[Kyle Shelton] If we're talking about building cities and
regions where everybody can succeed, we have to make sure
they can get to the places that help them succeed.
[Laura Whitley] I'm Laura Whitley in this episode of The
Next Stop, a conversation about transit equity, where we are
today the key factors that drove infrastructure investments
of the past and the role prioritizing transit equity can
play in building communities that provide access and
opportunity to everyone.
[Music]
[Male] The Next Stop.
[Female] The Next Stop.
[Male] The Next Stop.
[Male] METRO�s Podcast.
[Music]
[Laura Whitley] I'm pleased to introduce our guest Kyle
Shelton. He is the Deputy Director at Rice University's
Kinder Institute for Urban Research, where he leads research
on urban development, transportation and placemaking. He's
also the author of Power Moves Transportation, Politics, and
Development in Houston. Kyle, thank you for joining The Next
Stop today.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, hi, Laura thanks for having me.
[Laura Whitley] I should point out our The Next Stop has
gone remote over the last couple months, and we're doing
this via Zoom, so it's a whole new world for sure.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, absolutely.
[Laura Whitley] Kyle, you wrote in a blog article published
in a community is invested, how are communities invested in
or policed, and all those choices are tied to broader issues
about race and power and access to decision making in
America. Could you frame that concept and focus it a bit
more on what you found while researching development and
investments in public transit in Houston, and how those
investments are impacted by race and power?
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, sure. I talk a lot about the importance
of infrastructure to the structure of everyday life and
cities. I think what I mean most succinctly from that line
is the way that our cities are built. The types of projects
that are sort of selected for investment and maintenance and
updating are often ones that reflect sort of, at a minimum,
the political balance of power and sort of, whether it's the
squeaky wheel getting the grease or a wealthier community
that's investing more in political candidates and supporting
political campaigns and just generally having a more
influential voice in some of those big decisions. You can
really -- you see that directly reflected in the types of
investments that get made and who those investments serve.
That's both a historically rooted thing, but it's something
that continues to this day.
I think particularly for public transit, it's been a
challenge because for so long in American society, and
particularly in big cities, we've devoted a lot of attention
and time and resources to buildings car centric cities which
most of us drive cars at this point, right, and have for
four decades. But there are lots of people for whom that
access is not possible or for whom the expense of a car is
really difficult. We haven't created opportunities that are
sustained enough to make sure that everybody has the same
access to opportunities and has the same ability to navigate
their city. I think a lot of that is because we've created
both policy choices, but then infrastructure investments
that really just solely continue to cater to cars and to
kind of require folks having cars.
Then when we look at the work that METRO and other transit
agencies are trying to do, they're often pretty
circumscribed by just the amount of resources that they have
available to them. That's really rooted, in my mind, to some
of those historical infrastructure choices and spending
choices where highways have always been deemed a public good
and have gotten trillions of dollars over the last 80 years.
The amount of spending into public transit agencies pales in
comparison to that, and yet we still have the same
expectation that a transit agency should be able to provide
the same level of service and convenience and access to
every resident in the same way that our roads do for folks
who have private cars. That's just not the case, because
there's not that level of investment or sustained
investment, and that too is a reflection of some of the
political powers and just the decision making that we make
in our cities. To say like, well, these are the folks and
these are the constituencies who are probably electing us or
whose voices are loudest and carry the most weight. Then
that absolutely affects debates around whether or not we
invest more in public transit and in all other sorts of
things, right, even just in individual neighborhood as well.
[Laura Whitley] Right. In light of the death of George
Floyd, and then the outcry and raised awareness and protest
that we have seen pop up really around the world, and calls
for improvements in equity and racial justice. As I was
personally thinking about all of that, public transit, in my
mind plays a role in that conversation about next steps and
how we move forward. Again, in your writing, it seems that
you've recognized that there is this racial equity piece
when it comes to transit investments.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, and I think not just transit, but just
generally when we think about sort of under resourced and
underserved communities, most Americans Cities, they tend to
be low income and predominantly non white. There are
variances obviously and in different places, but -- and all
of that is rooted in more than century long policy decision
making. But it hasn't changed all that much in the struggles
that those communities are facing now. They may look
different, right, so there's concerns about neighborhood
change and displacement pressures and redevelopment and a
lot of historically black or low income communities. The
reason why those communities are susceptible to that are
also related to those historic decisions, right, like the
reason why property values are low or why homes are -- have
a lot of deferred maintenance or why there are lots of
vacancies or why just even that they're mostly renter
households instead of owner are all tied back to those other
decisions.
