Lost in the transit desert race, transit access, and suburban form

Lost in the Transit Desert

Increased redevelopment, the dismantling of public housing, and increasing
housing costs are forcing a shift in migration of lower income and transit
dependent populations to the suburbs. These suburbs are often missing
basic transportation, and strategies to address this are lacking. This absence
of public transit creates barriers to viable employment and accessibility to
cultural networks, and plays a role in increasing social inequality.
This book investigates how housing and transport policy have played their
role in creating these “Transit Deserts,” and what impact race has upon those
likely to be affected. Diane Jones Allen uses research from New Orleans,
Baltimore, and Chicago to explore the forces at work in these situations, as
well as proposing potential solutions. Mapping, interviews, photographs,
and narratives all come together to highlight the inequities and challenges
in Transit Deserts, where a lack of access can make all journeys, such as to
jobs, stores, or relatives, much more difficult. Alternatives to public transit
abound, from traditional methods such as biking and carpooling to more
culturally specific tactics, and are examined comprehensively.
This is valuable reading for students and researchers interested in transport
planning, urban planning, city infrastructure, and transport geography.
Diane Jones Allen is currently Principal Landscape Architect with
DesignJones LLC, New Orleans, USA. Her research and practice is guided
by environmental justice, and sustainability in African-American landscapes.
She was previously a tenured Professor in Landscape Architecture at the
School of Architecture and Planning, Morgan State University, Baltimore,
USA.


Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design
Series editor: Peter Ache

Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design is a series of academic
monographs for scholars working in these disciplines and the overlaps
between them. Building on Routledge’s history of academic rigour and cuttingedge research, the series contributes to the rapidly expanding literature in all
areas of planning and urban design.
/>Urban Planning’s Philosophical Entanglements
The Rugged, Dialectical Path from Knowledge to Action
Richard S. Bolan
Lost in the Transit Desert
Race, Transit Access and Suburban Form
Diane Jones Allen
University Spatial Development and Urban Transformation in China
Cui Liu
The Virtual and the Real in Planning and Urban Design
Perspectives, Practices and Applications
Claudia Yamu, Alenka Poplin, Oswald Devisch and Gert de Roo
Unplugging the City
The Urban Phenomenon and Its Sociotechnical Controversies
Fábio Duarte and Rodrigo Firmino
Heritage-led Urban Regeneration in China
Jing Xie, Tim Heath
Tokyo Roji
The Diversity and Versatility of Alleys in a City in Transition
Heide Imai


Lost in the Transit Desert
Race, Transit Access, and
Suburban Form

Diane Jones Allen


First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Diane Jones Allen
The right of Diane Jones Allen to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Allen, Diane Jones, author.
Title: Lost in the transit desert : race, transit access, and suburban
form / Diane Jones Allen.
Description: First Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2017. |
Series: Routledge research in planning and urban design |

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017004348| ISBN 9781138954243 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315667027 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sociology, Urban--United States. | Local transit—
United States. | United States—Race relations.
Classification: LCC HT123 .A45 2017 | DDC 307.7/60973—dc23
LC record available at />ISBN: 978-1-138-95424-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66702-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK


