Thank you!
Thank you to our coalition members and partners in government and community who have made our work to advance community-centered transportation justice leadership such a success!
Front and Centered worked in partnership with the Washington State Department of Transportation to reimagine granting and to prioritize the funding of community-led transportation solutions to curb carbon emissions statewide. Co-created with our frontline coalition and funded by the Climate Commitment Act, our grant program has put $2.1 million in the hands of community-based organizations to develop and amplify relevant solutions for the families they serve. Example projects include rideshare programs, Native community education series, e-bikes, transit planning, safety solution meetings, and more. All projects will advance the programs’ goals to reduce carbon emissions, in addition to increased safety and access to sustainable transportation options for frontline communities.
To advance a Just Transition, community-informed and -led solutions to reducing carbon emissions must be given the opportunity to be heard, implemented, and nurtured. That’s why we’re so grateful to have had the opportunity to reimagine community granting in partnership with WSDOT and frontline communities across Washington State.
Can you imagine a future where reliable public transportation and safe sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike paths are as commonplace as running water and electricity? What would the health and safety of our communities be like in this future?
In Washington State, transportation accounts for 44.9% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and cars and trucks make up over half of all pollution from transportation. At the same time, we are experiencing a 20-year high in pedestrian and bicycle deaths and an overall increase in traffic fatalities per vehicle miles traveled. Clearly, we need to do things differently.
Front and Centered is proposing a sweeping Transportation Justice Agenda to reorient the way we invest our transportation dollars and prioritize safety with clear standards for improving transit and safe sidewalks and crosswalks.
Download Our Transportation Justice Agenda
“We’re not asking for the world. We just want what we deserve.”
Front and Centered’s Transportation Justice Agenda calls for:
“We want our kids to be able to get off the school bus and cross the street without danger of being hit by cars. Our neighborhood is our home, we want the members of our congregation to be able to walk to church, even if they are elderly, even if they use a cane or wheelchair. This is not too much to ask.
“Our vision is that this transformation of Portland Avenue can be the catalyst for a change in our whole neighborhood so young families can move here because it is affordable and stay because they are thriving.”
— Reverend Frank A. Willoughby, Pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Tacoma
Check Out the Washington Transit Access Map!
The Washington Transit Access Map (WA TAM) reveals that Washingtonians experience drastic inequalities in reliable transit service and provides communities with a tool to advocate for better transit across the state.
WA TAM follows on the tracks of another ground-breaking resource, the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map (EHD Map), which also originated at Front and Centered and provides data-driven insights into where people experience the greatest environmental health risk factors that can contribute to inequitable health outcomes and unequal access to healthy and prosperous communities. Similarly, WA TAM is a data visualization tool that daylights statewide racial inequities.
WA TAM—along with our Transportation Justice Agenda for Washington State—are designed to be helpful tools for communities to move policymakers toward just transportation policies and investments.
VIDEOS
