The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and

Round: Exploring the Societal Benefits of

Public Transit

Noah Carter

4/17/23

Independent Research

Dr. Melissa Kiehl

Abstract
Introduction

Traveling through urban areas can be confusing. One block contains a row of

businesses bustling with shoppers and pedestrians; and only a few blocks away is a

run-down community, boarded-up houses, and a sparsely populated street. This

phenomenon is alarmingly common and development in American cities is a pressing

issue. Most of it can be traced back to a movement created by the federal government

and investment companies. When redlining was implemented, highways were used to

separate communities, creating a wealth disparity. People residing within these

communities were unable to grow their wealth through housing to the same degree as

the rest of America. This paper will examine the history of redlining, its effects, and the

viable solutions to these harmful practices. The adverse effects of discriminatory

government policy may be reversed through large infrastructure projects that prioritize

community development.

Background

In the 1960s, the federal government created the policy of redlining hand in hand

with investors. The bank investors were large controllers of land ownership, so for much

of America, it was impossible to buy land without an investment. With no backing bank

loans, those in redlined neighborhoods were unable to improve their living situation and

build wealth. This is the practice of going through city maps and drawing out, in red ink,

neighborhoods that were considered “high-risk.” These neighborhoods also were mainly

occupied by people of color, and the policy was a direct attack against these groups. The

divisions created by redlining still run deep, adversely affecting transit, property value,

economic stability, and city congruence. These problems have continued to negatively

affect people living within and around neighborhoods that were redlined. If this issue is

not immediately addressed not only will the neighborhoods that were redlined continue

to decay but the American city fabric will tear.

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Review of Literature

In this paper, the history and effects of redlining will be examined. In 1934 the

New Deal created the National Housing Act, which in turn created the Federal Housing

Administration. The administration promoted homeownership by providing federally

backed loans, but this only extended to white buyers. This program was an officially

established government policy that explicitly stated black neighborhoods were too risky,

“The assistance program not only limited recipients to white Americans, but it also

established and then reinforced housing segregation in the United States, effectively

drawing lines between white and Black neighborhoods that would persist for

generations.” (Little, 2021). This new policy then incentivized developers to create

neighborhoods that were deemed less risky. They accomplished this by building physical

barriers between white and black communities. One of these barriers was highways,

which soon cut swaths through cities.

The original design of highways was to create a coast-to-coast system of speedy

car travel, implemented by Eisenhower in 1953. The new system of freeways,

overpasses, and underpasses meant to eliminate traffic congestion was heavily

supported in its conception. The American people saw the new freeways for their name's

sake. A way to freedom across the country; but these highways had a secondary use,

one of which was to replace “‘undesirable slum areas” (History.com Editors, 2019). This

goal went hand in hand with redlining. Soon enough highways became a tool to draw

lines within cities, only this time it was by physical barriers. The consequences of these

actions have lasted, “They displaced people from their homes, sliced communities in

half, and led to abandonment and decay in city after city.” (History.com Editors, 2019).

The actions of the federal government are in plain view. All across America

people in cities were displaced from their homes to make way for highways. The assault

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by the federal government on people of color is sitting right in front of us, and some have

taken notice. SEGREGATION BY DESIGN is a website that depicts the full extent of

harmful policies. The website takes photographs from different time eras and pieces

them together to depict the damages of redlining, highway construction, and other

policies on cities. This allows the general public to understand the physical damages

caused to communities over time and will bring light to the root of the issue.

SEGREGATION BY DESIGN is also a great resource to focus on one city and

understand the issues it faces.

Chicago, the city of immigrants and industry, is renowned for its diverse population,

which is composed largely of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. The city

was also a massive center of industry, leading to brimming with wealth. Chicago wasn’t

without its issues, there was poverty and economic disparity, Neighborhoods were

attacked by the government, “beginning in the 1930s through the practice of redlining,”

(Segregation by Design, n.d.) which caused this disparity in wealth. There was action

taken to relinquish these problems. “Slum removal” and “Urban Renewal” were the main

points of government action promising to rebuild cities, but these were not gratifying fixes

rather they were excuses to remove people from their homes. 64% of displaced people

were black. “Chicago’s history of racial economic inequality [are] tangled up in

government, political machinery, and neoliberalism,” (Trollinger, 2022). Then in the

1950s-1960s the federal government employed the use of freeways to continue their

urban renewal and split apart communities. Neighborhoods were divided based on race,

and the communities were broken down by highway construction. Specifically,

“Chinatown, on the South Side, was cut in half by the bizarrely braided interchange with

I-55,” (Segregation by design, n.d.). Highways were a tool to destroy communities and

leave them in decay.

