Crossroads 2026 conference report

Introduction

Crossroads: A Transportation Equity and Justice Convening was held on January 15, 2026, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. The event brought together transportation scholars, practitioners, advocates, and activists working toward an equitable and just transportation system to share ideas, energy, and connection as we navigate ongoing transportation needs and a shifting political landscape. The conference, organized by a ten-person steering committee, was visioned and planned following the 2025 reorganization of the Transportation Research Board (TRB),¹ which involved eliminating committees that had been dedicated to advancing the work of transportation equity, environmental justice, and sustainable transportation writ large. Around the same time, the TRB had canceled over a dozen research projects on related topics. The Crossroads planning steering committee wanted to ensure that work focused on equity and justice could still find a home in the wake of these changes.

In total, there were over 200 in-person attendees and over 100 virtual attendees, featuring an opening keynote, closing plenary, as well as over 30 research presentations and 18 posters throughout the day. The program began with an opening keynote speech by Olatunji Oboi Reed, President and CEO of Equiticity, to contextualize the policy moment and set the stage for the remainder of the day. The program was then divided in four presentation tracks of three sessions each:

1. Land use, infrastructure, and well-being
2. Understanding, measuring, and improving accessibility and mobility
3. Organizing, process, and community power; and
4. Research ethics, positionality, and intersectionality.

The lunch hour featured a poster session of current research in transportation equity. Finally, the day closed with a plenary panel asking the question “Where do we go from here?” featuring Naomi Doerner, Principal of Equivolve, Gretchen Goldman, President and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Anna Zivarts, Founder and Executive Director of the Nondrivers Alliance and author of When Driving is Not an Option, and Stephanie Gidigbi Jenkins, Co-Director of the Communities First Fund. The program was designed to convey the gravity of the current situation, highlight positive instances of advocacy, practice, and research that were rising to the moment, and send participants away with hope for the future that important work that centered equity would continue, even in the face of strong political headwinds.

This conference report provides a summary of themes from the conference overall and from each session track. As an all-volunteer event, we were unable to capture notes at the same level of depth for each session. We have included panel descriptions and presentation abstracts where further details are unavailable. Nevertheless, we hope this report conveys the insights and energy of the conference as a reminder to those who attended and as a reflection for those who were not.

Crossroads represents just the first event in what we hope becomes a continuing conversation and coalition among those of us who care deeply about carrying on the work of equity and justice in the transportation field.

Welcome and Keynote

After a welcome and brief remarks for the day by Celeste Chavis, professor at Morgan State University, Olatunji Oboi Reed, President and CEO of Equiticity, delivered the day’s keynote talk in a presentation called “New Policies, New Systems, New Moves: Reimagining Transportation for Racially Marginalized Communities.” Reed introduced the work of his organization, which addresses racial equity through the lens of transportation and community development, leading mobility rituals, conducting research, and advocating for more racially just policies. He framed the organization’s work, and transportation policy more broadly, in the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that described how the transit system in Atlanta was “laid out for the convenience of the white upper-middle-class suburbanites” due to the “racist blindness of city planners.”

The new policies, systems, and moves of the talk title are embodied in the work that Equiticity has done and aligned with to advance racial justice in transportation and represent the vision for how they believe transportation needs should be addressed. Policies include the organization’s racial equity statement of principle, the Untokening principles of mobility justice, and Facilitating Power’s spectrum of community engagement to ownership. Systems include much of the practice and research work that Equiticity has led, such as community mobility rituals that recognize the important links between community and cycling and walking, neighborhood mobility hubs that bring together low-carbon forms of transportation and community spaces for gathering, and advocacy around racially equitable traffic safety. Moves include high level goals and outcomes of a systems level change in transportation, including increasing community ownership of assets, investing in social infrastructure, reducing interpersonal, vehicular, and police violence, creating economic opportunities, and establishing more livable neighborhoods and cities.

Reed closed the talk with a call to action. He reminded the audience that while policy makers’ intentions matter, policies and laws are how change gets enacted, which requires the public to demand these changes take place. He implored the audience to integrate the racial equity and mobility justice frameworks into their work, to use transportation as a means to solve urgent inequities, to establish partnerships with community-based organizations, to invest in social and physical infrastructure, and to “agitate and legislate.”

Finally, the session closed with a Q&A with moderator Jesus Barajas, professor at UC Davis. Reed maintained some hope that we could rise to meet the moment given the aggressive anti-equity stance that the federal administration has taken, particularly through staying the course with the community principles that he discussed throughout his talk.

You can view a recording of the opening keynote here.

Session 1

Centering Transportation Equity in the Abundance Agenda

The concept of the abundance agenda took off in 2025, most prominently through the book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which argues that the regulatory environment’s administrative burdens have made building housing, transportation infrastructure, and new energy systems in the United States all but impossible. While the concept is not without its critics, the abundance agenda has offered a starting point for critical conversation about the ways we plan our cities and transportation systems.

With this context, Ben Crowther, policy director at America Walks, moderated a panel with Regan Patterson of UCLA, Kevin Shen of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Erick Guerra of the University of Pennsylvania for a conversation centered on questions asking whether continued highway construction is compatible with both a larger abundance agenda and equity goals, and whether permitting reform alone is reconcilable with producing equitable outcomes. The goal of the panel was to explore an agenda for transportation abundance that moves away from the known inequities created by highways and the US transportation system’s over-reliance on highways and roads. Crowther began by introducing himself and America Walks, which supports the Freedom Fighters network to oppose highway expansions and champions the Week Without Driving initiative. Crowther introduced the concept of the “abundance movement,” noting its origins in the housing and energy sectors where administrative burdens and regulations have created scarcity by making projects nearly impossible to build. He pointed out that existing literature on abundance leaves transportation abundance largely undefined. The session aimed to define a transportation abundance agenda that does not simply default to building more highways, a practice that has historically harmed and displaced low-income, Black, and brown communities and indeed may be antithetical to the abundance movement.

In beginning to define the transportation abundance agenda, the panelists discussed the primary deficiencies in the current transportation system. Some of the themes included:

• Misplaced Investment: Patterson noted an overabundance of harmful infrastructure, such as the continued displacement of residents along the I-5 expansion in Los Angeles. She contrasted this with a lack of investment in basic infrastructure like sidewalks and frequent transit service in those same communities.
• Lack of Accessibility and Affordability: Guerra emphasized that transportation primarily serves as a means to access other needs, like work and social visits. He highlighted that 40% of households find car ownership to be a financial burden, yet it remains difficult to get around without a car in 95% of the country.
• Exclusion of Non-Drivers: Shen, referencing Anna Zivarts, noted that approximately 30% of Americans are non-drivers, meaning a massive portion of the population is underserved by car-centric infrastructure.
• Deficit of Community Power: Shen also pointed out a lack of democratic processes, stating that frontline communities often do not have a seat at the table in funding decisions. He cautioned against the abundance movement’s call to defer to experts in decision making to the exclusion of communities, given how this has led to the negative consequences of transportation we see today.

