Metropolitan planning organizations typically undertake an analysis of regionaltransportation plan equity to comply with federal anti-discrimination law including Title VI ofthe 1964 Civil Rights Act. Executive agency guidance for equity analysis practice is extensivebut generally lacks specificity and its provisions are not enforceable. This paper reviews the law,guidance, and academic and agency practice for equity assessment to find that a particularmethod based on traditional environmental justice analysis is dominant. However, this methoddesigned to assess undesirable land uses is generally not appropriate for the analysis oftransportation investment benefits since those benefits are dispersed across wide geographicareas. Four step travel demand models are limited in their ability to disaggregate to finergeography, so the use of this method in combination with those models is potentially sensible.Newer activity-based models are capable of sidestepping this aggregation problem altogether,but agencies have been reluctant to shift from traditional methods, to include race as ademographic variable, and tend to focus unduly on the future year forecast. Analyses that areresponsive to stakeholders must include an assessment of both current conditions and race whileseeking to mitigate inequities that are discovered. The conclusion anticipates a companion studythat assesses the implications described herein using the results of travel demand modeling datagenerated in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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