The same applies to public rights of way and other
investments like transit, where the systems that can help
support or could help redress some of those issues aren't
really supported in the same way. I think if we're talking
just about transit and back to my earlier point about sort
of the division and how we think of public transit is sort
of not being -- it's a service, but it's not something that'
s framed often as like an essential rights, or an essential
universal right, at least, where I think -- I think it's
fair to say that for most modern history of urban cities of
American urban areas, transit has really been seen as like,
well, there's this smaller population who needs some form of
mobility, let's invest enough in public transit where we're
giving people some option. There�s been very little
consideration about the comfort of that, the efficacy of
that, the frequency, I mean, and these are all topics that
have come up a lot more recently in the last decade as we've
started to really redesign and rethink our transit systems.
But for a really long time, they were just seen as well let'
s just put this in place. Sure if somebody gets a bus every
hour, that's probably going to meet their need. No one who
has the ability to not waste an hour of their time by
sitting at a bus stop is going to do that, right? There's an
inherent power -- imbalance in power there where you're
saying to folks who are reliant on public transit, you're
just going to put up with whatever system we give you
because it's what you need to move around, versus kind of
doing everything you can and investing everything you can to
make drivers days as convenient as possible, right. I think
there's an investment argument there in terms of how we
think about what transit is in and what car infrastructure
is. There�s no denying the unequal access to like quality
mobility and quality choice also limits access to all -- a
range of opportunities, right. For folks who are -- whether
it's an hour long commute in their car, or three transfers
across multiple bus lines and other public transit system
pieces or walking like folks who don't have direct access to
opportunities, if it's health care, if it's education, if
it's food, if it's jobs, so they're facing worse situations.
[Laura Whitley] Right.
[Kyle Shelton] Working to make investments that help close
those gaps are really critical. I think transit is one of
those places where those types of investments can be made to
make sure people have buses coming every 10 to 15 minutes,
if not more, right, and that they have comfortable trips and
that they have reliable service that gets them to those
opportunities. That's something that I think very few
transit systems in the United States currently have. A lot
of that, in my mind, roots back to those -- the historical
trends and historical process of under investing in what it
would take to actually build that system.
[Laura Whitley] Could you share a little bit about some of
the dollars the investments that you research, particularly,
I mean, you mentioned the highway investments, the
inequality or the difference between the level of
investment, like I'm thinking about the Katy freeway, for
example. and the mammoth project that was and how large it
was, but how quickly it became build, and just the amount of
investment of that type of freeway versus a public transit
investment.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, so I don't know the numbers completely
off the top of my head, I'm sure it is definitely orders of
magnitude difference between even if we're just looking at
Texas the amount of investment in highways versus public
transit. Another important distinction to make is that
almost all the transit dollars or a bulk of the transit
dollars are local funds, right, so it's not the same
mechanism. States and localities get a ton of federal
support for highways and they get much less for public
transit and other forms of mobility. Most transit agencies
have been set up with a local funding mechanism because
federal support isn't there which is also going to be
limited.
I think the types of examples we can talk about, so the
North Highway Improvement project that they are currently
considering right now in Houston that has been on the docket
here for discussion for a couple decades, depending on how
you kind of -- at this point, I think the full project is
somewhere between $7 and $10 billion, roughly. If you just
think about that, that's one big highway project. But it's
one highway project in the state, and even just in the
Houston region. If you just kind of think, because if you
just kind of roughly comparing that to what METRO is doing
the last bond was a $3 billion bond, and that was for a very
long time horizon, I think was it 20 years or something like
depending for that is a long.
