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IDRO Monday Research Seminar:  Public Transportation for Public Equity: How Transportation Planning Shapes Regional Accessibility – Robert Pfaff

October 28, 2024 @ 12:10 pm - 1:00 pm

Robert Pfaff, assistant professor of community and regional planning, will host a Monday Research Seminar on “Public Transportation for Public Equity: How Transportation Planning Shapes Regional Accessibility” from 12:10–1 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28, in 130 Design.

During his talk, Pfaff will discuss how public transportation has been slowly defunded, downsized and removed since 1945. This trend has made way for increased spending in automobile-oriented street design but has left communities with inadequate mobility. Pfaff argues defunding public transit has become weaponized against communities of color to limit mobility, especially in suburban contexts. The result has been that public transportation has become a spatially discriminatory practice that has imprinted structurally racial boundaries onto the urban geography in the form of modern infrastructure. Despite the racialized role of urban planning historically, public transportation is often not considered as contributory to systemic forms of racial exclusion in the built environment. 

The seminar is sponsored by the Institute for Design Research and Outreach (IDRO) and the event is open to all.