To address these systemic issues, the panelists proposed several shifts in policy and action. Guerra, drawing on themes in his own book Overbuilt, argued for an immediate stop to highway widening across the country, noting that the current built environment makes transit investments ineffective in many areas. He also suggested a slow process of reversing the damage by reallocating roadways and parcels to build homes and shops, alongside developing a new model for housing that goes beyond low-density and luxury builds. Shen argued that transformative land-use change takes time, and transit remains an essential lifeline that should be prioritized to serve those who are stuck, even with lower ridership. Patterson highlighted the Reconnecting Communities program as a powerful model for using federal and state funds to repair historical harms and invest directly in community-led visions.

When asked about a research agenda to push the transportation abundance idea forward, the panelists presented differing views. Guerra argued that more advocacy is needed rather than more research, noting that arguments against highway policies have existed since the inception of the interstate program. He stated that early backlash was ultimately silenced by road builders and funding mechanisms. Patterson countered that research should shift toward working with community groups to document their visions and model successful implementations. She emphasized the need to demonstrate how pilot projects can reduce environmental impacts while ensuring mobility remains functional. Shen highlighted the need for research into state capacity and improving the processes by which governments engage communities, moving engagement beyond mere “checkbox” exercises.

Finally, Crowther asked the panel whether there were model projects that addressed transportation abundance and transportation equity at the same time. Crowther cited Rochester’s inner loop north removal, which converted a depressed highway into 600 acres of homes, including affordable units. Guerra pointed to the East Park freeway removal in Milwaukee as a successful model of reclaiming land for the city and using new tax revenue. Patterson highlighted Vision 980 in Oakland, where local organizers secured a Reconnecting Communities grant to imagine the removal of the 980 highway, maintaining a position of power to elevate their vision to the state. On the opposite side, Guerra criticized Boston’s Big Dig as an example of what not to do, noting it spent billions to put lanes underground with only a linear park on top. Shen mentioned a transit and safety project in the historically Black neighborhood of Roxbury, Boston, which was cancelled by the Trump administration—a good idea with a bad outcome.

During the audience Q&A, attendees raised concerns about the abundance agenda undermining legitimate regulatory reviews, which Guerra agreed with, noting the failure of the theory to grapple with what is needed for a better system. Shen noted that regulations like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) originated to give communities a voice following historical freeway revolts. When asked how to deploy active transportation projects faster, Shen pointed to the need to rebuild capacity at state Departments of Transportation (DOTs), which suffer from a “brain drain” outside of their highway-expanding operations. Patterson added that speeding up deployment is ultimately a matter of prioritizing active transportation over auto transportation. Regarding the gutting of administrative law, Patterson suggested that future advocacy will increasingly need to rely on local agitation and community-level action, as federal avenues may stall.

Understanding Population-Specific Mobility and Transportation Experiences

The session, titled “Understanding population-specific mobility and transportation experiences,” centered on the lived realities of marginalized and underserved populations. Across the four presentations, a prominent theme emerged: traditional transportation planning and surveys frequently fail to capture the unmet needs of vulnerable groups, resulting in structural inequities and social exclusion. The speakers collectively highlighted that poor accessibility and transportation insecurity—exacerbated by safety fears, harassment, and inadequate infrastructure—have profound negative impacts on individuals’ well-being, mental health, and ability to fulfill basic daily needs.

Presentation Summaries

Beyond Accessibility Disparity: Understanding Transport Poverty in the U.S. through Lived Experiences. Md Hamidur Rahman presented research on creating a new survey instrument designed to better measure perceived travel experiences, arguing that traditional surveys miss people’s unmet needs. Drawing on a sample of approximately 600 adults, the survey explored themes such as transport insecurity, travel behavior, and life satisfaction. Rahman defined transportation insecurity as the inability to travel regularly, reliably, and safely to fulfill daily needs. The study revealed that about one-quarter of respondents experience high transport insecurity. This insecurity is disproportionately high among people of color, people with disabilities, urban residents, and those who rely on multimodal travel. Ultimately, Rahman found that moderate-to-high transport insecurity is closely linked to lower life satisfaction, high unmet activity needs, and low perceived accessibility. The next step in the research is to test the validity and reliability of the survey items on a local and national scale.

“I cannot control what happens”: A content analysis on travel needs and barriers among underserved populations in Austin and Boston. Minyu Situ explored the psychological needs associated with travel, noting that transit must fulfill needs for autonomy, control, comfort, and safety. When these needs go unmet, it leads to social exclusion. Based on interviews with 28 university students living off-campus in Austin and Boston, Situ outlined how structural inequities shape daily travel for different demographics. For example, women highlighted the physical burden and insecurity of carrying heavy groceries, while LGBTQ+ individuals faced spatial disparities that forced them into car-reliance to reach specialized healthcare clinics. Additionally, students of color reported limited public transit access to culturally specific restaurants and religious centers. Situ noted that these populations often feel highly vulnerable to harassment in public transit environments.

Trans on Transit: US public transit experiences of transgender and nonbinary people. Tam Guy focused on the personal safety perceptions of transgender and nonbinary transit riders, emphasizing that a perceived lack of safety significantly impacts behavior regardless of harassment statistics. Utilizing a national online survey, Guy found that transgender and nonbinary riders use transit less frequently than they otherwise would out of fear for their personal safety. The survey data indicated that 57% of trans or nonbinary respondents had experienced harassment. To improve mobility for these individuals, Guy recommended improving overall transit service frequency, training agency staff to actively watch for and intervene in harassment, and working broadly to shift social norms to respect people of all genders.

Getting Around (or not): The wellbeing impacts of inadequate access for residents of social housing. Helen Fitt discussed the “Getting Around” project in New Zealand, which examined the mobility needs of very low-income social housing tenants. Through surveys and interviews, the research found that 55% of these households do not own a car. However, because of car-dependent environments, some individuals are forced into car ownership just to function. Fitt illustrated that poor accessibility has severe consequences for the tenants’ well-being; notably, 42% reported that transportation barriers had occasionally prevented them from accessing food over the past year. Inadequate access was also linked to missed healthcare appointments and loneliness. Fitt noted that while shared mobility trials provided benefits—such as increased access, improved mental health, and community building—the schemes ultimately failed because setting them up required an unsustainable level of human resourcing.

