Simply putting new people with better intentions at the helm of our transportation apparatus has failed to repair past mistakes or stop producing the same old inequalities. While they often use more enlightened language, little in the program has fundamentally changed so the outcomes haven’t changed much either.

It’s sobering to read about our sordid history of transportation planning and investment in America in Part I. Learning that history is vital, and should be required reading for anyone involved in transportation today. But we can’t stop there. We must also understand how our actions today still cause harm, especially to low income and Black and Brown communities.

We’re sympathetic to the many well- intentioned policymakers, transportation planners, and engineers working today who find that history just as appalling and strive to depart from the practices of the past.

We understand that many who have their hands on the levers of control today are not intending the same results as their forebears, many of whom intentionally sought to harm, divide, and displace people solely because of the color of their skin or size of their wallets. But as Part II shows at length, good intent is not powerful enough to override a system that has institutionalized and internalized values that still prioritize certain people over others and one type of travel over everything else.