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 By using highways to divide communities, the federal government created a stark

contrast between the haves and the have-nots. This disparity had a long-term impact on

the communities that were targeted, the highway that cuts through Chinatown was a

clear example of how the government was able to weaponize infrastructure to segregate

further and divide these communities. The focal point of the issue has been outlined, the

economic disparity was intentionally caused by the federal government in our cities

through redlining and the weaponization of highways. This raises the question for

researchers of what options are available to fix these issues. The answer: the

reconstruction of a poor and broken transit system. In the 1800s, during expansion to the

west, America primarily used railways for travel. With these rail systems came

development, as when a station was built developers would build as close to the station

as possible. This is because of the immense amount of opportunity, and foot traffic, and

soon that land was bustling with people, shops, and profit. Rail provides people with

opportunities to connect and transport people and goods to their desired destinations

quickly and efficiently. Something America lacks in modern times, “The ten most

populated states lose around 62$ billion each year from traffic congestion,” (Nicholas,

2018). Even though it seems that transportation and economics seem to have very little

to do with each other, the opposite is true. Having efficient transit not only moves people

and goods around but also moves money. America is based on car-centric infrastructure,

and America has an extensive roadways system. Highways, roads, and streets the only

way to effectively navigate America is by car, meaning there are no alternatives to

choose from limiting options for those in different economic standings

Boston is a very wealthy city and the birthplace of the American Revolution. A

city with historic significance, yet it is also the most famous example of poor highway

infrastructure. Boston's central artery is made up of 4 interchange highways and cut

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straight through the city to downtown Boston. The original design of this system was

above-ground freeways, this led to the destruction and devaluation of property spanning

across Boston. To make these matters even worse, Boston is known to have historically

bad traffic in and out of the city. The city of Boston set out to fix this problem and the Big

Dig was proposed and started in 1991. It was originally meant to end construction in

1998 but was plagued by setbacks causing construction to run to 2006. Along with being

massively over budget, the Big Dig is highly controversial. Even with its setback the

construction was complete and Boston is now reaping the benefits. “The Big Dig created

more than 300 acres of new parks and open spaces.” (Industry News, 2019) thus giving

back what the highways once took.

While Boston’s Big Dig was a relatively good solution, there are many ways for

reconstructing and saving cities that have been afflicted by highways. The best way to

combat a car-centric policy used to attack mainly minority communities is to adopt a

mixed-use transit system. The best example of this is the boulevard. An uncommon

occurrence in America, a simple boulevard street is a two-way street with tree-lined

sidewalks and bike lanes lining each side. This simple idea can be upgraded into two

subtypes, the center-medium boulevard. The same simple idea but with a greenway

divider, which at times may be wide enough for a path. The second type is the multiway

boulevard, “a central roadway for through traffic, flanked by two smaller roadways for

local access and parking. The smaller roadways are set from the street by a median

with… trees.” (City Beautiful, 2022). The true goal of a boulevard is to create a road that

moves traffic quickly while also creating a common space for pedestrians. The boulevard

disrupts the hierarchy of freeways, streets, and roads of suburban sprawl by providing a

singular road that completes the task of the hierarchy effectively.

The boulevard is just one possible solution to America's transit infrastructure

issues. American transit infrastructure was used to divide people. The streets that were

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promoted as “freedom” became tools of division. Dr. Glass of Pitt university and director

of the Urban Studies program explains that the damages persist today saying, “The

challenge is once the community is destroyed it's never coming back the same way it

looked a hundred years ago.” (Glass, 2023). The actions of redlining and highways cause

sections of cities to decay over time, the people who would have been thriving within

these communities have been instead left with no resources and an actively

anti-development highway policy. These government actions have translated over to how

the rest of the United States looks and functions. Instead of multi-family developments,

the U.S. government wrote into law that single-family homes, parking lots, and land plots

of minimum size are mandatory. Which then creates a living space only acceptable to

one form of lifestyle. “DC has the highest rate of Black homeownership hovering at 51

percent, but the number is still drastically lower in comparison to White-owned

households, which stand at 70 percent in the city.” (Dawson, 2022) These laws stem

from redlining and they control who can live in certain areas by economic value. When a

whole group of people is driven to lower-income housing, and then that housing is

restricted there is nowhere left for them to go. To reverse this result development needs

to be freed, and how we stir that development needs to be focused. Dr. Glass introduces

the concept of transit-oriented development, “What transit-oriented-development is, it's

trying to cluster growth and development within a 500-yard radius of a mixed mobile

hub. A bus depot or a train station with bike share. Something with enough density that

gets people out of their cars and moving around.” (Glass, 2023). Communities built with

a goal in mind, to center itself on a common space provides those living in the

neighborhood more than just a place to live. It provides a stirring future to build

generational wealth. In Dr. Glass’s words, the focus is “neighborhoods, not subdivisions,

its people not cars, and its transit-oriented development.” (Glass, 2023).

