The maps of Baltimore in a new study of transit equity remind Lawrence Brown of the infamous 1930s residential security map segregating the neighborhoods around the city by race and redlining Black residents into the areas east and west of downtown.
The analysis by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition shows different city neighborhoods’ access to transit as well as social vulnerability, pollution and health. The darkest colors represent the areas of greatest need.
“The patterns are unmistakable,” said Brown, the author of “The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America,” which examines the ongoing effects of redlining and other racist policies. “Just knowing Baltimore’s history and seeing a lot of maps, it’s not surprising,” he said. “But it’s reflecting just how much the city’s legacy of racial hyper-segregation shows up in so many different areas.”
In Baltimore, where about one in three people lacks access to a car, the report concluded that public transit “often fails to get people to their destinations in a reasonable amount of time.” The analysis also called current insufficient service “especially concerning” because of the high concentration of low-income minority riders in the city, “many of whom” during the pandemic were classified as “essential workers.”
Click here too read the rest of the article written by Colin Campbell over at The Washington Post