[Crosstalk]
[Kyle Shelton] Just comparing those two, I mean, that's the
entire basically capital bond project for METRO for multiple
years compared to one highway project, just to give you a
sense of comparison. There are obviously not all the highway
projects are the same scale as the -- in an HIP but there
are many others that are also getting into the billions of
dollars and sometimes even just an interchange, several
hundred to millions of dollars to reengineer and rebuild. It
just really quickly adds up, and it�s the ongoing expansion
of the systems that we've been putting in place since World
War II. All of that -- the scale of all of that is
significantly more than what we do with transit.
Again, I think sort of the narrative that emerges around
transit as a criticism is, well, why doesn't it --we put all
this money into it, why didn't it work any better, or like
why isn't it serving everybody the way that it needs? I
think a really big missing piece of that is just saying
acknowledgement of yes, we have invested billions of dollars
in these systems, of course, I'm not denying that. But there
also has not been enough upfront investment or sustained
investment to actually create a system that would succeed to
the level that critics would want it to, right. It�s a sort
of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think, with transit
spending where we say like, oh we can't give it any more
money because it's not working well enough. It�s not working
well enough, so we can't give it any more money. It just
kind of keeps going around in that cycle.
Even if you say, well if you gave us more money -- if
systems could develop in a way that they actually can
meaningfully overlay and bring in systems that connect more
effectively than they currently do an increase frequency and
increase reliability, that's when you actually would see
change. That's when you actually see some of the positive
improvements like METRO saw after the redesign, right, it�s-
- there are signals that if you make those types of
investments and take those actions that you can succeed. But
transit has to overcome this political perception and just,
I think, a sort of like financial roadblock at many levels
to get to that in order to do it, and it just it takes a
very long time.
[Laura Whitley] It does. As a matter of fact even the
historical roots are -- you look back even to the 1950s and
1960s there was a 2017 article that I found written by
[inaudible 00:15:05] with jobs news America, it was titled
Why Transit Equity Matters? She pointed out in a testament
of hope, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drew the connection
between access to affordable public transit and employment
opportunities. He concluded that urban transit systems were
�genuine civil rights issue� and because they weren't doing
enough to help poor people access opportunities for gainful
meaning, full employment. When you think about how long this
has been part of the dialogue and the conversation, it does
continue in terms of that history.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, absolutely. I think I already mentioned
this in passing earlier I think thinking of mobility the
right to access easy mobility as a universal -- and as a
universal right, and as an essential right is an important
part of that. That ties into what you're talking about
there. That, again, is about ensuring that no matter what
one station is in life, what one's income is that they can
they have access to meet mobility means to get them to
opportunities is really critical. If we're talking about
building cities in regions where everybody can succeed, we
have to make sure they can get to the places that help them
succeed, right, so access to education programs or
apprenticeship programs only matter if the students who need
those programs can get to them and can get them reliably,
because you can think of dozens of circumstances where it's
sort of a like a huge opportunity for somebody. If they miss
one day of work, or they miss one training class, they get
kicked out of a program or something that falls apart.
[Laura Whitley] Or they are late.
[Kyle Shelton] Or they are late, yeah. All those things add
up, and it absolutely is about, I mean, it's rooted in human
dignity to like enable people to get to the things that
they're trying to do to live their lives and live their
lives comfortably and stably. It�s about quality of life
overall, right? I think you could -- these are two obviously
very two different threads of the conversation around public
transit, but I think they both tie together and quality of
life. Whether it's like talking about it as an equity issue
and access to opportunity, or talking about it as just a
transit as a choice and form of mobility in a high quality
of life city where people can say, I don't want to have a
car or I don't want to have to take a car for every single
trip, or I want to be able to safely walk or bike or take
transit in the city. I think there is some common ground
between those two, which is giving people the options to
move through their city in whichever form they choose and
feel like a first class citizen no matter what forms they
choose. Whether it's me advocating for just more transit to
access more places without having to drive or if it's person
from Acres Home who�s trying to find a more reliable way to
get to a job downtown or get to a job in the energy corridor
or get to an education opportunity. Like in my mind, those
are obviously very different forms of needs and different
forms of advocacy, but they share a common bond of pushing
for mobility options that fit any person's need.
