Accessibility in Policymaking

Accessibility in Policymaking:

How programming excludes marginalized communities during

decision-making processes and transportation planning

On Thursday April 9th at 9:00 AM, the Bay Area Rapid Transportation (BART) Board of

Directors held a meeting concerning updates on the heavy rail and subway system that connects

San Francisco and Oakland with four other surrounding urban and suburban counties. The four

hour long meeting discussed long-term outlook budget projections, service modifications and

safety efforts, amongst other items. At least five of the nine directors were present along with

other concerned citizens who could make the meeting. This essay sets out to critique how public

transportation meetings such as that of the BART Board of Directors’ limit accessibility and

information to impacted and marginalized communities through its choice of programming such

as the time, date and duration of the meeting. This decision to have an early meeting on a

weekday, in addition to the shelter-in-place restriction for COVID-19, assures that the already

affluent voices of privileged communities will be heard by the policymaking agency. In contrast,

low-income and BIPOC communities who cannot make the timeframe of the meeting for various reasons like work and lack of technology will be excluded because they cannot be present. This essay brings to light two specific issues that coexist and are generated from the BART meeting:

the programming of the meeting and the voices being heard. Together, these factors obstruct and

limit information and accessibility to absent and marginalized communities.

To start, the BART Board of Directors’ choice to hold four hour long meetings, now as

virtual Live Streams, at 9:00 AM on altering Thursdays creates a participation barrier for the

working-class and groups with limited access to technology groups, typically low-income and

marginalized BIPOC communities, and makes representative attendance nearly impossible. This

meeting presented critical information regarding updates on the use and safety of BART as well

as Federal and State fundings, projected budgets and potential tax for projects -- information that

was not accessible for commenting, questioning or clarification for communities who work or do

not have access nor proper technology to participate in a Live Stream for four hours. For

example, most essential workers who have no choice but to work (regardless of the

shelter-in-place restriction) and commute via BART would not be able to properly partake in

Live Stream because they would be at work on a Thursday morning. The time frame of the

meeting and the additional use of Live Stream continues to reinforce and recreate transportation

and metropolitan inequalities through the lack of representative participation from underserved

and under-resourced communities in the planning decisions. Additionally, the exclusion of these

communities in transportation planning meetings contribute to the unequal distribution of

benefits and burdens.1 In the case of BART, the discussion and decisions around the potential of

taxpayers to fill BART’s lost revenue from COVID-19 would go unnoticed by many, until it affected them, if they could not attend the meeting on April 9th. There is, of course, also

potential worth in having an online meeting. Live Streams could allow a more diverse panel, like

the addition of young voices, to attend the meeting without having to travel to a physical space.

The lack of travel time, the disappearance of sitting in rush hour traffic, in addition to the

minimization of costs for travel like paying toll, could be more accessible2 and encourage more

people with apt technology and service to attend and participate in transportation planning.

However, that is usually not the case for working low-income and marginalized communities.

Technology and service aside, four hours for a meeting starting at 9:00 AM on Thursday is

simply not manageable.

Secondly, the BART Board of Directors’ decision to hold these meetings during its

regular programming assures that only the voices of those who can make the timeframe are

heard; Anyone who is able to make room in their work and daily life for a four hour long

meeting on a Thursday morning has the luxury of free time-- and these people are usually

affluent and white.3 Although public involvement is critical to engaging and informing the

ridership population4, the excessive time constraint and commitment for these meetings generally

do not allow nor represent the variety and vast majority of ridership in the Bay. An example from

the meeting on April 9th materializes itself approximately 2 hours and 13 minutes, into the

meeting during the portion for public commenting. A commenter to the BART Board of

Directors meeting, Alita Dupree, voiced his concerns about the current COVID-19 policy

regarding the free AC Transit fare5 (although the meeting concerned BART and not AC Transit).

He states, for the record, how the Board needs to remember to secure gates, check who is coming

in and out, remember safety in numbers and the non-discriminatory behavior of the virus,

amongst other things. He also references the recent New York City subway incident on the #2

train which was being investigated for arson. He does this because he believes that the free fare

and reduced patronage could contribute to the spread of the virus or that the lack of policing in

BART and AC Transit that could cause another accident like that in New York City. He does this

because he has a right to speak to the panel - they are, after all, his concerns. However, Alita Dupree does not represent the majority of riders for BART6. He does not represent the vast

majority of riders of bus transit either, as figure 13.5 from the text The Geography of Urban

Transportation shows7. And yet, because of how this meeting was structured, Alita Dupree, a white male veteran with disabilities who supports shared mobility8 (although ironically specifies

the potential harm in free transit fares), has a voice.

In conclusion, an active decision to engage public involvement from a more diverse

ridership population by the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors needs to be made. The

voices of the white and the privileged9 do not encompass the struggles of ridership for the

low-income and BIPOC. It is 2020. There exists endless texts, statistics, media, and countless

other sources that prove the existence and history of racist transportation planning. The Board of

Directors’ choice to have these meetings held on alternating Thursdays at 9:00AM, regardless of

a world pandemic, only reinforces racist transportation planning. Change, representative

concerns and active and meaningful engagement, need to start happening now. And it will have

to start with switching the meeting time, the duration and the day of the BART Board of

Directors meetings.

Bibliography

“BART Board TV.” Bay Area Rapid Transit. Accessed June 26, 2020.

https://www.bart.gov/about/bod/multimedia .

Bart.gov. 2016. “Civil Rights Program 2016 Triennial Update”[online] Available at:

https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/Civil%20Rights%20Program%202016%20Triennia

l%20Update%20FINAL.pdf [Accessed 26 June 2020]. Page 5, 33, 47

Golub, Aaron, Richard A. Marcantonio, and Thomas W. Sanchez. “Race, Space, and Struggles

for Mobility: Transportation Impacts on African Americans in Oakland and the East Bay.”

Urban Geography 34, no. 5 (2013): page 701

“Government Access Programming : SFGTV : June 11, 2019 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT : Free

Borrow & Streaming.” Internet Archive. Accessed June 26, 2020.

https://archive.org/details/SFGTV_20190612_040000_Government_Access_Programming .

Giuliano, Genevieve, and Susan Hanson, Blumenberg, Evelyn. “Chapter 13:Social Equity and

Urban Transportation.” Essay. In The Geography of Urban Transportation, Fourth Edition . New

York: Guilford Publications, 2017. page 333, 343

Giuliano, Genevieve, and Susan Hanson, Scriara, Gian-Claudia, Handy, Susan. “Chapter 6:

Regional Transportation Planning.” Essay. In The Geography of Urban Transportation, Fourth

Edition . New York: Guilford Publications, 2017. Page 150