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Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
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conversation about fitness, health, and happenings in our community on
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one oh six point seven Light FM.
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Thanks for listening to Get Connected. Most all Americans would
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agree that our transportation infrastructure highways, roads, buses, trains needs
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an upgrade. But before we can think about rebuilding and repairing,
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our guest warns that we need to reconsider how much
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of existing US infrastructure was built around race. Debor Archer
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is an eminent legal scholar and president of the ACLU
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and author of Dividing Lines How Transportation infrastructure reinforces racial inequality.
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Debor Archer, Welcome to the show.
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Thank you for having me.
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I think perhaps the easiest way to get to the
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heart of the matter is to get to that idea
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of the right side or the wrong side of the tracks,
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and most people immediately have an image of what that
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might mean. It's the good side of town, the bad
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side of the town, the rich side, the poor side,
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the white side, or the black or brown side, and
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adage that didn't get that way by accident.
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I think we often think about good and bad communities
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and what those mean, and we act as if that's natural,
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and forget that we have taken so many steps to
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create those good and bad communities. And when we're thinking
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about that, we often think about the invisible lines that
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have helped facilitate those divisions. We think about the laws
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at the local, state, and federal level that divide us.
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But it really is, as you've said, these physical, literal
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lines running through and around our communities, lines that may
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seem innocuous or practical, or necessary or just natural, that
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are part of the architecture of racial inequality. And transportation
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is essential to that.
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Just to kind of get to an anecdote of this,
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you grew up in Hartford, and this is something you
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saw in your own childhood.
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I did.
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I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and we were surrounded
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by a highway and it had all the negative externalities
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of that pollution and noise. We had major roads coursing through,
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making it difficult to do the things that people considered
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to be childhood activities, riding your bike with the wind
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racing through.
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At your face.
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But it also made it difficult to access economic opportunity,
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to get to doctor's appointments, to get to the jobs
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in the suburbs, because our community just wasn't served in
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the ways that would help and support our people.
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We will talk a lot about the highway system and bussing,
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but before that, what was effectively the birth of racial
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segregation as far as zoning laws in the country, What
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did that look like? And I'm thinking about Birmingham nineteen ten,
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that era.
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Yeah, so racial zoning laws evolved in different ways of
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trying to limit land use and separate land use, but
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it was quickly co opted in a way that locked
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in racial inequality and folks like those in Birmingham, but
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communities all around the country adopted racial zoning laws.
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And racial zoning.
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Laws limited where black folks and white folks could live.
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So they would say, you know, black communities, you can
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live on the left side of the street, white communities
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on the right side, and you couldn't mix.
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And in that way, it locked.
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In segregation by creating these zones. But it's also important
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to know that the areas that were zoned for black
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communities was always the least desirable areas. It was in
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flood prone areas, it was in areas with industrial other
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industrial uses, with pollution and all the things that no
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one wanted to live near. Those were the communities that
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were zoned for black and brown folks.
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This was during that era of the separate but Equal
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doctrine from the late nineteenth century. So the idea was
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people would be separated and things would be equal. But
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as you're reminding us, it really.
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Was not separate, was never equal.
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Yeah, yeah, and it's funny. I was just reading coincidentally,
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Maya Angelou's first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
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and she talks about growing up in segregated Arkansas in
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the nineteen thirties and until she was about seven, she
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didn't even know that white people were real. The segregation
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were so strict it was like you were two different species.
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That's right.
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We have used so many tools to divide our communities
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and make it difficult for us to interact in any way.
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We often then in the time that you're discussing and
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Maya Angelou is discussing, but also today we live separately,
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we eat separately, we worship separately, we go to school separately,
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we work separately, and it's hard to overstate what a
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negative impact that has on us as a country and
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a community.
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Our guest is Deborah Archer. She is a legal scholar
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and president of the ACLU. She is also a tenured
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professor and Associate dean at New York University School of
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Law and the Faculty director of the Community Equity Initiative
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at NYU Law. Her book is Dividing Lines, How Transportation
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Infrastructure reinforces Racial equality. You're listening to get Connected on
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one zero six point seven light FM. I'm mina del rio.