People at the center: Effective frameworks for mobility justice and community organizing

Panelists:

• Janice Flemming-Butler, Founder of Voices of Women of Color
• Anna Tang, League of American Bicyclists
• Danielle Wong, HNTB

This 60-minute panel discussion explored how mobility justice is advanced through organization, mobilization, and community engagement. Presenters will share complementary perspectives highlighting how equity, trust, and participation of all stakeholders is essential to creating effective and lasting transportation systems.

Panelists examined the relationship between organizing and mobilizing in mobility justice work, the role of relationship building and power-neutral dialogues in advancing transportation projects, and how community-based strategies can overcome skepticism and stalled progress. Drawing on real-world examples and award-winning case studies, the session demonstrated how engagement practices that bring everyone to the table can help reshape projects in a way that leads to more equitable outcomes.

The session concluded with a facilitated dialogue and Q&A, where participants connected national principles to local practice and explore how these approaches can be applied across diverse transportation contexts.

Law enforcement, border enforcement, and mobility

This session explored the intersection of public transportation and state authority. A central theme across the presentations was that transit environments are heavily policed spaces, which disproportionately harms vulnerable populations such as unhoused individuals and migrants. The speakers highlighted a systemic lack of transparency regarding transit police operations and data. Ultimately, the session advocated for a shift away from punitive, law-enforcement-first responses—such as sweeps, fare evasion enforcement, and citations—and toward care-centered strategies that utilize social services and community support to ensure mobility justice for all.

Presentation Summaries

Equity, Policing, and Power: The Unseen Architecture of Transit Enforcement. This mixed-methods case study examined how power is exerted in transit spaces through dedicated transit police. The presentation contextualized transit policing within broader systemic inequities; for example, a 2020 investigation in the New York City Subway revealed that 70% of fare evasion citations and 90% of arrests targeted people of color, with 75% of those encounters involving men and over half involving individuals under age 25. There has been surprisingly little examination of the power and structure of transit police. The speaker detailed that transit police are sworn, lethally armed officers whose operating costs are primarily drawn directly from transit budgets. Despite their expansive geographic scope and funding streams, major transit police forces often lack independent oversight boards. A major finding of the research was the extreme lack of transparency surrounding both operations and data within these agencies; accessing detailed information often requires Freedom of Information Act requests. Because bureaucratic structures and offenses vary wildly between cities, the speaker urged communities to critically analyze their transit authorities.

Public Transit as a Linkage to Care. Djoulissa Louis-Jean from Harvard University analyzed how transit agencies respond to homelessness. Because of a growing housing crisis, unhoused individuals often turn to public transit for shelter, warmth, and safety. However, many agencies engage in “transinstitutional policing”—exerting police authority in non-carceral spaces via sweeps, citations, fines, confiscation of property, arrests, and involuntary psychiatric commitment. Louis-Jean argued that these responses perpetuate a “homelessness-jail cycle” that deepens trauma and displacement. Using the MBTA in Greater Boston as a case study—a region with high homelessness rates and severe racial disparities—the presentation evaluated current responses and recommended shifting toward non-police interventions. Proposed solutions included installing resource kiosks to reduce stigma, adding hygiene facilities, and deploying teams of mental health specialists and case workers to aid vulnerable riders.

Solidarity on the Move: Migrant Im/mobilities. Presented by Sarah Rebolloso McCullough (UC Davis) on behalf of her collaborators Julie Gamble (Vanderbilt), Matt Palm (UNC), and Sarah Grajdura (Utah State), this research explored how the threat of ICE enforcement impacts recent migrants who heavily rely on public transit. Using a mobility justice framework, the presenters noted that aggressive immigration enforcement curtails daily movements and forces the adoption of alternative mobility strategies, which is antithetical to equal access. The researchers intentionally avoided “damage-centered” research that focuses solely on pain, opting instead for a “care-centered” approach that highlights mutual aid and the strength found in community connections. Blending academic and community-centered approaches, the project utilized a three-pronged “Reparative Research Framework” consisting of semi-structured interviews, a restorative-methods workshop, and collaborative focus groups. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, the project maintained intense privacy protocols, including ongoing consent, the use of encrypted apps like Signal, and a strict policy of keeping zero data on the cloud.

During the panel discussion, the speakers emphasized that the lack of transparency in transit policing creates a “data chasm” that obscures the true intensity of crime and enforcement. They noted that even progressive cities maintain strong transit policing, often using minor infractions like fare evasion as a starting point that trickles down into broader enforcement. The panel pointed to recent news, such as SEPTA issuing citations to prevent homeless individuals from accessing transit, as examples of enforcement masquerading as “compliance” The session concluded with recommendations to fight surveillance technology and integrate care-centered resources into transit systems, noting that people will abandon necessary resources if they feel unsafe.

Session 2

Building Healthy Transportation Systems: Air Quality, Traffic Safety, and Disaster Resilience

This session focused on the uneven distribution of transportation benefits and the disproportionate vulnerabilities faced by marginalized communities. Across the four presentations, a central theme emerged: proactive, equitable planning is urgently needed to address systemic disparities in infrastructure safety, exposure to harmful environmental pollutants, and survival during climate-related disasters. The speakers emphasized the need for actionable tools, intersectional analysis, and holistic infrastructure evaluations to better serve under-resourced populations.

Presentation Summaries

Roundabouts are for rich people: who gets traffic control devices and what to do about it. Presented by Matthew Bhagat-Conway on behalf of a UNC Chapel Hill research team, this presentation explored the equity implications of traffic control devices in North Carolina. Motivated by a lower-income Durham community whose requests for roundabouts to slow traffic went unanswered, the researchers modeled intersection designs statewide. They found that impoverished and minority neighborhoods are more likely to receive signalized intersections—which prioritize traffic flow—while roundabouts, which are safer, are less prevalent in low-income areas. Because roundabout installations are often not driven by a coherent plan, these safety investments frequently go to well-resourced communities who advocate for them. The presenters recommended retrofitting older neighborhoods and expanding Intersection Control Evaluations to periodically assess safety for all roads, rather than just waiting until infrastructure reaches the end of its life.

