Abstract
Identification of Environmental Justice Communities at the Project Level Track: State and Local Government Author(s): Isabel Victoria, C. Walton, Jorge Prozzi, Jolanda Prozzi In general, an Environmental Justice (EJ) analysis for a transportation project is required when one of the following two conditions prevails: a minority or low-income community (referred as an EJ population) exists in the study area, and the adverse impacts caused by the transportation investment affect the EJ population disproportionately. This paper presents the results of a sensitivity analysis that was performed to assess how different geographic scales influence the spatial identification of EJ communities at the project level. The sensitivity analysis was applied to the proposed SH 130 in Travis County, Texas. The U.S. Census Data and Geographic Information Systems-based techniques are used for developing the spatial distributions of the population groups in the impacted area for the study geographic scales. This research reveals that the spatial distribution of the EJ communities at the block level is more appropriate to assess EJ concerns at the project level. Isabel Victoria University of Texas Civil Engineering 3356 Lake Austin Blvd Apt E Austin , TX 78703 US Phone: 5122323140 Fax: 5122323074 E-mail: victoriahiguera@mail.utexas.edu C. Walton University of Texas at Austin Civil Engineering TRAN 1 University Station C1761 Austin , TX 78712-1076 US Phone: 5124711414 Fax: 5124714995 E-mail: cmwalton@mail.utexas.edu Jorge Prozzi University of Texas at Austin Civil Engineering ECJ 6.808 - C1761 Austin 78712 US Phone: 5122323488 Fax: 5124758744 E-mail: prozzi@mail.utexas.edu Jolanda Prozzi Center for Transportation Research University of Texas at Austin 3208 Red River Suite 200 Austin 78705 US Phone: 23203079 Fax: 232-3070 E-mail: jpprozzi@mail.utexas.edu |
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