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California's freeways have come under increasing scrutiny for their disproportionately adverse impacts on lowincome populations and populations of color. This study uses empirical research to not only understand but also quantify and describe in detail the historical impacts of freeways on communities of color in four California cities and areas: Pasadena, Pacoima, Sacramento, and San José. In these neighborhoods, freeways displaced many residents, significantly harmed those that remained, and left communities divided and depleted. The four cases differ in notable ways, but they share a disproportionate impact of freeway construction on communities of color. In Pasadena and Pacoima, decision-makers chose routes that displaced a greater share of households of color than proposed alternatives.Demolition and displacement were the most visible and immediate effects of the freeways, but toxic pollution, noise, economic decline, and stigmatization remained long after. In suburban areas, white, affluent interests often succeeded in pushing freeways to more powerless neighborhoods. Massive roadway construction complemented other destructive governmental actions such as urban renewal and redlining. Freeways and suburbanization were key components in the creation of a spatial mismatch between jobs and housing for people of color, with few transportation options to overcome it. Understanding the history of racism in freeway development can inform restorative justice in these areas.

In recent decades, homelessness has become an increasingly major challenge in the U.S. Of the half million unhoused people in the U.S., many seek shelter in settings under the auspices of state departments of transportation (DOTs), such as freeways, underpasses, and rest areas. DOTs are responsible for the health and safety of these settings and of their occupants, housed and unhoused.This study synthesizes existing literature and findings from interviews with staff from 13 state DOTs and eight service providers and organizations responding to homelessness. Homelessness represents a recognized and common challenge for DOTs, but the numbers and location of unhoused individuals in state transportation settings vary and fluctuate. As DOTs face jurisdictional, financial, and legal hurdles in responding, DOT staff employ both “push” and “pull” strategies, the most common of which is encampment removals. However, the effectiveness of such removals is limited. Other strategies include “defensive design” and, more proactively, establishing or partnering with low-barrier shelters, providing shelters and sanitation on DOT land, and coordinating rehousing and outreach efforts. Our findings suggest that DOTs should acquire better data on homelessness on their lands, create a homelessness coordinating office, establish formal partnerships with nonprofits/service providers, and evaluate the necessity of encampment removals, through the development and utilization of prioritization criteria. DOTs should coordinate with other bodies as they work towards broader housing solutions.

We examined land use and design controls in three municipalities in Los Angeles County (CA)—Alhambra, Arcadia, and San Gabriel—that have experienced a recent influx of Asian residents. We drew from archival research of newspaper articles, planning documents, city council and planning commission meeting minutes, and interviews with 14 local planners, architects, planning and design review commissioners, and resident groups. We found that the three cities developed stringent development controls, encouraged Anglo or Spanish heritage architectural styles, and issued new guidelines and ordinances during the period of changing demographics. These actions often stemmed from White residents’ fear of losing their neighborhoods and interest in maintaining their existing landscapes. We detail here four contestations relating to mansionization, architectural styles, historic preservation, and massage parlors. The study is important for planning practice because it shows that development controls and design guidelines may be developed in reaction to increased anxieties about immigration and in ways that counteract the interests and values of some minority residents. Planners in ethnically diverse communities need to be aware of and respond to the possible exclusionary effects of design and land use controls. They need to better listen to newcomers’ concerns, integrate their voices in decision making, and educate both newcomers and long-time residents about the importance of each other’s cultural heritage. Planners may seek to exercise professional ingenuity in developing and implementing design and planning regulations that better balance spatial identities and accommodate conflicting tastes.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jpe-10.1177_0739456X221121612 for A Bus Home: Homelessness in U.S. Transit Environments by Jacob L. Wasserman, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Hao Ding and Ryan Caro in Journal of Planning Education and Research

Transit settings represent sites of visible homelessness, especially since the advent of COVID-19, for many of the over 500,000 Americans unhoused each night. This report seeks to understand the scale of homelessness on transit and how transit agencies are responding to the problem. Part I describes the extent of homelessness on transit in several areas by using count data and synthesizing prior research. We find that transit serves as shelter for a high, though quite variable, share of unsheltered individuals, who are more likely than their unhoused peers elsewhere to be chronically unhoused and structurally disadvantaged. Part II provides detailed case studies of strategies taken by transit agencies around the country: hub of services, mobile outreach, discounted fares, and transportation to shelters. We summarize each strategy’s scope, implementation, impact, challenges, and lessons learned. Reviewing these strategies, we find value in collecting data more systematically, fostering external partnerships, keeping law enforcement distinct from routine homeless outreach, educating the public, and training transit staff—all in the context of a broader need for more housing and services.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jag-10.1177_07334648211012530 for Voices of Experience: What Do Low-Income Older Adults Tell Us About Mobility, Technology, and Social Participation? by Haley B. Gallo, Lia W. Marshall, Len�� Levy-Storms, Kathleen H. Wilber and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris in Journal of Applied Gerontology

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jag-10.1177_07334648211012530 for Voices of Experience: What Do Low-Income Older Adults Tell Us About Mobility, Technology, and Social Participation? by Haley B. Gallo, Lia W. Marshall, Len�� Levy-Storms, Kathleen H. Wilber and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris in Journal of Applied Gerontology

More than half a million individuals experience homelessness every night in the U.S. With the scale of the crisis often surpassing the capacities of existing safety nets—all the more so since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—many turn to transit vehicles, stops, and stations for shelter. Many also use transit to reach destinations such as workplaces, shelters, and community service centers. This report investigates the intersections of the pandemic, transit, and homelessness, presenting the results of a survey of 115 transit operators on issues of homelessness on their systems. We find that homelessness is broadly present across transit systems, though concentrated on larger operators and central hotspots, and has reportedly worsened on transit during the pandemic. The perceived challenges of homelessness are deepening, and data, dedicated funding, and staff are rare. However, a number of responses, including external partnerships and outreach and service provision, are growing, and agencies are adapting quickly to the pandemic. All told, centering the mobility and wellbeing of unhoused riders fits within transit’s social service role and is important to improving outcomes for them and for all riders.