Evaluating the health and equity impacts of federal transportation clean air policy rollbacks. Greg Rowangould and Clare Nelson (University of Vermont) presented a new, fast, high-resolution web tool designed to evaluate air quality and exposure disparities. They noted that existing air quality monitoring tools either require immense technical expertise, cover tiny geographic areas, or lack the necessary resolution. Granularity is crucial because the racial impacts of air pollution vary dramatically on a street-by-street level. To address this, their new platform uses national traffic data to model link-level emissions (tailpipe, brake, and tire wear) for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles at a 200-meter resolution across the entire United States. This free tool allows users to assess how communities will be impacted by current regulatory rollbacks and future electric vehicle adoption scenarios through 2050.

Transportation Equity and Disaster Resilience: A Scoping Review. Sarah Grajdura presented a scoping review of literature spanning from 1980 to 2025 to understand how transportation equity is conceptualized in hazards and disaster research. After filtering nearly 3,000 articles down to 88 highly relevant studies, the researchers found that this body of work has expanded rapidly since 2020, focusing predominantly on North American hurricanes and utilizing quantitative, secondary data. Notably, only 15% of the studies explicitly stated an equity framework, and the majority simply documented disparities without examining the root causes of those inequities. Grajdura emphasized the need for future research and practice to define equity explicitly in decision-making.

Wildfire Evacuation Choice-Making among Underserved Groups in Alberta and British Columbia. Stephen Wong presented research analyzing the evacuation decision-making of highly vulnerable, underserved groups—such as people with disabilities, older adults, lower-income households, and carless residents. Unlike past research that merely included underserved identities as demographic variables in broader models, this study exclusively modeled 1,600 respondents belonging to at least one underserved group to capture intersectionality. Using survey data from Alberta and British Columbia, the researchers estimated 30 models evaluating choices like departure timing, destination, and mode. The results highlighted significant heterogeneity and overlapping vulnerabilities; for instance, vehicle availability, race, and perceived risk all impacted the departure times of disabled respondents. The findings underscore the need for tailored, multimodal evacuation strategies.

Panel Discussion Themes

During the panel discussion, the speakers reiterated the challenge of transforming research into actionable policy. When asked about the ideal transit setup for disaster evacuations like wildfires, Wong stressed that agencies must utilize an “abundance” mindset—leveraging bus-based plans alongside private companies (like TNCs and taxis) and community-based organizations to ensure no one is left behind. The panel also discussed the challenge of communicating during disasters, noting that rigid bureaucratic rules—such as bus drivers not being allowed to deviate from set routes during emergencies—can hinder effective responses. They stressed the importance of having strong incident command systems with pre-existing inter-agency communication to overcome these hurdles. Finally, addressing a question on “perceived vs. actual equity,” Bhagat-Conway argued that because we cannot opt out of public infrastructure, the equity conversation must remain focused on objective outcomes rather than just community perceptions.

Access for Whom? Rethinking Equity in Transportation Performance and Investment

This session examined how transportation agencies and researchers are redefining performance measurement. Across the presentations, a central theme emerged highlighting the tension between the technical simplicity of standardized metrics and the complex social realities of marginalized communities. The speakers emphasized that traditional mobility or infrastructure metrics often obscure distributional effects, lived constraints, and unintended consequences. To create a more complete and just picture of transportation system performance, the session advocated for mixed-method approaches that combine quantitative accessibility metrics with historical context, qualitative methods, and embedded capital delivery practices.

Presentation Summaries

Access for whom? Accounting for capabilities and needs in access-based transportation performance measures. Chester Harvey (University of Maryland) discussed efforts to help state Departments of Transportation use accessibility metrics—specifically access to jobs—as system performance indicators. A central finding of his research is that how data is aggregated matters immensely; for example, using a simple arithmetic average of accessibility across a state incentivizes investments in areas that already have high access. Alternative measures, like geometric means, better reflect the experience of a “typical” resident and encourage improvements in lower-access areas. He cautioned that accessibility metrics can unintentionally reinforce inequities if they do not carefully account for affordability and car dependence.

Promoting Equity Through Historical and Anthropological Approaches to Community-Based Planning. Gabrielle Westcott presented the Historical Equity Action Lens (HEAL) initiative, an approach that integrates archival research, oral histories, and community engagement into transportation planning. She argued that in the current polarized political climate, purely quantitative data often falls short in justifying equity-focused decisions. Using an MPO long-range plan as an example, Westcott demonstrated how incorporating residents’ own words and historical context revealed critical needs—such as cultural loss, trust erosion, and transit inaccessibility for older adults—that were entirely invisible in standard datasets.

One MPO’s Practical Approach to Measuring Project Outcomes and Disparate Impacts. Lauren Qualey (Greater Portland Council of Governments) and Cathy LaFata (HDR) described an MPO-led Transportation Access Analysis and Action Plan that evaluated how investments benefit or burden different communities. The team used multiple demographic indicators to define Access Focus Areas and assessed benefits across safety, sidewalks, transit access, and air quality. They utilized benefit ratios—comparing impacts between focus and non-focus areas—paired with qualitative interpretation to determine whether apparent disparities reflected true inequity or intentional prioritization.

Values Driven, Data-Informed: Strategies for, and Examples of, Implementing Equity in Transit Capital Projects. The speaker focused on how King County Metro practically embeds equity into capital development, from project selection to construction. Mayer stressed that equity must be operationalized through clear processes and accountability mechanisms rather than treated as a one-off initiative. She highlighted that many impactful equity actions are incremental and procedural; for instance, the agency uses small “nudges,” like providing transit passes for construction apprentices, to remove access barriers.

Audience Q&A Themes

During the audience discussion, attendees pushed back on the realism of standard job-access metrics, pointing out that they frequently ignore job quality, skill matching, and the reality of shift times and service spans for workers. Dr. Harvey agreed, reiterating the need to complement these metrics with qualitative evidence. Attendees also raised concerns about transportation investments inadvertently causing displacement by driving up land values; the speakers agreed that agencies must coordinate with housing policies and explore mechanisms like shared value capture. Finally, the discussion touched on decarbonization, with questions focusing on how to measure emissions reductions effectively and ensure that the benefits of future-oriented investments, like electrification, are accessible and well-communicated to impacted communities.

Building Civic Capacity: Accountability, Advocacy, and Public Institutions

This session explored how organized advocacy and institutional accountability are essential for achieving equitable public services. Across the four presentations, a central theme emerged: combating systemic inequities—whether through hyper-local neighborhood organizing, regional labor movements, data-driven narrative building, or federal legal defense—requires sustained, collective power. The speakers demonstrated that achieving justice in transportation and civil rights is not a passive process; it demands building robust civic capacity to challenge privatization, unequal resource distribution, and the dismantling of legal protections.