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So jumping forward a little bit, the planning for federal
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highways began in Earnest in the nineteen forties. The majority
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of the highway's highway system was built in the fifties
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and seventies between the fifties and seventies. Concurrently, this is
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also the era of the Civil Rights Movement. So how
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was segregation, racial zoning, and integration being fought socially and
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responded to by the courts.
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So as legal segregation began to crumble during the Civil
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Rights Movement, we started to see the victories in the
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fifties and sixties, cities across America turned to infrastructure as
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a more permanent, more visible way to enforce racial hierarchy.
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And one example I focus on in the book is
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the connection between the decision in Brown versus Board of Education,
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which held that separate education for black and white kids
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was unconstitutional, and the building of our interstate highway system
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so Brown was decided in nineteen fifty four, and then
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the Interstate Highway Act was passed in nineteen fifty six,
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and following the decision in Brown communities around the country
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showed that they were willing to make incredible sacrifices and
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use every tool available to them to protect their way
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of life, to really protect racial segregation. And with the
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Interstate Highway Act just two years after that decision, they
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used that act to really lock in and recreate in
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many ways the effects of Jim Crow laws. Talking about Birmingham,
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Alabama with their racial zoning laws. After racial zoning was
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struck down, Birmingham, Alabama, led by notorious segregationist Bull Connor,
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explicitly used the highways I fifty nine and I sixty
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five to lock in racial segregation, built the highways in
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places that mirrored the racial zoning laws. I talk about Indianapolis,
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who used a different tool. They had redlining, and we
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know that redlining indicated that there were certain communities, black
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and brown communities that people were told not to invest
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in We're not going to give you mortgages, we're not
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going to give you loans to start businesses, and that
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resulted in real economic devastation.
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I think in New York City also, we tend to
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think historically our city has a better track record, right,
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But for forty years New York City public works were
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commanded by Robert Moses, who was insidious in how he
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went out of his way to punish black and brown communities.
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And I think a lot of New Yorkers it's such
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an anecdote that still like boggles the mind a bit
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about those the low bridges on the way to the beaches.
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Yeah.
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So Robert Moses, in many ways was the father of
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so much of this because he believed in using infrastructure
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not just to move people efficiently, but to shape where
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people lived, who had access to public spaces in which
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communities could thrive. And that meant that he was driving
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expressways in parkways through low income, largely black, and neighborhoods
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to clear them out communities that he considered to be slums,
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while also protecting and preserving white, wealthier areas. But he
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also believed in the durability of infrastructure, and that using
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infrastructure would evade the evolution of laws. And so one
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story that I tell in the book that is often
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repeated is that he built the overpasses on some of
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the parkways leading to Jones Beach too low for buses
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to get through, because the buses were the mode of
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transportation used by black and Puerto Rican folks in New
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York City, and he wanted to make it difficult for
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them to get to Jones Beach, and so if the
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buses couldn't pass under the overpass, then they couldn't get
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to the beach, and that that would that design policy
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of exclusion that didn't require a single discriminatory law to function,
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would outlast civil rights laws and the developments and civil
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rights law.
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As a rule, aggressiveness towards buses and bus riders seems
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particularly insidious even today. The story of Cynthia Wiggins in
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Buffalo in nineteen ninety five is emblematic of that.
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I think, yeah, Cynthia, It's a story I learned about
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during my research. A seventeen year old black woman who
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worked in an upscale mall in Buffalo, and the mall
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did not allow the city bus to come into the
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parking lot. Other buses were allowed to come into the
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parking lot, and in order to get to work every day,
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then she had to race across seven lanes of traffic.
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And one day, when she was racing across those lanes
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of traffic, she was struck by a bus and killed.
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And that story is repeated around the country that we
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have folks who live in cities trying to get to
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economic opportunity in the suburbs, needing to take the bus,
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and the bus is the mode of public transportation that
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sees the most discrimination against it because it is disproportionately
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used by black and Lentino folks, and those suburban communities
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doing everything that they can to keep buses out of
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their communities.