Fear and anxiety about personal security are important detractors from using public transit. Empirical research in different cities of the Western world has confirmed that fear about crime affects transit ridership. Surveys of the perceptions of transit passengers have revealed a number of issues related to their anxiety about personal security. For one, fear of transit is more pronounced in certain social groups than others. Gender emerges as the most significant factor related to anxiety and fear about victimization in transit environments. Almost every fear of crime survey reports that women are much more fearful of victimization than men. This fear has some significant consequences for women and leads them to utilize precautionary measures and strategies that affect their travel patterns. These range from the adoption of certain behavioral mechanisms when in public, to choosing specific routes, modal choices, and transit environments over others, to completely avoiding particular transit environments, bus stops and railway platforms, or activities (e.g., walking, bicycling) deemed as unsafe. Women’s fear of crime in public spaces has been adequately documented. Research of transit passengers’ perceptions of transit safety has also intensified in response to the recognition that anxieties about crime are impeding travel choices and affect transit ridership and revenue, and guidelines for safer cities and transit environments have been drafted. Some studies incorporate an analysis of gender differences in perceptions of safety on transit; however, the focus is not specifically on women and safety. In contrast, a small subset of studies has focused on women’s concerns and fears about personal safety in transit environments. Criminologists complain, however, that our increased knowledge about the causes of fear has not necessarily translated into nuanced policy responses tailored to the particularities of different groups and physical settings. Additionally, there remains a general lack of knowledge regarding specific female requirements for urban and transit environments. Researchers have argued that this is partly due to the imperceptibility of women and the assumption that women and men are in the same situation and have the same needs. This study focuses on the safety concerns and needs of women riders. The research tasks undertaken included: 1) A review of the literature on women’s fear in public settings; 2) a compilation of survey findings (mostly from Canada and the United Kingdom) presenting the concerns of women passengers on issues of transit safety; 3) a compilation of an inventory of strategies followed in these countries that target women’s safety; and 4) a web-based survey of U.S. transit operators to document the programs and activities they have implemented to make their systems safer for women riders as well as their assessments of the efficacy of these programs. The survey targeted all 249 transit agencies in the United States that operate at least 50 vehicles in peak period service

This research explores the spatial distribution of pedestrian-automobile collisions in Los Angeles and analyzes the social and physical factors that affect the risk of getting involved in such accidents. More specifically, this study investigates the influence of socio-demographic, land use, density, and traffic characteristics on pedestrian accident rates. We first provide an exploratory spatial and statistical analysis of pedestrian collision data in the city of Los Angeles to identify preliminary relationships between accident frequency and socio-demographic and land use characteristics at the census tract and block group levels. This aggregate level analysis also helps us identify major concentrations of pedestrian collision data which are used at a second stage of the research for more qualitative and detailed analysis of specific case studies of intersections with high frequency of pedestrian-automobile accidents. The study uses pedestrian accident data provided by the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, traffic volume data provided by Caltrans, socio-demographic data from the U.S. Census 2000, land use data from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), and pedestrian volume and built environment data from fieldwork research.

The link between the social and physical environment and transit crime is an important one, but is not well understood or explored. This study explores the environment - transit crime connection by examining in-depth the relation between crime incidence at the stations and their neighborhoods. The study employs a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to analyze crime statistics, census and ridership data, and built environment data. It documents and evaluates the geography of crime along this light rail line, as well as the impact of socio-demographic and environmental attributes on crime incidence at the station.

The focus of this research is the commercial strip of the American inner city which, due to disinvestment, high crime rates, arbitrary and haphazard development, and poor connections to surrounding residential neighbourhoods, has become a problematic environment. Physical retrofit and economic policies are urgently needed in order to reclaim these decaying urban environments. This paper concentrates on the subject of physical retrofit, using three inner-city commercial strips in Los Angeles as case studies to document residents’ needs and utilisation of these strips, and proposes design and policy changes for their physical improvement.

This study focuses on bus stop crime and seeks to identify the environmental attributes that can affect the bus rider's security while at the bus stop. Using crime data for the years 1994 and 1995 made available by the transit division of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the study discusses some general characteristics of bus stop crime. Following the argument of criminologists that certain place characteristics can affect the incidence of crime, the study employs qualitative research methodology (observation, mapping, interviews and surveys) to examine in detail the physical and social environment around the ten most dangerous bus stops in Los Angeles. It finds an abundance of "negative" environmental attributes and a general lack of "defensible space" elements. It also finds that different types of crime tend to occur under different environmental conditions. The paper discusses design responses as an approach to crime prevention at bus stops.

Can form follow transit? Can transit restructure urban form? What types of policy measures can direct such restructuring? These questions are increasingly asked today as the initial ridership of new transit developments remains limited. If it can be shown that investment in urban infrastructure stimulates development along transit corridors, particularly around stations, which in turn contributes to increased ridership, a self inducing effect of transit development can be claimed. In the dispersed urban form typical of California cities, justification of fixed-rail transit systems must depend on this logic. Intuitively, it is not an unreasonable presumption.