Presentation Summaries

Mobilizing Transit Riders to become Transit Advocates. Bobbie Fan presented the community organizing model of Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PPT), a union of transit riders, workers, and neighbors. To build hyper-local advocacy capacity, PPT developed targeted fellowship programs, including the Mon Valley, Transit Worker, and South Hilltop Fellowships. These fellowships provide comprehensive training modules covering topics like understanding land use, advocating for better sidewalks and bus shelters, and navigating fare campaigns. Fan highlighted several tangible outcomes of this organizing model: a Mon Valley fellow successfully mobilized riders to save a critical bus shelter near local grocery stores, while a Transit Worker fellow—a retired operator—now serves on PPT’s Board of Directors. Ultimately, PPT’s model transforms standard public comment periods from rituals of complaint into spaces for substantive, community-powered policymaking.

Re-Building Middle Class Careers in Transit: ATU Local 689, DMV Transit Agencies & Strikes. Matt Girardi of ATU Local 689 detailed the regional transit history of the Washington D.C. area (DMV) from a labor perspective, focusing on the fight against privatization. He explained that after the unified, public-sector MetroBus was created in 1974, several suburban counties intentionally splintered off to form privatized, non-union bus services (such as RideOn and DASH) to undercut wages and benefits. Today, these independent contractors often pay operators 30% to 40% less than WMATA. Girardi discussed how the union has utilized organizing campaigns, political pressure, and strikes to reunite privatized workers and rebuild middle-class careers. As a recent success, he cited the union’s fight against the privatization of the DC Circulator, successfully ensuring its workers were absorbed by WMATA rather than being laid off.

The District’s Transportation System Taxes Everyone’s Time. Kai Hall (Greater Greater Washington) and Karthik Balasubramanian (Howard University) introduced the concept of the “transportation time tax”—the penalty residents pay in extra travel time when using public transit instead of a car. Because decision-makers have historically prioritized driving speed, the average transit trip in D.C. takes 2.1 times longer than a car trip. This burden is highly inequitable due to spatial mismatches between transit access and essential services like grocery stores. The speakers noted that in Wards 7 and 8—areas with the highest poverty rates and lowest car ownership in the District—transit trips take 2.4 times longer than car trips. They argued that reducing this time tax should be a “north star” metric for elected officials, serving as both a narrative tool and a measurable benchmark for transit competitiveness.

Case Study of Effort to Restore and Salvage a Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Agency. Marc Brenman of IDARE LLC shared insights from a group of former attorneys and managers from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Following significant staff reductions and weakened enforcement during the Trump administration—resulting in the agency handling only around 100 compliance cases—the group shifted from grassroots organizing to legal and policy strategies. Their efforts include filing amicus briefs, authoring policy papers, and collaborating with organizations like Democracy Forward. Looking ahead, the group is developing “Project 2029” as a forward-looking alternative to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to rethink civil rights enforcement. A critical priority of their work is preserving the legal doctrine of “disparate impact,” which allows discrimination to be proven through unequal outcomes rather than requiring highly impractical proof of discriminatory intent. While focused on education, Brenman noted this legal defense model is highly relevant to transportation and other infrastructure sectors.

Promoting Research Justice in Transportation Studies via a Workshop-Based Training Program

This session addressed how historical practices of discrimination and oppression remain embedded within the norms and assumptions of transportation research. Sarah Rebolloso McCullough and Aaron Golub explained that this field-wide historical bias not only perpetuates inequity but also produces less accurate and impactful results. To combat this, they developed a workshop series to teach “epistemic, or knowledge, justice”—a paradigm that challenges traditional ideas about who is considered an expert and who produces legitimate knowledge. The overarching theme was that achieving real equity requires intentionally disrupting the status quo, leaning into discomfort, and collectively redistributing power to create a more humanizing environment for both researchers and communities.

Presentation Summary: Research Justice Training

McCullough and Golub presented an overview of their training curriculum and an accompanying video project, which was delivered to transportation researchers in Winter and Spring 2025. The training was organized around four main objectives:

• Understanding Historical Inequity in Research: The presenters highlighted how oppressive logics remain in current methods. For example, eugenics was historically seen as legitimate science; McCullough pointed out that Corrado Gini, creator of the widely used Gini Index, was a eugenicist, raising thought-provoking questions about the continued use of his metrics. They also noted how masculinity is frequently treated as the default in car design standards and how colonial legacies of extraction continue when researchers fail to follow up with Indigenous and Global South communities.
• Improving Representation and Inclusion: The training emphasized actionable ways to make lab environments more inclusive. Recommendations included establishing clear expectations through lab manuals and mentoring agreements, explicitly defining lab values (such as humility, collaboration, and good land relations), and normalizing explicit conversations about inequities.
• Changing Research Practices: The speakers warned against unaddressed biases in modern datasets, such as AI and facial recognition technologies trained on mugshots, which reproduce a culture of non-consent. They stressed that equity is relevant to all transportation fields—even for researchers studying pavement or automated vehicles who claim they “don’t work with people.”
• Working with Historically Excluded Communities: Researchers were urged to move past traditional “deficit” lenses when depicting marginalized groups. McCullough emphasized that community mistrust of researchers is entirely justified. Researchers must critically reflect on who gets to choose the research problems, how funding dictates those choices, and what is deemed an “appropriate” research question.

Audience Discussion Themes

The presentation resonated deeply with the audience, prompting a robust discussion centered on personal and collective reflection.

• Navigating Extractive Research: A major tension raised was how to avoid extractive practices when researchers are on tight timelines (such as a PhD dissertation) and do not have the time to become deeply embedded in a historically mistrustful community. One recommended solution was to review existing documentation from local planning processes so researchers do not repeatedly burden communities by asking for the same information.
• Metrics vs. Outcomes: The audience debated the use of quantitative metrics, noting that numbers can dehumanize subjects and often carry problematic historical contexts. Attendees suggested increasing emphasis and investment in qualitative methods and focusing on human outcomes rather than just developing alternative metrics, which can still be misused.
• Depersonalizing Inequity: Attendees noted that while faculty are generally good at acknowledging inequity in the abstract, they often depersonalize the conversation by turning it purely into “research about inequity”. There was a call to build capacity for conversations that acknowledge the personal and professional resistance and repair needed in daily practice.
• Future Funding Concerns: Finally, attendees expressed concern over the future of research funding, questioning how to sustain equity-focused work when funding streams increasingly prioritize artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data.

