract new businesses, and bring wealthier residents. These dynamics interact with racial politics whenever any transit reform is discussed.
Despite their many potential benefits, transportation reform proposals routinely face “not in my backyard” (or NIMBY) challenges. Sometimes, residents in desirable, wealthier neighborhoods express a political desire to keep out people who use public transportation. Stated plainly, the stereotypes about transit are so strong that they can often override the constant imperative to improve property values. Predictable opposition to new transit projects emerges in large measure because of a durable stereotype that people who ride the bus are undesirable. Moreover, some right-wing political advocates have identified transit as a strategically important issue, leading to the investment of significant resources (for voter outreach efforts, paid television advertisements, and more) into state and local campaigns against new transit proposals.
Overcoming opposition to new transportation projects, therefore, presents a complex political challenge in almost every American state and metropolitan area. For those who advocate for new transportation projects, racial politics pose a particularly vexing aspect of these challenges.
Colorblindness and Transit
The challenge posed by racial politics is compounded by the predominant mode of race relations in the United States: deep denial. For decades, most Americans have believed that it is better not to discuss race explicitly. Usually, openly discussing race and racism violates social and political norms. While almost everyone wants to live in a society free from racism, colorblindness ideology posits that racism will more quickly go away if everyone pretends not to notice race.
It can be perilous, then, for a transit reform advocate to point out directly that the current transportation system is racist, or that it exacerbates race-based inequalities. Due to the colorblindness norm, such a charge could be politically explosive, or it might be simply dismissed and ignored as illegitimate. Colorblindness ideology makes it quite difficult for advocates simply to describe the racist reality of current transportation systems, much less to push for effective transportation reforms. Without the ability to mobilize a coalition of socially progressive, anti-racist support toward effective transit reforms aimed at alleviating structural discrimination, transit advocates must seek support in other ways.
This situation often leads advocates across the US to seek the approval of pro-growth, pro-business regional power brokers. There has been remarkable alignment in recent decades among city growth boosters and corporate interests to pursue increased access to public transit to enable workers and consumers to contribute to local economies. Many transit reform proposals, therefore, often are couched in explicitly pro-business terms about how they will attract corporate development and new jobs to the region, and how improved transit will reduce automobile traffic and make economic opportunities more accessible for everyone. This constant pressure to align with neoliberal priorities makes it difficult for advocates to actually meet the goals of social justice—to use public transit to reduce the inequality created by existing American transportation systems. The political realities present major challenges even to design, much less actually to implement, transit reforms that would serve social justice goals—providing significant new access to those groups who lack adequate transportation. Most remarkable about this situation is that almost every policymaker knows the truth: transportation systems do, in fact, reinforce abhorrent racist inequities. But opponents of transit reforms can easily maintain that their position against any specific transportation reform is not at all racist, but merely about economics, the environment, safety, taxes—anything but race.
This Is The Racial Dilemma
Advocates for improved transportation, in short, face a racial dilemma. Discussing the racist roots of transportation inequity is often risky, due to racial politics. At the same time, conforming to colorblindness and pretending that racism is not an issue often allows all the factors that generate structural racism to continue. Indeed, failure to compensate for and actively work against racial inequality when new transportation systems are designed and built often leads to yet more deeply embedded racist inequalities. Under the guise of colorblindness, resources get directed toward areas already well-served by transportation, and populations that need improved access are systematically moved away from new development through gentrification processes. Due to the racial dilemma, most transportation initiatives in the US fall into one of these two categories: either they are explicitly designed to provide improved access to transit-dependent populations, or they are used to boost profits and investment values for already wealthy beneficiaries. The preeminent challenge for transit advocates, especially those committed to social justice, is to find a way out of this racial dilemma, to advocate for anti-racist transportation reforms despite the dominance of colorblindness ideology.
The racial dilemma is a choice between discussing or denying racism. This is a deeply strategic quandary that advocates in many areas of American politics must wrestle with. The decisions made by advocates on how to navigate through the racial dilemma have significant implications for the strategic direction of an advocacy organization. A decision to discuss race openly forecloses some options while opening others. The choice often serves to establish an organization’s reputation as “liberal,” “progressive,” or “radical.”
Consider a common strategic objective for transit advocates: attracting the support of car-owning “choice riders” and those who do not often use public transit. These constituencies serve as ideal examples of conscience constituents, those groups less likely to directly benefit from the social causes they advance (Mayer and Zald 1977). Gaining the support of such groups—in ballot referendums, in public hearings, and so forth—may be a necessity for public transportation reforms that effectively address social justice. However, these conscience constituents are often disproportionately White and more affluent than the “core” supporters of transit: those who rely on transit by necessity rather than choice. The overriding objective of gaining support among choice riders, largely “White liberals,” as conscience constituents (especially in segregated American metropolitan areas) has often led to a strategy of avoiding any public discussion of race and racism—to avoid upsetting potential White allies.
Alternatively, some advocates might make a strategic decision to court explicitly the support of anti-racist individuals, across racial and geographic boundaries. This approach would seem to require a coordinated campaign across almost every aspect of a transit advocacy organization. The organization would need to prepare research describing the disparate impacts of the existing transportation systems, and then they would suggest transit projects that might not conform to the wishes of the regional elite. To gain sufficient support for these proposals would require coalition building across boundaries that are often not crossed: political, racial, and economic lines.
My research question, then, is whether and how the strategic approach to this racial dilemma varies among different pro-transit advocacy organizations. I’m writing a book on this topic right now, and if you subscribe, I’ll keep you posted with early looks at my findings.