Leveraging Transportation Investments for Economic Development and Wealth Building

Summary

Transportation infrastructures are designed to increase accessibility and streamline connectivity, aiming to bolster community well-being and economic growth. While transportation investments generally promote economic growth, they have also, at times, unintentionally caused negative consequences like community division and restricted access to essential services. Over time, these infrastructural decisions have led to economic and environmental inequities, placing undue burdens on certain communities and creating a landscape of disadvantage. For instance, the Near North neighborhood of Minneapolis was divided by Minnesota's first highway, Olson Memorial (Minnesota Highway 55), which disrupted a thriving Black and Jewish neighborhood known for its local businesses. The primary goal of this project is to identify, evaluate, and mitigate the impacts of infrastructure projects that have historically divided communities, which is essential for both rectifying past injustices and setting a standard for future development. To address the goal, the project objectives include: 1) synthesize existing examples of past harms by assessing the effects of barriers such as physical divisions, accessibility issues, safety challenges, environmental impacts, economic and business disruptions, and other socioeconomic factors on communities, 2) formulate guidelines for identifying, evaluating, and mitigating the impacts of transportation infrastructure that has historically caused divisions in communities, particularly in underserved areas, 3) showcase at least five successful instances and use cases that exemplify the processes of "impacted community identification," "impact evaluation," "burden detection," and "solution suggestion," and illustrate how transportation investments effectively address and eliminate sources of division within communities, and 4) raise awareness about the importance of the co-creation and co-design concept in infrastructure projects, aiming to develop a framework for future designs that ensure fair and equitable benefits for stakeholders from diverse backgrounds.