Transportation Equity and Community Health (TEACH)

Overview

Jobs out of reach, missed health care appointments, and students unable to get to classes or after-school activities are all problems with a common cause: transportation barriers. Throughout the Bay Area, hundreds of thousands of residents live in households where there is no access to a car; over one million others in the region share one car among several adults.

Low-income family members are most in need of increased transportation choices. For them, public transit, walking and bicycling are critical lifelines. But transportation funding has too often focused on relieving congestion for rush-hour auto commuters, at the expense of providing basic mobility for those who depend primarily on transit.

The fundamental goal of the transportation equity movement is to ensure that transportation is no longer an obstacle to self-sufficiency and a better life. TALC’s Transportation Equity and Community Health (TEACH) Initiative consists of three key efforts to win transportation justice:

In conjunction with the Transportation Justice Working Group coordinated by Urban Habitat, TALC’s Lifeline Transportation campaign will advocate for dependable access to jobs, services, and educational opportunities for residents of low-income communities. For more information, contact transportationjustice@transcoalition.org or Urban Habitat.
A Training and Technical Assistance program, based on the popular Access Now! guide, helps local community organizations advocate more effectively for local and regional transportation solutions.
In Contra Costa County, TALC undertook a ground breaking three-year program to improve transportation access to health care facilities for low-income residents.

Research & Analysis

·	*Roadblocks to Health* is a recent TALC report that investigates transportation barriers to healthy communities in 15 poor and people-of-color communities in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties.
·	Youth and Transportation report: Can't Get There From Here: The Decline of Children’s Independent Mobility in California, co-authored with Surface Transportation Policy Project and Latino Issues Forum.
·	Other reports: see the TEACH (Transportation Equity And Community Health) section of the TALC Library.

Update: 10/23/02