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As you stayed in the book, I never would have
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thought about it. Really, Bus transit receives only thirty one
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percent of capital funds spent nationwide on transit, while buses
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account for more than sixty percent of all trips and
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trains and light rail also, are you know they're further
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down on the hierarchy of transit. What is that net
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result of underfunded public transit?
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Yeah, we're not investing where it's needed the most. We're
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not investing in the ways that black and brown folks
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disproportionately use public transit. So we're a culture that is
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focused on cars, and we are building roads and highways
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to make it easier for people who own and use
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cars to get to where they need to go. But
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black and brown folks just proportionately do not own cars
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and are relying on other forms of public transportation. And
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even when we're investing in public transportation, it is not equitable.
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It is not invested in where there is the most need,
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where we have most neglected, in the ways that low
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income folks really need us to.
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Really interesting thing you note about different street names between neighborhoods,
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which is a pretty cheap and effective way to create
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a sense of boundaries between communities. How does the naming
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of streets even get to property values?
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Yeah, So one of the ways I talk about historically
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was Atlanta, where they even wanted to spare white folks
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the indignity of having to say they lived on the
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same street as black folks. And so in Atlanta, as
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a street move from a white neighborhood to a black neighborhood,
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the street name would change and you can still see
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that on maps in Atlanta, but also street names around
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the country kind of give a signal of the nature
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of the community. So I talk about the way that
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Martin Luther King boulevards around the country signal that it
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is a black community, and it has led to some
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disinvestment because people do not want to put their businesses
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on a Martin Luther King boulevard because there is a
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vision of what that means. Property values are less, homes
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are valued less, the community is just valued less. And
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it's triggered by those street names. And it's a shame
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because the naming of streets after civil rights heroes is
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the result of decades of work of advocates who want
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to recognize the important work that folks like Martin Luther
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King or Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey have put into
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building more equitable communities.
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But their names.
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Are on streets and communities that represent the exact opposite
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communities that have suffered from disinvestment and economic isolation.
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You talk about how Atlanta was pretty much in a
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league of its own when it came to these practices,
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but to pull questions from sort of the other side
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of the argument until the nineteen until the rather twenty
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twenty census, Atlanta remained a black majority city. So how
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were segregation techniques They're detrimental in the long run.
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Yeah, even if though it's a majority black city. The
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leadership wasn't right. So during the time when a lot
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of this was done, there was a white mayor who
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was trying to be responsive to white community and their
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calls for protection, their calls and demands for protection. Atlanta
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was built up in a way now that makes it
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very difficult for anyone who lives there to get around.
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It is a tremendous traffic in Atlanta, and some of
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that is because of the way the highways were built.
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They were built in a way not to optimize efficiency,
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but to instead destroy and remove black communities and lock
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in segregation. Their street grid has lots of one way
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streets that were originally designed to make it difficult to
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move from a black community to a white community, and
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now it makes it difficult just to move around Atlanta.
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They turned lots of through streets into cul de sacs
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or dead ended them to make it difficult to get
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from one neighborhood to another, and now it makes it
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difficult for anyone who lives there to get around. So
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although Atlanta is now a majority black city, it wasn't
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always and the leadership was not always, and so it
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was not built. It was built in a way to
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lock in racial inequality and has resulted in inconvenience.
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And lack of opportunity for a lot of folks.
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You have just addressed a little bit, but I still
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want to ask the question for people who are thinking,
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it's just as likely that these neighborhoods would have developed organically.
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There would be a white neighborhood, there would be a
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black neighborhood. People are living near people who were like
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them by choice.
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Yeah.
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I think we often hear that that segregation is by choice.
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Segregation is evolving. I think that that it's not true
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that segregation is natural. There are so many ways that
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government has intervened historically and today to facilitate that. And
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until we really move beyond the idea that segregation is
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natural and people will only want to live with the
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people who are like them, and start to focus on
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the many ways in which we are still encouraging, facilitating, requiring,
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driving segregation, we're not going to make progress. We have
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to really acknowledge the many ways that government facilitates racial segregation,
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and we're doing it to day, not just with transportation,
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but with many many other policies as well.