This work is dedicated to Ellis Jones Washington



Contents

List of figures and table
Foreword by Naomi Doerner
Acknowledgments

ix
xi
xv

Introduction

1

1

Theorizing the origin of and defining Transit Deserts

9

2

Transit Desert case studies

45

3

Forecasting for the desert

107

4

Solutions for traveling in the desert

123

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

151

165
176



Figures and table

Figures
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21

22
23
24
25
26

The Green Book
Lafitte Housing Project Claiborne Avenue, 2004
Transit Desert Neighborhood
Voucher Distribution and Race in 2010
St. Bernard Project Before and During Hurricane Katrina
St. Bernard Area Means of Transportation to Work in 2000
St. Bernard Area Population and Race in 2000 and 2010
St. Bernard Area Peak Hour Waiting Time in 2005
Pines Village Median Gross Rent in 2000
Pines Village 2000 Census Population Density
Pines Village Median Household Income in 2000
Pines Village Median Household Income in 2010
Pines Village Means of Transportation to Work in 2010
Pines Village Peak Hour Waiting Time in 2015
Ms. White in her Dining Room in New Orleans East, 2016
Ms. Daigle’s Complex
Baltimore City Census Tracts
Revitalization Area Transit Lines and Stops
Map of Locations of Relocated Households
Relocation Area Transit Lines and Stops
Mr. Davis and acquaintance Mr. Jones across from
Lexington Market
Transit Desert Chicago, Halsted Street
Transit Deserts in Cook County Transit Future

CTA System 2015
Waiting on Green Line
Transit Ranking Graph

11
28
41
50
51
53
54
54
55
56
56
57
58
58
60
65
73
76
77
80
84
88
99
100
104
116

x

Figures and table

27
28
29
30

Zip Code 21206 Baltimore, Maryland
Hamilton Service Area
Hamilton Parcel Stop Location 1.1
Hamilton Final Parcels Stop Location

117
118
120
121

Table
1

Vehicle Availability for Relocation Areas

79


Foreword by Naomi Doerner

My mother arrived in America from Tegucigalpa, Honduras C.A., at the age
of 18. She was undocumented with $80 U.S. to her name and the promise
of work cleaning houses. Soon after arriving in Miami, Florida, she joined
her sister in Chicago, Illinois. I was born at Cook County Hospital during
the summer of 1978. For the first several years of my life, we lived in
Lawndale, a predominately poor, working-class Black and Latino immigrant
community, just east of Cicero and west of Chicago’s Southside.
My earliest memories are of my mother waking up well before dawn to
get ready for work. She held several jobs—cleaning houses, working at a
blue jean factory—and she also took turns babysitting children in the
neighborhood. Each morning, we’d sleepily get ready, eat breakfast and then
hurry on about our day.
She and I walked, rode the bus and took the “L” train everywhere—to
go to the nearest grocery store, doctor’s appointments, the laundromat, my
Godmother’s home where she’d watch me while my mother worked, and
the library where she took English lessons in the evening. We relied on public
transportation, as unreliable as it was. We needed it to reach the people,
places and services that comprised and facilitated our daily life.
I couldn’t have known it then but those experiences of taking in the sights,
sounds and scents of our block, our neighborhood, the city’s Southside and
broader area every day on our walks, bus rides and train rides, they’d leave
an indelible mark on me. They sparked a curiosity about why the people,
places and services we encountered were where and how they were. Many
questions percolated in my young and curious mind. Why was the only
grocery store we could buy all our food a few neighborhoods away, but not
in ours? Why in the winter did plows pack the heavy snow so high that we’d
have to wait nervously in the middle of a busy street for the bus? Or why
after my mother’s evening English class at the main library branch, did we

xii

Foreword

often have to walk a long distance home in the dark rather than take the
train, the way we had arrived?
I’d constantly pester my mother with these questions to which she’d often
answer, “Mija, asi es la cosa.” Which translates from Spanish to English as,
“Daughter, that’s how it is.”
It’d be years before I understood how and why the places we inhabit,
neighborhoods, cities and regions, have been shaped by history and policies.
But, I kept asking these and other questions, which eventually led me to New
York City where I attended graduate school for urban planning and public
policy. And through my studies, I began to find many of the answers I’d
been seeking.
For instance, I learned that in the 1920s and 1930s, the private auto
industry worked to redefine streets as dangerous places meant only for cars.
They created public campaigns and coined terms such as “jaywalking,”
invented to mean that pedestrians didn’t belong in city streets.
I also learned that in 1944 the G.I. Bill—coupled with Federal Housing
Administration insurance—minimized risks for builders, banks, and savings
and loan associations, which encouraged developers to build new, singlefamily houses on the outskirts of cities across the U.S. for veterans’ families.
But, not all veteran families were deemed eligible for loans. Racial discrimination and bias heavily impacted who did and didn’t receive the loans and,
thus, who would and wouldn’t have a pathway to building economic
prosperity and middle class wealth.
In addition, I came to understand that federal funding for highway
expansion, in place since Frankin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, expanded under
Eisenhower. And that without public subsidies, privately owned transit
systems were intentionally left to deteriorate. Streetcars disappeared as