If we create a system that works for the resident from Acres
Home to get to where they need, it's going to work for me
and it's going to work for my needs. That's also I think, a
part of that connection is that it's not just an either or
of like, you either cater to suburban parking riders coming
into major job centers, or you cater to folks who for whom
transit is like their one option and they are using it no
matter what the delay is or what the inconveniences are. You
can't cater to both of those. That's just not true. If you
create a system that allows everybody who's reliant on it to
comfortably and safely move at the times and the paces that
they need, you're also by default, creating a system that's
going to work for somebody who's like more of a choice rider
or somebody who's just saying I want to use this when it's
convenient. I don't need to use it every time, but if there'
s a system that's convenient, I'll use it and I'm likely to
use it again.
[Laura Whitley] One thing I've been thinking about as you
were talking is just underscoring the importance of
providing that access is what has been going on during the
pandemic and during the stay at home orders. METRO has been
very intentional to make changes to improve safety in our
current health context and facing this public health crisis,
but to allow service to continue to operate, particularly
keeping service running and providing service on the most
highest demand routes and those serving coming into the
Medical Center, and other areas, METRO is operated -- has
continued to operate it and not stopped operating the entire
time because there is a real need to get essential workers
to their place of employment. Those essential workers run
the gamut everyone from people working at grocery stores to
folks that are helping clean and sanitize to also medical
workers. It's been interesting and it also has involved park
and ride, focusing on certain park and ride routes and also
local routes as well. It's really underscored that point
that you bring up.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah absolutely.
[Laura Whitley] I wanted to ask you a little bit about a
concept that you discuss in your book Power Moves, and that'
s infrastructural citizenship and how (A) what it is, yeah,
if you can help define. Then also how that may play a role
as we look towards the future and framing and designing and
investing in things that this is -- we think will help
improve and provide the type of access and first -- what is
it? First class.
[Kyle Shelton] First class citizenship.
[Laura Whitley] First, yes.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah, absolutely. Infrastructural citizenship
is sort of the theoretical keystone of the book and the
argument that I'm making as I mentioned at the beginning is
that infrastructure is not often thought of as a space of
politics and a space of debate, in the same way that we
might consider obviously, actual politics or a topic like
education or even health care, right, like things that are
very much in the public consciousness as a realm of
political debate, infrastructure very rarely is put on that
same category, right? Like, in a lot of ways, if you
actually think about like the narratives around
infrastructure politics, it's sort of like, oh, well, yeah
everybody will agree on an infrastructure belt, right? It's
actually seen sort of as like a space of compromise.
Partially what I think infrastructural citizenship is doing
is it basically challenges that idea and says infrastructure
is a part of -- it is the surfaces upon which we all live
our lives every single day, and infrastructure obviously is
a huge category. I talk a lot about transportation
infrastructure, but it's also water pipes and sewer pipes
and the internet and any communications technology. There's
all sorts of ways that I think you can apply this concept.
But I focus on transportation infrastructure, and generally
what I mean by infrastructural citizenship is people using
debates around particular projects or particular concepts or
particular approaches to infrastructure and to planning to
assert a different vision or their own vision for their city
or for their neighborhood. I am arguing that those
infrastructure debates really -- and the role people play in
them really need to be centered more in the way we talk
about not just how cities are growing and changing, but how
our society in general is because the infrastructure
networks themselves are so central to how we function.
Ignoring the back and forth debates and how people assert
visions for or have their visions for it ignored is a really
critical component of understanding how our cities are
shaped.
In the book, I track it all the way back to World War II and
the expansion of the highways and other pieces. Basically
the quick arc of it is that I'm arguing that folks have been
acting as infrastructural citizens for quite a long time.