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As our highway system needs to be rebuilt, our subways,
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all these things. These are long term projects that will
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inevitably be hit by political forces from either side during
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years and years of planning and debate and all these things.
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It really does reinforce the permanence of some of these
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decisions from fifty to sixty years ago. What do you
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think or hope will be the biggest influence ultimately going forward?
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What happens to influence it going forward in a better direction.
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We're at a point of great need, and I think
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even President Trump has said that we need to invest
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in transportation. And so as we're at this point where
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we all recognize the need to invest in transportation, transportation
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infrastructure is falling, I hope dividing lines can be an
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intervention that can force us to have a different conversation
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to build back better. I think we need a shift
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in national transportation policy that forces us to reimagine how
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we use transportation infrastructure to serve and support all of
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our communities, including communities of color. So whether you call
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it community equity focused, you call it anti racist design,
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you call it equitable design, or something else. Entirely, it's
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about not looking at our current situation as a neutral baseline,
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as an equitable starting point. It is about us connecting
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seemingly isolated incidents and projects to common policies and laws
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and approaches that keep leading to racially inequitable, discriminatory, or
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oppressive outcomes. And it's about finding ways to build the
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transportation infrastructure that traditionally marginalized communities need, to connect them
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to opportunity, to do that in a way that is efficient,
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to do that in a way that is fast, to
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do that in a way that is equitable, and to
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do it in a way that doesn't re injure these
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communities that have been so often harmed in the past.
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Our guest is Deborah Archer. She is president of the
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ACLU and author of Dividing Lines, How Transportation Infrastructure reinforces
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Racial inequality. Debora Archer, thank you for being on Get Connected.
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Thank you so much for this conversation.
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This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
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one oh six point seven Light FM. The views and
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opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
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of the station. If you missed any part of our
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show or want to share it, visit our website for
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downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
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dot com. Thanks for listening.
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Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
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conversation about fitness, health, and happenings in our community on
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one oh six point seven Light FM.
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Thanks for listening to Get Connected. Most all Americans would
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agree that our transportation infrastructure highways, roads, buses, trains needs
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an upgrade. But before we can think about rebuilding and repairing,
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our guest warns that we need to reconsider how much
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of existing US infrastructure was built around race. Debor Archer
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is an eminent legal scholar and president of the ACLU
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and author of Dividing Lines How Transportation infrastructure reinforces racial inequality.
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Debor Archer, Welcome to the show.
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Thank you for having me.
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I think perhaps the easiest way to get to the
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heart of the matter is to get to that idea
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of the right side or the wrong side of the tracks,
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and most people immediately have an image of what that
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might mean. It's the good side of town, the bad
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side of the town, the rich side, the poor side,
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the white side, or the black or brown side, and
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adage that didn't get that way by accident.
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I think we often think about good and bad communities
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and what those mean, and we act as if that's natural,
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and forget that we have taken so many steps to
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create those good and bad communities. And when we're thinking
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about that, we often think about the invisible lines that
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have helped facilitate those divisions. We think about the laws
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at the local, state, and federal level that divide us.
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But it really is, as you've said, these physical, literal
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lines running through and around our communities, lines that may
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seem innocuous or practical, or necessary or just natural, that
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are part of the architecture of racial inequality. And transportation
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is essential to that.
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Just to kind of get to an anecdote of this,
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you grew up in Hartford, and this is something you
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saw in your own childhood.
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I did.
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I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and we were surrounded
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by a highway and it had all the negative externalities
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of that pollution and noise. We had major roads coursing through,
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making it difficult to do the things that people considered
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to be childhood activities, riding your bike with the wind
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racing through.
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At your face.
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But it also made it difficult to access economic opportunity,
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to get to doctor's appointments, to get to the jobs
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in the suburbs, because our community just wasn't served in
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the ways that would help and support our people.