General Motors bought bankrupt systems across the country and replaced
them with buses, which fared poorly in cities once White flight took shape
in the subsequent decades of urban renewal programs.
Studying the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954,
which ended the era of legalized segregation through the doctrine of
“separate but equal,” helped me understand how self-imposed residential
segregation already underway in the U.S. was reinforced by and fed urban
sprawl, forever changing public policies, funding and services within cities,
municipalities and regions, concentrating wealth in mostly White suburban
communities and poverty in many Black and Brown immigrant urban core
communities. Meanwhile, millions of African Americans living in southern
states and new waves of immigrants migrated to cities, like Chicago, to find
work in the first half of the twentieth century, adding to the density and
need for and strain on public services and resources.


Foreword xiii
Urban renewal projects from Baltimore to Chicago to New Orleans, where
I live now, were carried out under different names by different city administrations from the 1940s on, made possible by the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development under the Housing Act of 1949, initially,
and then the Housing Act of 1954, the same year of the Brown v. Board
of Education ruling. The policy provided Federal grants meant to clear
“blight” and “slums” with housing and highway projects, which were
always predominately low-income communities of color. These policies,
funding structures and racially biased planning practices have left legacies
of entrenched poverty in many low-income communities, which cities and
communities continue to grapple with today.
Lawndale, where my earliest years were spent, was one of the decimated
neighborhoods hit hard by urban renewal, though I didn’t know it when I
was young. But that was the answer to why our community looked, sounded

and smelled as it did. Access to public services and resources for my mother,
my neighbors and myself was a daily struggle. The only way out of poverty
there was to access opportunities elsewhere, outside the desert. And we could
only do this by relying on transportation, which, again, wasn’t reliable.
When I think about how we’d have fared if we were forced to live in one
of the many cut-off exurbs or suburbs of Chicago, like many poor immigrants
and communities of color are being forced to today due to the rising cost of
housing, I don’t think we’d have found our way out of the desert. I believe
we’d have remained lost in poverty, lost in the transit desert.
In the pages of this book, I’ve found many more answers to the questions I’ve sought as a transportation justice advocate and planner. Lost in
the Transit Desert: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form is the first
comprehensive comparative analysis to explicitly and unflinchingly examine
the racially discriminatory policies that intentionally hollowed out once
thriving Black and Brown communities in three major U.S. cities—Baltimore,
Chicago and New Orleans. In addition to detailing the historical context of
the conditions that exist in many of these communities it also discusses the
trends and forces of urban and transportation policy that, if unaddressed,
have the potential to lead to the further marginalization of vulnerable people
and populations. As such, the book offers hope through stories of perseverance, resilience, and thoughtful solutions.
It’s abundantly clear from U.S. history that indeed our federal government
and many of those carrying out urban renewal policies and implementing
these projects were misguided and lost their way, blinded by racial bias and
prejudice. But we no longer have to remain lost nor do communities have
to remain lost in transit deserts either.


xiv

Foreword

This book offers advocates, academics, and practitioners a roadmap,
tracing the past to the present and toward a future where communities, big
and small, can create pathways to fair and just neighborhoods to live, raise
families, and prosper.
All we have to do now is act upon the solutions offered herein by the
author, Diane Jones Allen, to chart a new course forward.
New Orleans,
January 2017

Naomi Doerner is the Transportation Equity program manager at the
City of Seattle’s Department of Transportation. She’s also the principal and
co-founder of Seneca Planning, a transportation equity research, planning
and advocacy consultancy. Additionally, Naomi is a co-organizer of The
Untokening, a national collective and professional development network of
leaders of color creating fair and just communities. She serves on the Boards
of ioby and PlayBuild; holds a Master of Urban Planning from New York
University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, a Bachelor
of Arts in International Affairs and a Certificate of Geographic Information
Systems from Kennesaw State University; and recently re-located to Seattle,
Washington from New Orleans, Louisiana.


