Transportation and Land Use Coalition (TALC), Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO), People United for a Better Oakland (PUEBLO). Roadblocks to Health: Transportation Barriers to Healthy Communities. Oakland, CA: TALC; 2002.
This report, the product of a two-year collaboration between social justice organizers and transportation advocates, identifies transportation barriers to health care, nutritious food, and physical activity among residents of 15 low-income communities in Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties in California. Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping analysis, community survey, and other research findings presented in this report indicate that large numbers of poor, elderly, and minority residents in these communities have little or no access to hospitals, grocery stores, and parks. Study investigators found that only 28 percent of residents in Alameda County's disadvantaged neighborhoods have transit access to a hospital; African American residents in Alameda County are more than twice as likely as were white residents to be hit by a car and killed or hospitalized; in Contra Costa County's disadvantaged neighborhoods, only 20 percent of residents have transit access to a hospital, 33 percent have transit access to a community clinic, and 39 percent have walking access to a supermarket; and residents of suburban Gilroy in Santa Clara County have 7 percent transit access to hospitals and 33 percent transit access to supermarkets.
The report includes several policy recommendations: 1) meet basic transit needs of low-income communities of color; 2) make health access a top priority in transportation policy and planning; 3) make Medi-Cal transportation assistance available to all recipients; 4) direct public resources toward disadvantaged neighborhoods without displacing existing residents; 5) guard against reductions in transportation access to health care; and 6) support innovative efforts to ensure food security in low-income neighborhoods.
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