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 This idea of New Urbanism is not so new to many parts of the globe. France’s

most famous city, Paris, is known and highly regarded for its extensive network of

boulevards. Which provides the city with a unique quality. Transit-oriented development

is heavily established in many places such as Denmark and Switzerland, especially in the

Swish city of Amsterdam. There in Amsterdam biking and riding public transit is the

common way of travel, and many people do not even own a car. Thus giving people

opportunities to live different lifestyles and giving them the freedom to choose a more

economic way of living. To take other forms of transit that work well in different parts of

the world and translate them to America is a goal but not exactly viable. America has an

economic and geographically unique atmosphere. The range of both of these factors is

immense. Specifically, with geographics, the country is so vast and the discrepancies

between terrains are unmatched. This makes the idea of density and orientation even

more important. Hush speed rail is a highly sought-after commodity to be transported

over to the United States as it is extremely effective in costs, travel time, and overall

pleasure. The issue is that cities need the population and economic value to hold such

an investment. This is where the idea of transit- orientation is crucial, “[In] most cities

you've got high-speed rail, tram systems, or street cars to make sure that the benefits of

that one system are magnified.” (Glass, 2023) Then the stations must be positioned far

enough apart to support the long-distance capabilities, with the factor of rapidly

changing environments across the United States this poses an issue. It is very difficult to

perfectly bring one concept of transit from one part of the world to America. Whether

that is Japan's high-speed Shinkansen, Paris’s boulevard system, or Switzerland's

extensive railway system; none will fit perfectly into America. Yet all have applications

that do fit into America’s uniqueness.

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 The issue that poses American infrastructure is not posed by the geographical

components, while those are difficulties, those problems can be worked around. The real

issue stems from the American government and its push for suburban sprawl, which

was mostly an act of racism. The federal government and bank lenders did not want to

sell homes to minorities in white neighborhoods even when “property values skyrocketed

when Black families brought homes near all-white neighborhoods because, in some

instances, they were willing to pay more than Whites to own property due to strict

protocols.” (Dawson, 2022). This snowballed into suburban subdivisions taking over

every section of the development, density was written out by laws and separation of

people was written in. The effects are still felt today, and there must be a change. That

change can come through fixing transportation infrastructure. Implementing effective

rail systems, safe micro-mobility, and making public transit the priority over highways will

see everyone reap the benefits because it is public.

Methods and Data Collection

Results and Data Analysis

Discussion and Conclusion

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 Works Cited Page

Dawson. S. (June 15, 2022) What is redlining and how can it be solved. Retrieved from

https://newsone.com/4290569/what-is-redlining-how-can-it-be-solved/

History.com Editors. (June 7, 2019) The interstate highway system. History. Retrieved from

https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/interstate-highway-system

Industry news. (February 12, 2019) What lessons can be learned from the Boston big dig?

Project cost solutions. Retrieved from

https://projectcostsolutions.com/lessons-learned-boston-big-dig/

Little, B. (June 1, 2021) How a new deal housing deal enforced segregation. History. Retrieved

from

https://www.history.com/news/housing-segregation-new-deal-program#:~:text=The%20te

rm%20%E2%80%9Credlining%E2%80%9D%20originates%20with,investment%20servi

ces%20to%20Black%20Americans.

Segregation by design editors. (n.d) SEGREGATION BY DESIGN. Retrieved from

https://www.segregationbydesign.com/

Trollinger. A. (August 11, 2022) Recent work on Chicago history: money, the state, and the

inequality in the quintessential American city. Retrieved from

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00961442221113255?journalCod

e=juha

Nichols. M.R. (March 5, 2018) Targeted urban economic growth will improve the economy.

Meeting of the minds. Retrieved from

https://meetingoftheminds.org/targeted-urban-economic-growth-will-improve-econo

my-25261#:~:text=Cities%20are%20huge%20drivers%20of,60%20percent%20of%20global

%20GDP.

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