Acknowledgments

Blindness to the experience of others is most often a choice. I am not proud
to say that I have driven, in the comfort and convenience of my automobile,
blindly by people standing on corners, often in dark and cold conditions,
waiting for buses. Through acknowledgment and opening my eyes, I gained
greater awareness of the challenges of transit access experienced by particular
populations. This awareness created a desire to understand the greater

impacts of limited transportation access and find solutions for the transit
underserved residing in Transit Deserts. The process of working on this book
exposed me to the relationship of many of the greater problems of our
society—including gentrification, homelessness, unemployment, displacement, and access to education—to transit equity. I must thank all those who
made the outcome of this exploration more than it ever would have been
without their contributions.
An honest and balanced investigation of Transit Deserts would not be
possible without the voices of those that dwell within them daily, and
experience the challenges of limited access to employment, social connections, and necessary services. I wish to thank Gertrude Daigle, Maria Darnel,
Rosemary White, Willie Davis, Edward Logan, Seffonzo Dorsey, Doug
Williams, Kristen London, J. W. Tatum, Mr. Mathews, and Natalie Moore,
for sharing their truths and experiences with me. You provided me an insight
into the real-life causes, impacts, and challenges of transit inequity. Without
your stories this work would ring hollow. I know that some of the
experiences were difficult to relive, but I so appreciated your trust, and I
hope this work proves me worthy of it.
Time, space, and resources are literally essential to any research
undertaking. I would like to thank Director Camille Anne Brewer and the
Black Metropolis Research Consortium for the Fellowship which provided
access to libraries and archival institutions allowing me to do primary
research in Chicago. I would like to acknowledge Regina Irizarry and


xvi

Acknowledgments

Wanquin Su for their assistance in research that was not only necessary but
fundamental to this work. Thank you for your time, enthusiasm, and critical
thinking. I know you will always do great things in the world. I would also

like to thank Edith Jones for editing and encouragement. Importantly, I
would like to thank M. Austin Allen III not only for editing, but for
challenging me to take risks, thinking through my suppositions, sacrificing
precious time, and supporting me through to the end.
No one mentioned here, or any of those that helped and are not listed,
is ever least, especially Ronald Jones. You are one of the most well-read,
intelligent, and complicated people I know. I so value your knowledge, and
the doors you opened for me in Baltimore. You provided entrée to people
that would have never talked to me without your sanction. I will appreciate
you to the end.


Introduction

The homes of the Baltimore Middle East community surrounding the
prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital appeared hauntingly vacant, and I
wondered what had happened to the families that had dwelt in the square
blocks. Had they vanished, and now inhabit a better life in a place of
prosperity and equity? It was 2006, I was undertaking research along with
a sociology professor, Pamela E. Scott-Johnson, Ph.D., at Morgan State
University, who was examining the broken, familiar ties to place and social
networks that had to be renewed and reconfigured in the new environments
in which the residents of this former community—Baltimore Middle East—
had been transplanted. Most of the residents had been relocated, mainly
through Section 8 vouchers, to the outer urban areas of the city away from
the downtown and the urban core in which they once lived. It was also
determined, through interviews and census records, that most of the relocated
residents lacked vehicles and used the public bus system to travel to work
and other services. I was interested in working with Dr. Scott-Johnson on
this particular community because my mother had grown up in this neighborhood on Ashland Avenue in the 1930s and 1940s. I remember vividly

the stories she and her sisters used to tell of their bustling neighborhood and
sitting out on the polished marble steps of the red brick row house they lived
in, entertaining friends and admirers. Now all the row houses, marble steps,
and neighborhood activity were gone, demolished so completely that hardly
a memory remained.
My research was to focus on the physical form of the areas of relocation,
the areas that would be a new frontier for those evacuated from a unique
and vernacular geography. It could easily be hypothesized that the move from
row house to detached structures or garden apartments, ironically named the
Dutch Village, where some of the residents of this particular community ended
up, was a major change in lifestyle, impacting drastically social interaction.
Hanging out on the front steps, barbequing on the sidewalk or playing ball


