How to Produce Equitable Pedestrian Plans

Amber Berg and Gregory Newmark's new paper "Incorporating Equity into Pedestrian Master Plans" analyzes 15 pedestrian master plans from major American cities "to understand how some of the largest departments of transportation were — or weren’t — centering the needs of marginalized communities in their policies," writes Kea Wilson. 

Wilson points to a troubling finding from Smart Growth America that older, non-white pedestrians are disproportionately more likely to be killed by drivers than white pedestrians. Wilson describes the paper's analysis:

But Berg and Newmark found that even cities with more "vertical" approaches to equity planning were not necessarily reducing disparities in their equity metrics. To understand why, they evaluated all the plans through a framework they are calling the “Three A’s”: Acknowledgment, Accountability, and Application.

Measuring equity in pedestrian plans using these three metrics, Berg and Newmark found that Portland and Seattle lead the pack. "These seemingly subtle differences, the researchers say, can have huge implications for a region’s long-term equity efforts," writes Wilson.