Title VI / Environmental Justice

Chapter 1...and Justice for All EJ Maps EJ Public Involvement

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) uses federal transportation and environmental funds to undertake a continuous planning process to develop regional plans and programs, in accordance with an annual Planning Work Program, and to fulfill its mission "to plan for the orderly growth and development of the Delaware Valley Region." In furtherance of its on-going public involvement and information activities and in response to recent federal guidance, DVRPC has developed an environmental justice (EJ) assessment to mitigate potential direct and disparate impacts of its plans, programs and planning process on defined minority, handicapped and lower income populations in the Delaware Valley Region.

This report, entitled "...And Justice For All": DVRPC'S Strategy for Fair Treatment and Meaningful Involvement of all People, provides background information about what EJ is; summarizes DVRPC's existing EJ-related plans, policies and public involvement activities, and describes a quantitative and qualitative methodology for evaluating the long-range plan, the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and other programs. Recommended policies and implementation strategies to enhance DVRPC's EJ responsibilities are proposed, including an annual monitoring and evaluation process to ensure that the policies and implementation strategies remain effective.

The qualitative review of DVRPC's existing plans and programs, includes a summary of EJ-related policies and goals from the adopted long-range plan (both the Year 2020 Plan (1995) and the recently adopted Year 2025 Plan); the adopted Year 2025 Regional Airport Systems Plan; and the Regional Job Access and Reverse Commute Transportation Plan (1999). Other planning documents reviewed include the Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility Plans, a study of regional elderly mobility needs, the TIP and the annual Planning Work Program.

The more technical, quantitative methodology relies primarily upon available U.S. Census data, analyzed at the nine-county, regional scale (by municipality or census tract), for various indicators of disadvantage: concentrations of minorities (Hispanic and Non-Hispanic), the elderly, the handicapped, as well as car less and poverty households. The number of these factors that apply in a given census tract or municipality represent the "Degrees of Disadvantage." "Quality of Life Factors" are also defined, including arterial highways, transit service, hospitals, employment centers and job access/reverse commute transportation services. The resulting "Degrees of Disadvantage" and "Quality of Life Factors" maps are then combined to reflect the positive and negative influences of the region's infrastructure systems (transit and highway access) and key services. These factors and data sources will be expanded over time, particularly following the release of additional Census information.

The Transportation Plan and the TIP were evaluated separately using the combined map of Quality of Life and Degrees of Disadvantage factors as an overlay. The resulting maps can be evaluated from a geographic perspective (but also incorporating service and quality factors) to identify gaps or areas of lower quality service. Such areas can become the focus of additional actions or mitigation efforts through future DVRPC planning and implementation activities, working with county and local officials and the public. The identified disadvantaged areas also serve as an "early warning" of the need to do additional local area EJ analysis as part of any subsequent environmental assessment of individual projects.

In general, DVRPC's Year 2025 Transportation Plan and TIP are geographically extensive in terms of the scope and scale of their recommended projects and implementation funding. Few gaps or areas of lower quality service were found using the defined overlay methodology. In fact, many of the areas having four or more degrees of disadvantage are well-located with respect to planned and programmed transportation improvements and public transit service. However, most of the region's outlying, rural areas are not well served by public transportation, are located farther from the region's major employment centers and have lower quality of life factors than the more urban and suburban communities. Where possible, one way to enhance the transportation accessibility of such areas is to focus on introducing new or additional paratransit service and expanding job access services that connect outlying areas to nearby employment centers or the region's core transit network.

The next section of the report summarizes DVRPC's existing pubic involvement program and implementation strategies. These activities form a sound basis for the enhanced efforts recommended in the subsequent section, which presents a Policy Statement and Action Strategies to address environmental justice issues. A continuous monitoring and evaluation process is also established to ensure that the evaluation methodology and the focus of implementation activities remain up-to-date and effective.

The Appendix includes the purpose and current membership of the EJ Technical Advisory and Task Force, respectively; two committees formed during the initial work program. A proposed DVRPC Employee Handbook page on EJ is also proposed that is intended to better promote EJ concepts and obligations among DVRPC staff. The Appendix concludes with six maps of the socioeconomic factors used to develop the composite Degrees of Disadvantage Map.

Chapter I. of this report, which gives an introduction and background information for this report, is available for reading online. An Annual Update to "...and Justice for All" was published in September 2002, that updates and refines the existing qualitative methodology developed in the first report. New demographic and quality of life factors are added. A 2004 Annual Update was published in September 2004. All four reports may
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