Session 3

Managing Change: Aligning Transportation Investment with Housing and Equity Goals

The session explored the complex relationship between transportation infrastructure investments and gentrification, emphasizing that improving mobility often carries the unintended consequence of displacing vulnerable communities. A resounding theme across the presentations was the danger of “siloed” governance—where transportation, housing, and land-use agencies fail to communicate or coordinate. The speakers highlighted that whether a project is a new light rail line, a highway teardown, or active transportation infrastructure, proactive coalition building and inter-agency coordination are essential to ensure these investments deliver shared prosperity rather than recycling historical traumas and displacement.

Presentation Summaries

Identifying and Mitigating the Negative Effects of Gentrification Caused by Transportation Investment. Yonah Freemark discussed research aimed at helping state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) predict, avoid, or mitigate the displacement of residents and businesses caused by transportation investments. Freemark defined gentrification as an influx of investment and higher-income, highly educated (and disproportionately white) residents into formerly disinvested areas, while displacement refers to the physical, cultural, or emotional removal of incumbent lower-income residents. The research framework stressed analyzing these impacts over a project’s entire life cycle. Through interviews, the researchers found that while two-thirds of transportation practitioners worry their projects will contribute to gentrification, displacement is infrequently accounted for in planning or implementation because agencies lack the dedicated funding to do so.

Coalition Building for Equitable Development along Maryland’s Purple Line. Sheila Somashekhar detailed the work of the Purple Line Corridor Coalition (PLCC), which has spent over a decade working to ensure Maryland’s new $9 billion light rail line does not displace residents in the diverse DC suburbs. Recognizing that equitable development rarely happens organically, the PLCC relies on vertical and horizontal relationships to build community power, leverage data, and raise capital for affordable housing and small businesses. Somashekhar highlighted several tangible successes, including reviving a “Right of First Refusal” policy in Prince George’s County that preserved thousands of affordable housing units. The coalition also supports small businesses adapting to changing communities—such as helping Roxana’s Floral secure façade improvements and a Maryland Main Street designation—and organizing community-led walks to unlock revitalization funds for challenging infrastructure areas.

Intersectional Equity: Why Transportation Justice is about More than Getting From A to B. Aditya Srinivasan presented historical and contemporary research on the I-81 highway in Syracuse, NY, illustrating how even explicitly reparative projects can recycle trauma if housing and transportation are not coordinated. Originally built in the 1950s and 60s, I-81 displaced over 1,300 people, largely from the Black population in the 15th Ward. Today, a $2 billion project is tearing down the viaduct to build a “community grid.” However, a parallel public housing overhaul by the Syracuse Housing Authority has been poorly managed. Because the highway and housing authorities are strictly siloed and not communicating, residents face massive confusion, suspicion, and uncoordinated relocation efforts. Srinivasan noted that this exact same lack of coordination between highway construction and urban renewal caused trauma in the 1960s, emphasizing that housing must be treated as the most important aspect of the transportation-land use nexus to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Panel Discussion Themes

During the panel discussion, the speakers and audience grappled with the core conundrum of transportation equity: investing in safer streets and better transit makes neighborhoods more attractive, which in turn drives up property values and forces out lower-income residents. Freemark noted that because the US is highly unequal and segregated, residents often push back against seemingly positive amenities like bike lanes. He criticized practitioners who respond dismissively to these valid gentrification fears, arguing that more research is needed to prove causal impacts and build community support. The panel reiterated that the federal government often enforces the separation of transportation, housing, and land use through siloed funding streams. Finally, an audience member suggested that addressing land speculation through land value capture (increasing taxes on land while reducing taxes on buildings) is a proven way to return the financial benefits of public transportation investments directly to the community.

Strategies to Improve Community Mobility

This session explored equity-centered approaches to reducing transportation insecurity and expanding access for marginalized populations. Across the four presentations, a central theme emerged: mobility is a fundamental determinant of health, opportunity, and social connection, and interventions must be actively designed to dismantle structural barriers. Whether discussing e-bike incentives, inclusive community engagement, reduced-fare programs, or micro-mobility solutions to mitigate freeway expansions, the speakers collectively emphasized that equitable mobility requires culturally competent outreach, structural support, and deep community partnership.

Presentation Summaries

Reducing Transportation Insecurity with E-Bike Incentives. Matthew Palm and Matthew Bhagat-Conway presented findings from a natural experiment evaluating Raleigh, North Carolina’s 2024–2025 e-bike voucher program. The city randomly assigned 150 vouchers—offering $1,500 to lower-income applicants and $500 to general applicants—enabling a causal analysis of the program’s outcomes. The researchers found that voucher recipients were over ten times more likely to acquire an e-bike, leading to a 174% increase in daily cycling trips. Crucially, the program significantly reduced transportation insecurity; treatment group scores on the University of Michigan’s Transportation Insecurity Index were roughly half those of the control group (dropping from 2.24 to 1.18), representing an effect size equal to about one-quarter the benefit of owning a car. Qualitative interviews revealed that e-bikes effectively filled gaps in automobility and helped riders feel safer at night because they could “get away quickly” from unsafe situations. However, barriers such as income verification hurdles, limited local bike inventories, out-of-pocket costs, and unsafe road conditions curtailed greater use and disproportionately impacted outreach to Black and Latino communities.

Meeting Communities Where They Are: Rethinking Active Transportation Through Inclusive Design. Tiasia O’Brien and Kara Oberg discussed how human-centered engagement can transform active transportation planning by focusing on who is being engaged rather than just how. Partnering with the City of Tucson and the Living Streets Alliance for the 3rd Street and Pinal Vista Bicycle Boulevard projects, co:census developed an SMS-based, open-ended survey platform. Recognizing that many communities face survey fatigue, distrust of government, and privacy concerns, the platform encrypted data and allowed residents to text in their preferred languages. By using quota-based sampling and culturally responsive methods, the project revealed insights that numerical averages often conceal. For example, Spanish-speaking residents expressed distinct, nuanced safety concerns regarding nighttime travel and shared barriers related to a lack of resources and civic distrust. The presentation demonstrated that digital tools must be paired with ethical data practices and trust-building to capture the voices of the “interested but concerned” majority.