2

Introduction

in the street, were foreign and often unsanctioned forms of socialization in
this new social and physical space. I studied the new environments, and the
variety and impact of the accrued losses, attributable to the move to this alien
space. These new communities were residential in character, with local streets
restricting instead of accommodating through traffic, while commercial
arterials bordered on both sides by parking lots adjacent to the street created
vast concrete vistas. The main difference from the old to new environments
was not only the difference in density and the configuration of social space,
but how blatantly difficult the task of navigating the streets and accessing
the public transit service would be. Realizing that transportation would be
a major challenge facing the relocated residents, for it would impact the ease
of getting back downtown to work, needed services, friends and family left

behind, and the familiar, I had a new focus for my inquiry.
Without the benefit of mixed-use urban development, including walking
distance to shopping, employment, services, and the closeness to the
businesses in the downtown, and with easily accessible transit out of reach,
the quality of life for the relocated, transit dependent residents became
adversely impacted. Not only would relocation from the transit rich inner
core to the outer urban and inner suburban rings affect the quality of life
and transit access for the transplanted residents, but this shift in population
would transform these auto-oriented, mostly residential communities from
perceived oases void of urban blight into Transit Deserts. Transit Deserts
are noted for a greater demand for mass public transportation than availability, and for people walking along streets with non-existent sidewalks,
and standing for long periods of time on corners with no buses in sight; in
this new geography there are clear signs of an imbalance of transportation
options within the same metropolis. The automobile-driven, outer urban
areas of the city where the numbers of lines and available service decline,
did not become Transit Deserts until the arrival of the thousands of new
residents with travel destinations throughout the city and with no automobile. This is not just a Baltimore phenomenon, but a national phenomenon caused by public policy, and economic and social/cultural shifts
which, of course, have various causes, and outcomes that can be seen in
every major American city. The characteristics that are unique to “Transit
Deserts” derive from neighborhood form and physiography, the time
spent and the ease of accessing transit, the lack of access to basic amenities
of urban living, and, most importantly, the very visible demographics of its
inhabitants.
I was having a discussion about Transit Deserts with a transportation
scholar who pointed out that Transit Deserts also include the many
neighborhoods where there is no mass transportation, and the residents


Introduction 3
are quite happy with that, and have resisted public transportation entering

their communities. I disagreed with this characterization, because neighborhoods are only Transit Deserts if there is a demand for accessibility that is
usually fulfilled through different modes of transportation and that demand
cannot be met. And particularly cannot be met because of race and one’s
inability to immediately move from the location of the desert. I agreed that
the cultural themes of “nimbyism (not in my backyard),” “anti-urbanism,”
“the prioritization of auto-mobility,” and “the othering of transit”—which
is that bus users are problematic people, and that buses would bring the
“wrong” people into their neighborhood—discourage public transportation in certain communities. There are major reasons people moved to
neighborhoods of suburban form, including the perceptions of prosperity,
less density, spaciousness, better schools, and less crime. Not until a real
demand for transit arrived in the shape of the new transit dependent
demographic, who often came because of development policies and pressures,
did these neighborhoods become lacking in transit access, because open or
public access wasn’t desired and often was blocked. The arrival of the new
demographic of transit dependent residents transformed neighborhoods that
are suburban in form, previously dominated by residents who rarely or never
utilized public transit and were happily dependent on their cars, to
neighborhoods where there is now a demand for public transportation that
is not being met. This is the definition of the Transit Desert to be used in
this book, and the key elements including form and physiography that
constitute a Transit Desert will be described herein.
A neighborhood does not have to be in the suburbs to be a Transit Desert;
many are located within the historic boundaries of the city limits, with forms
that were driven by the availability of the automobile. This manifests in
neighborhoods that through density, land use and zoning mix, and physical
form don’t encourage walking and easy connections. Second, there are
places where public transit exists, but are still considered Transit Deserts if
the access is difficult, with riders traveling more than a quarter mile from
point of departure to a transit stop, and long wait times once at the stop.
Third, and most importantly, is the factor of demographics. If there is no