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We will talk a lot about the highway system and bussing,
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but before that, what was effectively the birth of racial
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segregation as far as zoning laws in the country, What
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did that look like? And I'm thinking about Birmingham nineteen ten,
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that era.
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Yeah, so racial zoning laws evolved in different ways of
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trying to limit land use and separate land use, but
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it was quickly co opted in a way that locked
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in racial inequality and folks like those in Birmingham, but
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communities all around the country adopted racial zoning laws.
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And racial zoning.
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Laws limited where black folks and white folks could live.
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So they would say, you know, black communities, you can
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live on the left side of the street, white communities
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on the right side, and you couldn't mix.
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And in that way, it locked.
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In segregation by creating these zones. But it's also important
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to know that the areas that were zoned for black
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communities was always the least desirable areas. It was in
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flood prone areas, it was in areas with industrial other
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industrial uses, with pollution and all the things that no
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one wanted to live near. Those were the communities that
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were zoned for black and brown folks.
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This was during that era of the separate but Equal
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doctrine from the late nineteenth century. So the idea was
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people would be separated and things would be equal. But
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as you're reminding us, it really.
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Was not separate, was never equal.
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Yeah, yeah, and it's funny. I was just reading coincidentally,
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Maya Angelou's first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,
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and she talks about growing up in segregated Arkansas in
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the nineteen thirties and until she was about seven, she
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didn't even know that white people were real. The segregation
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were so strict it was like you were two different species.
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That's right.
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We have used so many tools to divide our communities
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and make it difficult for us to interact in any way.
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We often then in the time that you're discussing and
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Maya Angelou is discussing, but also today we live separately,
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we eat separately, we worship separately, we go to school separately,
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we work separately, and it's hard to overstate what a
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negative impact that has on us as a country and
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a community.
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Our guest is Deborah Archer. She is a legal scholar
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and president of the ACLU. She is also a tenured
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professor and Associate dean at New York University School of
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Law and the Faculty director of the Community Equity Initiative
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at NYU Law. Her book is Dividing Lines, How Transportation
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Infrastructure reinforces Racial equality. You're listening to get Connected on
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one zero six point seven light FM. I'm mina del rio.
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So jumping forward a little bit, the planning for federal
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highways began in Earnest in the nineteen forties. The majority
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of the highway's highway system was built in the fifties
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and seventies between the fifties and seventies. Concurrently, this is
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also the era of the Civil Rights Movement. So how
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was segregation, racial zoning, and integration being fought socially and
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responded to by the courts.
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So as legal segregation began to crumble during the Civil
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Rights Movement, we started to see the victories in the
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fifties and sixties, cities across America turned to infrastructure as
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a more permanent, more visible way to enforce racial hierarchy.
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And one example I focus on in the book is
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the connection between the decision in Brown versus Board of Education,
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which held that separate education for black and white kids
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was unconstitutional, and the building of our interstate highway system
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so Brown was decided in nineteen fifty four, and then
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the Interstate Highway Act was passed in nineteen fifty six,
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and following the decision in Brown communities around the country
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showed that they were willing to make incredible sacrifices and
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use every tool available to them to protect their way
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of life, to really protect racial segregation. And with the
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Interstate Highway Act just two years after that decision, they
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used that act to really lock in and recreate in
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many ways the effects of Jim Crow laws. Talking about Birmingham,
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Alabama with their racial zoning laws. After racial zoning was
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struck down, Birmingham, Alabama, led by notorious segregationist Bull Connor,
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explicitly used the highways I fifty nine and I sixty
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five to lock in racial segregation, built the highways in
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places that mirrored the racial zoning laws. I talk about Indianapolis,
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who used a different tool. They had redlining, and we
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know that redlining indicated that there were certain communities, black
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and brown communities that people were told not to invest
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in We're not going to give you mortgages, we're not
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going to give you loans to start businesses, and that
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resulted in real economic devastation.
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I think in New York City also, we tend to
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think historically our city has a better track record, right,
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But for forty years New York City public works were
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commanded by Robert Moses, who was insidious in how he
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went out of his way to punish black and brown communities.