Reduced Fares: Lessons from Across the Country. Vanessa P. Barrios, Ravena Pernanand, and Rachel Weinberger presented an investigation by the Regional Plan Association (RPA) into 18 reduced-fare transit programs across the United States. Because the inability to pay for transit is a major determinant of health—often leading to missed healthcare appointments and poor access to food—affordable transit is critical. The researchers found that despite good intentions, enrollment rates across the country are dismally low. Major challenges include income eligibility thresholds that are set too low to capture many heavily cost-burdened riders, and a lack of non-digital enrollment options. Notably, only two agencies studied (Boston’s MBTA and King County Metro) actively measure health outcomes as part of their program evaluation. The speakers concluded that while free transit programs are emerging, they require sustained funding; in the meantime, agencies must broaden eligibility up to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, implement auto-enrollment, and ensure culturally competent outreach.

Transportation Equity through Micro-Mobility and More. Juan Roberto Madrid of GreenLatinos focused on the role of community connector services in addressing historical inequities in Colorado. The presentation highlighted that the fight against freeway expansions (such as the Central I-70 and I-270 projects) exposed deep disparities, with low-income and historically marginalized communities bearing the brunt of pollution and displacement while lacking viable transportation alternatives. Advocacy by GreenLatinos led to a major commitment from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to partner directly with these impacted areas. The initiative aims to implement subsidized, well-managed micro-mobility options—such as e-bike shares, scooters, and small electric shuttles—to bridge the “last-mile” mobility gap. Madrid emphasized that providing these services turns anti-freeway resistance into tangible investments in equitable community access, ensuring that infrastructure policy serves as a force for social good.

Building Powerful Partnerships to Power Decision Making

This session focused on community-driven approaches to transportation equity. Across the three presentations, a central theme emerged: traditional, transactional public engagement is insufficient for advancing mobility justice. Instead, meaningful progress requires building long-term, equitable partnerships with local organizations, youth, and residents. The speakers highlighted that successfully navigating these partnerships requires intentional relationship-building, the redistribution of resources (such as paying community members for their time), and clear mechanisms for institutional accountability.

Presentation Summaries

Youth Perspectives and Power in School Access and Mobility Justice. Presented by Ariel H. Bierbaum (University of Maryland), Ashley Gunter (WABA), and Sydney Sotelo (WABA), this presentation explored a collaborative project between UMD’s National Center for Smart Growth and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s Vision Zero Youth Leadership Initiative. The team is building a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) lab to empower high school interns to study how the new Purple Line light rail affects youth access to education and opportunities in the Maryland suburbs. The presenters emphasized that youth bring invaluable lived experiences, multigenerational perspectives, and fresh questions to mobility justice. Dr. Bierbaum urged public universities to go beyond the traditionally slow, incremental pace of academic research and instead use their institutional power—such as providing funding, space, and connections—to make an immediate impact on community equity goals. As she noted, “Engaged research and participatory research produces better research.”

The Benefits of Leveraging Community-Based Organizations for Public Engagement. Christi Nakajima from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) discussed efforts to improve pedestrian safety and engagement in Sumter County, South Carolina—an area that suffers from double the national average for traffic fatalities. Facing a history of low turnout at public meetings and a lack of representation from vulnerable groups, the City of Sumter and the local MPO utilized funding from the USDOT’s Thriving Communities Program to try a new approach. They organized and funded a paid, temporary steering committee made up of community-based organizations (CBOs) that already work closely with students, seniors, low-income residents, and healthcare stakeholders. To ensure accountability, issues raised by the committee were logged on an “issue tracker” and reviewed at subsequent meetings. Nakajima highlighted that this recurring, relationship-based model is far more effective at surfacing real community priorities than standard, one-off public meetings.

Community Engagement Evaluation Framework and Shifting the Dial. Julia Hage from the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) introduced a new tool designed to measure the effectiveness of government agencies’ community engagement efforts. The tool was developed to support coalitions like Chicago’s Transportation Equity Network (TEN), a BIPOC-led group working to embed racial equity into transportation decisions. Hage explained that while TEN had successfully normalized the inclusion of CBOs in planning projects, community members often felt the engagement was performative because they never saw the final outcomes of their input. In response, CNT researched national best practices to create the Community Engagement Evaluation Framework. Functioning as an “after-action survey,” the tool allows CBOs to score government agencies across three different categories based on the quality of their collaboration. The resulting scores are then shared with the agencies, serving as an objective starting point for conversations on how to improve future partnerships and increase institutional accountability.

Authentic Scientist-Community Partnerships for Transportation Equity

This panel discussion featured five speakers involved in research–community partnerships: Kevin Shen of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Celeste Chavis of Morgan State University, Kai Hall of Greater Greater Washington (GGW), Minister Glenn Smith of Reconnecting Communities in West Baltimore Coalition and the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition (BTEC), and Parisa Norouzi of Empower DC.

Advancing transportation equity requires place-based, community-rooted research. The relationship between advocates and researchers has been fraught in transportation. Some of the biggest historical decisions cementing transportation inequities, such as the communities razed and divided by highways, have been justified on technocratic grounds out of touch with community experience. Meanwhile, there are a more limited number of examples where, under the right circumstances, researchers and community groups have built trust, learned from each other, and advanced transportation equity, such as in Boston’s freeway revolts.

This panel discussion started with a brief level-setting of principles for authentic scientist-community partnership by UCS. Then, community advocates across the DC–Maryland–Virginia area (DMV) introduced their work and examples of work with researchers, such as BTEC’s collaboration with Johns Hopkins University on a study of transit inequities, GGW’s work on the transportation time tax, and Empower DC’s work on hyperlocal air quality monitoring. Norouzi noted community distrust around data manipulation from government agencies, and the importance of independent sources. Hall noted that partnerships with researchers can provide key facts when testifying at hearings, as well as shift the broader narrative through the media.

The community advocates then discussed the conditions for authentic relationship building, including the need to repair any past harms, as well as engaging in durable relationships rather than ones for one-off projects. Chavis noted pushback in the academic sphere – including around the need to pay community partners, and coordinating academic timelines and urgency with community work.

The panel ended with reflections on the current political moment. For environmental justice advocates like Norouzi, the Trump administration’s attacks are particularly harmful, but the fight for environmental justice is much longer standing. Lastly, Smith urged the audience to “be resolute”, quoting BTEC advocate Samuel Jordan who recently passed away.

Closing Plenary: Where Do We Go From Here?

The closing panel, moderated by Alex Karner of the University of Texas at Austin, featured Gretchen Goldman, President and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Naomi Dorner, Principal at Equivolve, Stephanie Jenkins of Communities First Fund, and Anna Zivarts, author of When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency. The conversation centered on navigating a difficult political reality where federal equity initiatives are being dismantled, while emphasizing the urgent need to dream, build parallel institutions, and aggressively pursue resources at the local level.

