Identifying winners and losers in transportation

The issues surrounding transportation equity, both external and internal to transportation, are explored. Several examples are provided of transportation improvements that impose transportation costs on more individuals than those who are benefited. Beyond counting the number of winners and losers, several quantitative measures of equity are suggested and applied to a test case: ramp meters in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-St. Paul, in Minnesota. It is recommended that transportation benefit-cost analyses include an "equity impact statement," which would consider the distribution of opportunities to participate in decisions and the outcomes of those decisions (in terms of mobility, economic, environmental, and health effects) that different strata (spatial, temporal, modal, generational, gender, racial, cultural, and income) of the population receive. Policy makers would then have additional information on which to base decisions.