Certainly you can find examples in by my definition earlier
than World War II. But the kind of the catching up of
federal regulations and the creation of platforms for folks
to engage in projects in new ways through NEPA, the National
Environmental Policy Act which puts into place the
environmental reviews that major infrastructure projects
have to go through, which created a platform for residents
and citizens to say no, like the environmental cost of this
are too much, you can't take this. In fact, over
systematically since the 1960s and early 1970s, more and
more pieces have been put into place which gives civilians
and non-professionals more oversight over projects, and has
allowed us to move away from sort of the 50s and 60s version
of infrastructure projects where engineers would basically
just show up on your door and say, we're building the
sideway bye, to now decades of input onto a major project.
That doesn't mean the campaigns around infrastructure have
gotten any more simple, in fact they've gotten more and more
complicated. But my argument is that that growth of input
and that growth of democratic decision making, even if it's
far from perfect at this point is really a critical step to
watch the transition of and to think about what it means for
the future because it does allow folks to influence the
decisions being made about their lives and their
neighborhoods and their cities in ways that they didn't have
access to before.
[Laura Whitley] What do you suggest for those who want to
become more engaged, and particularly in this topic? Do see
the importance in bringing in about more equity when it
comes to investment in public transit?
[Kyle Shelton] I mean, I think specific to public transit
there are a lot of really great organizations and
individuals working every day in Houston in the region to
bring more equity to transit. LinkHouston is an organization
that comes immediately to mind where advocacy is a central
part of their work and advocacy for an equitable
transportation system and city that gives people access to
those opportunities that we've talked about. Organizations
like LinkHouston where you can volunteer your time and get
invested and learn about their advocacy and approach to this
is certainly one place. Just individually, of course, if you
have feelings and desires to see greater investment, you can
share that with all sorts of elected officials from city
council up to state legislature, all the way up to the
federal government if you really are feeling gung-ho,
because a lot of those federal funds are what shaped what
METRO has access to, for example. Certainly talking with
senators and congressional representatives across the board
is important as well.
Then I think just -- I mean, probably the most simple thing
it would be to ride transit, and to use transit and to talk
to your friends and family about using transit. To get to a
city where folks have those many options, people also have
to use them and be willing to talk about it and talk about
some of the benefits and talk about some of the challenges.
You don't have to ride transit every single day and every
single trip you make to be an advocate for transit. But it
certainly helps for you to have a knowledge of what the
systems are and what some of the challenges are and, take
the next time -- the next time you're just going to do a
quick errand see if there's a METRO bus that takes you there
without too much of a journey, right. Try it if you haven't
done it before.
There�s a lot of sort of personal piloting that we can do to
better understand what the systems are. Then I do think that
helps people be informed for the next time they're asked as
voters, or just as residents for input onto a project. They
can say, oh I remember this. This was part of the experience
I had on public transit, or I wished that public transit had
been able to do this for me, but it wasn't. Just being
informed in that regard also just gives you that personal
stake in it in a way that we can all hear other people's
stories about having some of the -- confronting some of the
challenges they have or having some of the shortcomings of
transit, or even just the benefits of it. But until you have
it firsthand, I think it's often hard to really relate to
it, and to understand why it is you're supporting something.
I think just the act of using transit regularly can be
really transformational.
[Laura Whitley] Absolutely. I know that I had that
experience myself when I started working at METRO, and
really started using the system more regularly. You missed a
very important plug and read your book.
[Kyle Shelton] Oh yes, and read my book, yeah.
[Laura Whitley] But really, I mean, in all seriousness, it's
also about understanding some historical context too, I
think, around is helpful, yeah absolutely. Well, thank you
so much Kyle Shelton for joining us today. I really
appreciate it. Really interesting conversation and we
appreciate you joining us.
[Kyle Shelton] Yeah. Thanks for having me.
[Music]
[Laura Whitley] That's all for this edition of the Next
Stop. I'm Laura Whitley. If you'd like to check out more
episodes, you can find them on our website or subscribe on
Apple Podcast, SoundCloud, Spotify or Google Play. Until
next time, drive less do more with METRO.
[Music]