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And I think a lot of New Yorkers it's such
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an anecdote that still like boggles the mind a bit
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about those the low bridges on the way to the beaches.
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Yeah.
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So Robert Moses, in many ways was the father of
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so much of this because he believed in using infrastructure
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not just to move people efficiently, but to shape where
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people lived, who had access to public spaces in which
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communities could thrive. And that meant that he was driving
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expressways in parkways through low income, largely black, and neighborhoods
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to clear them out communities that he considered to be slums,
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while also protecting and preserving white, wealthier areas. But he
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also believed in the durability of infrastructure, and that using
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infrastructure would evade the evolution of laws. And so one
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story that I tell in the book that is often
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repeated is that he built the overpasses on some of
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the parkways leading to Jones Beach too low for buses
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to get through, because the buses were the mode of
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transportation used by black and Puerto Rican folks in New
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York City, and he wanted to make it difficult for
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them to get to Jones Beach, and so if the
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buses couldn't pass under the overpass, then they couldn't get
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to the beach, and that that would that design policy
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of exclusion that didn't require a single discriminatory law to function,
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would outlast civil rights laws and the developments and civil
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rights law.
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As a rule, aggressiveness towards buses and bus riders seems
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particularly insidious even today. The story of Cynthia Wiggins in
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Buffalo in nineteen ninety five is emblematic of that.
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I think, yeah, Cynthia, It's a story I learned about
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during my research. A seventeen year old black woman who
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worked in an upscale mall in Buffalo, and the mall
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did not allow the city bus to come into the
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parking lot. Other buses were allowed to come into the
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parking lot, and in order to get to work every day,
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then she had to race across seven lanes of traffic.
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And one day, when she was racing across those lanes
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of traffic, she was struck by a bus and killed.
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And that story is repeated around the country that we
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have folks who live in cities trying to get to
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economic opportunity in the suburbs, needing to take the bus,
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and the bus is the mode of public transportation that
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sees the most discrimination against it because it is disproportionately
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used by black and Lentino folks, and those suburban communities
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doing everything that they can to keep buses out of
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their communities.
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As you stayed in the book, I never would have
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thought about it. Really, Bus transit receives only thirty one
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percent of capital funds spent nationwide on transit, while buses
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account for more than sixty percent of all trips and
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trains and light rail also, are you know they're further
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down on the hierarchy of transit. What is that net
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result of underfunded public transit?
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Yeah, we're not investing where it's needed the most. We're
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not investing in the ways that black and brown folks
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disproportionately use public transit. So we're a culture that is
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focused on cars, and we are building roads and highways
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to make it easier for people who own and use
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cars to get to where they need to go. But
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black and brown folks just proportionately do not own cars
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and are relying on other forms of public transportation. And
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even when we're investing in public transportation, it is not equitable.
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It is not invested in where there is the most need,
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where we have most neglected, in the ways that low
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income folks really need us to.
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Really interesting thing you note about different street names between neighborhoods,
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which is a pretty cheap and effective way to create
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a sense of boundaries between communities. How does the naming
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of streets even get to property values?
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Yeah, So one of the ways I talk about historically
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was Atlanta, where they even wanted to spare white folks
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the indignity of having to say they lived on the
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same street as black folks. And so in Atlanta, as
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a street move from a white neighborhood to a black neighborhood,
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the street name would change and you can still see
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that on maps in Atlanta, but also street names around
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the country kind of give a signal of the nature
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of the community. So I talk about the way that
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Martin Luther King boulevards around the country signal that it
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is a black community, and it has led to some
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disinvestment because people do not want to put their businesses
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on a Martin Luther King boulevard because there is a
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vision of what that means. Property values are less, homes
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are valued less, the community is just valued less. And
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it's triggered by those street names. And it's a shame
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because the naming of streets after civil rights heroes is
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the result of decades of work of advocates who want
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to recognize the important work that folks like Martin Luther
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King or Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey have put into
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building more equitable communities.
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But their names.
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Are on streets and communities that represent the exact opposite
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communities that have suffered from disinvestment and economic isolation.