unmet demand or potential ridership, there is no Transit Desert. The demographic characteristics of the potential ridership of these deserts in the
United States are most often people of color, low income and, of course,
those without cars. This demographic has social, cultural, and economic
particulars that are often hindered through insufficient and limited public
access to transit. For example, as new digital forms of transportation access
come on board this specific population of low income, minority riders are
being left further behind.


4 Introduction
An exploration of the causes for the demographic shift away from the
urban core by African American populations, and into the urban core by
the White and affluent populations is essential for understanding the creation
of the Transit Desert. The transit dependent population, who are most often
African American, and lower income, migrated from the urban core to areas
of little transit service, pushed over time by urban renewal, housing prices
and policy, zoning, and economic development policies, combined with
societal and market forces that changed the urban landscape. Essential to
this discourse is the fact that lower income residents have felt forced or have
been compelled to leave their existing communities in search of better living
conditions or affordable housing. Gentrification, which included the influx
of middle and upper income residents and capital investments in areas once
inhabited by low income residents, has driven rent and tax increases, taking
many properties out of the multi-family market, and causing racial and
economic divides. Gentrification is fueled by attraction and consumption
(Stein, 2011). Consumption happens when landlords realize that they can
charge higher rents to tenants with more money and that there are potential
tenants who are willing to pay. Attraction comes about when the interesting
architecture, arts and entertainment venues, shopping, inviting streetscapes,
shorter commutes, and other amenities become appealing to White and more

affluent residents. These forces combine to create a demographic shift. These
population shifts are also helped by local governments that institute zoning
laws and ordinances, the relaxation of renter protection laws, and capital
improvements, such as bicycle tracts, streetcar lines, and park/trails. The
dismantling and reconfiguration of mostly African American inhabited, now
old-style, public housing was also a major factor producing economic and
social change in some cities. The lack of social and economic investment in
affordable housing, urban schools, job creation, and crime prevention also
caused African American families to seek other geographies, including the
mythic suburbs, for a better way of life.
Life in the Transit Desert is filled with the challenges of traveling to work,
school, shopping, and accessing social and cultural networks. Lost in the
Transit Desert: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form, through the case
studies in New Orleans, Baltimore, and Chicago, will detail the experiences
of African American residents living in this new physical environment
through quantitative data, such as mapping, and also through qualitative
research including interviews, photographs, and narratives. Drawing on firsthand accounts of the struggles to cope with the new environment and access
transit, this book will highlight the inequities and challenges faced in these
areas. The challenges are many, especially if one migrated from a walkable
environment, with transit stops at efficient distances, and timely levels of


Introduction 5
transit service, to an auto-oriented environment with few of these elements.
The personal stories of trying to get to and keep one’s job, get to the doctor
or other needed services, to visit relatives who no longer live down the street
or next door, to go to the grocery store and then haul purchases long
distances expose the hardships and the impact the geographical shift has on
transit access, and, therefore, quality of life for those living in the Transit
Desert.

