Advancing Social Equity Analysis in Transportation with the Concept of Accessibility

Despite notable recent advancements in federal regulations that have institutionalized equity analysis in the field of transportation, planners face a lack of guidance in their efforts to advance social justice. Practicing planners have regularly carried out equity analyses of their plans for more than a decade, yet their analyses rarely uncover the disparities that are commonly found by scholars, suggesting shortcomings in current practice. This paper explains why social equity in transportation ought to be evaluated on the basis of accessibility metrics rather than on the mobility metrics that dominate current practice, and it identifies normative standards for carrying out evaluations in practice.