for displacement, the affordable housing crisis, or the wellbeing of low income communities. Given past patterns of development and displacement, it’s clear that gentrification is most rampant in neighborhoods with rapidly expanding public transit hubs. These low income communities are pushed further away from affordable transit, decent schools, and job opportunities, in what has been called the new urban crisis
So where do we go from here? These issues are potential roadblocks to a just transition in the transportation sector.
While many consider metro expansion the obvious solution to automobile dependency, this policy historically displaces low income populations established along metro lines. Alternatively, research points to investment in the public bus, as it is crucial in connecting working class communities while ignored by white commuters. Electrification and expansion of existing bus routes addresses both fossil fuel dependency and transportation needs for families who can’t participate in more expensive solutions to climate change, like buying a Tesla or solar panels.
There is support for expanding and decarbonizing local bus routes, particularly in low income communities finding job revitalization directly from green technology development and in economic opportunities afforded by increased mobility. This creates opportunities for skills based jobs, opening up the potential for unions to provide job training in underserved labor markets. Unionization would also allow workers to negotiate for better benefits, from wages to healthcare. Additionally, frontline housing activists and grassroots organizations in cities like Los Angeles could could collaborate with lawmakers on strategies like bus rapid transit to ensure fast, safe bus routes specifically planned for low income neighborhoods. Pro-climate legislators like Kevin De Leon would do well to work with these organizations to create climate-oriented, socially just urban planning. Green, accessible, and affordable transportation offers a means for workers to take back power, leveraging their skills and collective power for a fossil fuel-free, labor-oriented future.
The numerous pieces of this puzzle are in place, ready to be connected to the greater climate and labor movements. Though decarbonizing and expanding bus transit is not a unilateral solution to the larger problem of fossil fuel infrastructure, it is one policy proposal that could meaningfully contribute to a larger plan for the just energy transition. The petroleum industry has posed a roadblock to progressive climate policy for long enough, and it’s time for Governor Brown to take climate action in line with science and justice, instead of continuing to issue new oil and gas extraction permits. Exxon and its capital may have Governor Brown’s ear at the moment, but the workers, marginalized and angry have the collective power to demand systemic reform in line with climate and labor justice.
Ishana Ratan is a PhD student at UC Berkeley. Her research interests focus on trade barriers and their role in the rapidly globalizing international economic landscape.