This book will include a discussion of mainstream alternatives to existing
public transit systems, including biking, carpooling, etc., but will also explore
culturally specific alternatives unique to those living in the desert. In studying
African American culture from the diaspora through the Great Migrations
to the North I have used the term nomadic as a way to describe the solutions that often require movement and improvisational approaches to the
problems presented by life in the American landscape. In the book Third
Cinema: Exploration of Nomadic Aesthetics and Narrative Communities
(1994), Teshome Gabriel uses the figure of the nomad as a means of elaborating an aesthetic appropriate to Black and diasporic cultures. Teshome
describes the nomad as one that does not travel simply to get to a particular
destination, but journeys because it is the nomad’s life. It is difficult to deny
that African American existence, in the United States, holds a legacy of
journey and migration, voluntary and forced, from the African Continent
to North America, from the South to the North, from the country to the
city, from the city to the outer urban rings and suburbs. To some the use
of the nomad is not accurate for it may put forth the image of African
Americans willingly moving to new environs in denial of the strong forces
that would not allow them stay to in place, and it is at odds with the idea
of the lack of mobility. Many African Americans, having been moved from
their communities and moved many more times before finding home again,
do feel like nomads, and this is not a positive emotion. Intrinsically, African
Americans have always wanted connections to place, being moved around
since the first forced relocation from the African Continent. For the discourse
on solutions, I interpret nomadic as related to improvisational and as a way
to claim and make positive nomadic behavior and survival skills. In the book
I will refer to these solutions or adaptations as improvisational, which connects to the broader reinterpreting of landscape with urban tactical
movements. This creativity is based on survival, the necessity of travel, and
the desire to connect to family, commerce, employment, opportunity, and
quality of life.
Theoretically the problem of Transit Deserts could easily be solved,
through meeting the demand for transit by the new residents; making the

areas less suburban in form by increasing walkability through adding


6

Introduction

sidewalks and infill development; increasing the number of bus stops insuring
riders that they won’t have to walk further than a quarter mile to a stop,
and providing a signage and up-to-date digital information to keep riders
abreast of the vehicle location in relation to the individual; increasing service
levels, by increasing the number of vehicles on each line, using digital
technology to determine location and schedules of riders to decrease wait
times; and providing a safe, comfortable service with convenient connections
on multiple routes. Transit density, of course, is based on demand. The
Transit Desert is a unique landscape with a physical appearance that belies
its reality. It possesses a form and infrastructure that denies the fact of the
population changes that call for an increase in a mode of transportation
for which it was not originally configured. Therefore traditional ways of
calculating demand would not be sufficient, and a means to determine the
hidden demand residing in the Transit Desert is required. Catalytic forecasting can be used to evaluate the underserved in a Transit Desert landscape
based upon placing potential riders at every parcel of land within a transit
shed. Numbers derived from the maximum frequency of use force accurate
planning and meaningful efforts towards accessible public transportation.
Acting as a catalyst for increased ridership, every parcel of land serves as a
location from which a trip can be generated, but it then takes into account
the complexity of the demographics, physiography, and lack of access as
examined and explained within Transit Desert neighborhoods. “Catalytic
forecasting” more accurately justifies increased transit access, increasing
lines, frequency, and accessibility, and, most importantly, can assist in the

location of transit stops, thereby increasing overall efficient movement in
the city.
To forever erase the Transit Desert from our geographic mapping there
would need to be increased transit subsidies and investment in public
transportation infrastructure throughout entire metropolitan areas to
resolve the myriad of issues of transit inequity and provide transit access for
all. This, however, will require a long process and shift in priorities and
thinking that will ignite the economic, social, and political will of citizens,
governmental and regional transportation authorities, and the private sector
to work together to clearly define, acknowledge, and solve the issues of inequity and deficiency in mass transit. It must be noted that many cities
across the United States are forming coalitions and attempting to tackle these
issues, but with the continued and, in some jurisdictions, increasing
movement of urban, transit dependent minorities and poor to outer urban
and suburban rings, mobility is an immediate issue impacting economic
survival, and quality of life. In the meantime, the transit dependent must
maneuver the Transit Desert. What are the creative and traditional policy,


Introduction 7
planning, and design methods used to meet the transportation needs for
basic survival in these communities? The overall focus of this writing is to
expose the causes, stories, challenges, and coping methods of those lost in
the Transit Desert.