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You talk about how Atlanta was pretty much in a
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league of its own when it came to these practices,
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but to pull questions from sort of the other side
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of the argument until the nineteen until the rather twenty
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twenty census, Atlanta remained a black majority city. So how
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were segregation techniques They're detrimental in the long run.
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Yeah, even if though it's a majority black city. The
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leadership wasn't right. So during the time when a lot
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of this was done, there was a white mayor who
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was trying to be responsive to white community and their
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calls for protection, their calls and demands for protection. Atlanta
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was built up in a way now that makes it
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very difficult for anyone who lives there to get around.
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It is a tremendous traffic in Atlanta, and some of
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that is because of the way the highways were built.
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They were built in a way not to optimize efficiency,
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but to instead destroy and remove black communities and lock
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in segregation. Their street grid has lots of one way
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streets that were originally designed to make it difficult to
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move from a black community to a white community, and
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now it makes it difficult just to move around Atlanta.
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They turned lots of through streets into cul de sacs
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or dead ended them to make it difficult to get
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from one neighborhood to another, and now it makes it
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difficult for anyone who lives there to get around. So
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although Atlanta is now a majority black city, it wasn't
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always and the leadership was not always, and so it
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was not built. It was built in a way to
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lock in racial inequality and has resulted in inconvenience.
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And lack of opportunity for a lot of folks.
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You have just addressed a little bit, but I still
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want to ask the question for people who are thinking,
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it's just as likely that these neighborhoods would have developed organically.
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There would be a white neighborhood, there would be a
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black neighborhood. People are living near people who were like
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them by choice.
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Yeah.
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I think we often hear that that segregation is by choice.
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Segregation is evolving. I think that that it's not true
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that segregation is natural. There are so many ways that
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government has intervened historically and today to facilitate that. And
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until we really move beyond the idea that segregation is
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natural and people will only want to live with the
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people who are like them, and start to focus on
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the many ways in which we are still encouraging, facilitating, requiring,
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driving segregation, we're not going to make progress. We have
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to really acknowledge the many ways that government facilitates racial segregation,
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and we're doing it to day, not just with transportation,
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but with many many other policies as well.
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As our highway system needs to be rebuilt, our subways,
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all these things. These are long term projects that will
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inevitably be hit by political forces from either side during
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years and years of planning and debate and all these things.
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It really does reinforce the permanence of some of these
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decisions from fifty to sixty years ago. What do you
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think or hope will be the biggest influence ultimately going forward?
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What happens to influence it going forward in a better direction.
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We're at a point of great need, and I think
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even President Trump has said that we need to invest
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in transportation. And so as we're at this point where
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we all recognize the need to invest in transportation, transportation
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infrastructure is falling, I hope dividing lines can be an
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intervention that can force us to have a different conversation
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to build back better. I think we need a shift
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in national transportation policy that forces us to reimagine how
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we use transportation infrastructure to serve and support all of
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our communities, including communities of color. So whether you call
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it community equity focused, you call it anti racist design,
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you call it equitable design, or something else. Entirely, it's
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about not looking at our current situation as a neutral baseline,
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as an equitable starting point. It is about us connecting
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seemingly isolated incidents and projects to common policies and laws
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and approaches that keep leading to racially inequitable, discriminatory, or
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oppressive outcomes. And it's about finding ways to build the
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transportation infrastructure that traditionally marginalized communities need, to connect them
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to opportunity, to do that in a way that is efficient,
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to do that in a way that is fast, to
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do that in a way that is equitable, and to
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do it in a way that doesn't re injure these
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communities that have been so often harmed in the past.
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Our guest is Deborah Archer. She is president of the
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ACLU and author of Dividing Lines, How Transportation Infrastructure reinforces
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Racial inequality. Debora Archer, thank you for being on Get Connected.
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Thank you so much for this conversation.
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This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
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one oh six point seven Light FM. The views and
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opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
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of the station. If you missed any part of our
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show or want to share it, visit our website for
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downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
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dot com. Thanks for listening.