Personal Motivations for the Work. When asked whose reality motivates their work, the panelists shared deeply personal inspirations:

• Gretchen Goldman stated she is motivated by kids, a group disproportionately affected by traffic deaths but whose needs are rarely considered in infrastructure planning.
• Naomi Dorner draws inspiration from her Salvadoran and Honduran roots, her family’s experiences with immigration sweeps, and the marginalized communities she works with in Chicago.
• Stephanie Jenkins pointed to the community of researchers and advocates present at the convening, urging them to document “truth to power” and tell a collective story.
• Anna Zivarts, representing the disability community, is motivated by the one-third of the population who are non-drivers. She highlighted the exhaustion of fighting racism and sexism just to get lived experiences validated in academic and planning spaces.

Navigating the Current Political Moment. The panelists spoke candidly about the devastation of recent political shifts. Goldman, who left the USDOT a year ago, noted that much of the equity vision she helped build is being dismantled or disrupted. However, she argued that this institutional breakdown makes it critical to build “parallel institutions”—like the Crossroads convening—to reimagine the space and lessen the power of authoritarianism.

Jenkins reminded the audience that while political administrations and money come and go, the pipeline for resources remains. She urged attendees to be the “bee people”—the steadfast workers who stay to document institutional history and the lived experiences of communities through political transitions. Naomi emphasized that this work builds on the civil rights movement, adding, “We don’t get to not dream” despite the loss of resources.

Securing Resources and Building Coalitions. A major theme of the panel was the need to aggressively claim funding and build power. As Jenkins noted, the federal government operates in the trillions, and advocates must boldly ask for this money because “nobody will advocate for you like you can.”

Because navigating federal grants is difficult for grassroots groups, Doerner highlighted the importance of providing technical assistance to community-based organizations (CBOs) so they can form multiracial coalitions (like Rondo and Reconnect South Park) and secure a seat at the table. Zivarts added that with federal support uncertain, organizers must be “scrappy,” uniting disability justice, economic justice, and environmental justice movements to push back collectively against massive highway spending.

Actionable Next Steps. The session closed with concrete advice for moving the needle forward:

• Don’t Self-Censor: Goldman urged the audience to reject the urge to “shut up and align,” encouraging them to keep doing the work and speaking truth to those who need to hear it.
• Rethink Metrics: Rather than traditional transit metrics, Doerner suggested measuring “social infrastructure,” community capacity building, and cultural identity reparation. Goldman noted the importance of tracking data like turnover in Justice40 communities to identify displacement.
• Center Lived Experience: Zivarts highlighted a new law in Washington State giving transit agencies the option to add transit users to advisory committees, arguing the next step is making such inclusion mandatory. She also challenged attendees to ask decision-makers and funders to participate in the “Week Without Driving.”
• Focus on Local Elections: Jenkins reminded the audience that 36 governors and many local officials are up for election soon, making it a critical time to bring collective demands to the local level.

You can view a recording of the closing plenary here.

Conclusion

What did we learn and what’s next?

The inaugural Crossroads: A Transportation Equity and Justice Convening came at a critical moment in the transportation field. With political headwinds working against diversity, equity, and inclusion, funding withdrawn and canceled, and professional spaces dismantled, the convening provided a space for scholars, practitioners, and advocates to find community with one another and chart new moves for mobility justice. Crossroads served as the first moment in what we hope will be an enduring coalition of people and repository of ideas for continuing the work of dismantling systems of oppression and redressing historic harms in our transportation systems.

Across the diverse array of talks, panels, workshops, and research presentations, several themes emerged that lay the foundation for continued work in transportation equity.

A central thread throughout the convening was the need to actively reject the status quo of car-centric infrastructure. The United States has overbuilt its highway infrastructure, causing more harm than good to many marginalized communities who bear the burdens of air pollution, noise, traffic deaths, and disconnected neighborhoods. The path forward requires an immediate halt to highway expansion, the reallocation of road space for other modes, and intentional investments in lifeline transit and active mobility options—such as targeted e-bike subsidies—to serve the 30% of Americans who are non-drivers. Crucially, as agencies invest in repairing historical harms (like tearing down urban highways or building new light rail), practitioners must stop siloing transportation, housing, and land use. Proactive, funded strategies must be embedded into every project to prevent the very investments meant to heal communities from accelerating gentrification and displacement.

The convening fundamentally challenged how we measure transportation success and who is considered an expert. Traditional metrics—whether evaluating intersection safety, job accessibility, or project benefits—often obscure the lived realities and constraints of underserved groups. Furthermore, the norms of transportation research still harbor the remnants of historical biases, extractive methodologies, and exclusionary logic. To achieve “epistemic justice,” the field must disrupt these norms. Agencies and researchers must prioritize mixed-method approaches, integrating qualitative storytelling, oral histories, and lived experiences alongside quantitative data. True equity requires recognizing that community members are the ultimate experts on their own environmental and mobility needs.

Presentations highlighted the reality that public transit environments are heavily policed spaces, often operating without adequate transparency or oversight. For vulnerable populations—including unhoused individuals relying on transit for shelter and recent migrants navigating the threat of ICE enforcement—the presence of armed transit police and punitive measures like fare evasion sweeps reproduce the carceral state and restrict mobility. The convening issued a strong call to transition away from enforcement-first paradigms. Instead, agencies must adopt care-centered approaches that utilize social workers, hygiene resources, and community mutual aid to ensure that transit remains a safe, accessible linkage to essential services for everyone.

Equitable transportation cannot be achieved through transactional, check-the-box public meetings. Real progress demands the building of robust civic capacity and the redistribution of power. Successful case studies from across the country demonstrated that public institutions and universities must leverage their resources to support grassroots organizing. Whether through funding community-based organizations (CBOs) to lead engagement, launching Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) labs, supporting labor unions fighting privatization, or creating objective accountability frameworks to evaluate agency partnerships, the goal must move from mere engagement to community ownership.

Charting a path forward

As Olatunji Oboi Reed emphasized in the opening keynote, intentions are not enough; achieving mobility justice requires us to actively “agitate and legislate.” The closing plenary echoed this urgency, acknowledging the challenge of losing federal equity support while imploring action to continue the work and make change. While federal avenues of funding may be no more, billions of dollars remain in circulation, and advocates must aggressively pursue these resources at the state and local levels and through non-governmental sources.

We remain hopeful that despite these current challenges, coalitions of justice-oriented professionals, such as those gathered at Crossroads, will carry the work of mobility justice and transportation equity forward by leaning on one another. We look forward to the next convening where we can celebrate progress in research and practice on achieving this goal.