Seasoned environmental justice professionals working in mobility justice are invited to apply for the 2024 UC Davis Environmental Justice (EJ) Leaders Program. Applications are open to all California-based leaders interested in collaborating with research communities at UC Davis to enhance their community-based efforts. This year’s programmatic theme is Mobility Justice: the rights of all to access freedom of movement in different spheres of life.

In order to improve transportation strategies and projects, government agencies must seek modes of community engagement, particularly with historically excluded communities of color. To understand this landscape better, and to promote just transportation planning, Rebecca van Stokkum (Geography graduate student) and I studied four successful participatory planning processes in San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Los Angeles. We aimed to identify what made the processes successful and where further improvements were needed.

Associate Director Sarah McCullough and ITS graduate student C. Sequoia Erasmus recently released preliminary results of the research study, “Accounting for Sociocultural Factors and Assessing Equity in Active and Sustainable Transportation.” This study assesses the status and impact of equity work in active and sustainable transportation in California.

The FRI-sponsored Transportation Equity and Mobility Justice Working Group is gearing up for its third quarter. The goal of the working group is to provide more opportunities for students and faculty to convene and collaborate on themes and topics related to transportation equity in a dynamic and thoughtful space. It is affiliated with the Feminist Research Institute (FRI) and the Institute for Transportation studies (ITS), and includes researchers from Community Development, Civil Engineering, and Transportation Technology & Policy.

This article is cross-posted from the UC Davis Humanities Institute with permission by author Lindsay Baltus and the Institute.