The Mass Transit Dilemma: Streamlining regulatory regimes to address climate change and poverty

Project Abstract

To aid mass transit development, this project will identify bottlenecks and redundancies in the infrastructure permitting and approval process. Crucial to this segment of the project is identifying policies where well-meaning regulations are being used to undermine their own purported goals. The study will then propose a set of policy recommendations designed to simplify and shorten the permitting and approval process. This will be supported by an exploration of the overlapping jurisdictions of state, federal, and local regulatory regimes and administrative agencies concerning transportation infrastructure development. This section will likely include a discussion of environmental and environmental tradeoffs, wherein the paper will make the case that regulatory exemptions and carve-outs will be necessary to adequately address the scale of the challenge posed by the climate crisis and social inequality. In practice, this means accepting local costs to achieve regional, national, and international prerogatives related to climate management and social justice.

Universities Involved

Morgan State University

Principle Investigators

Joseph Niehaus

Funding Sources and Amounts

None

Start Date

September 1, 2023

Completion Date

September 1, 2024

Expected Research Outcomes & Impacts

This study intends to address a significant gap in the literature with respect to policy implementation, identifying areas in which political decisions related to jurisdiction and regulatory requirements can be amended to better support positive social outcomes. By doing so, these amended regulatory frameworks can also be more in line with the spirit of environmental protection and community engagement legal regimes.  More specifically, this paper will address this development challenge through the lens of mass transit, a sector that has historically lagged in the United States relative to other countries but has nonetheless received renewed support in recent years both in terms of public opinion and federal funding. The guidelines created by this paper intend to shape the implementation of recent legislation like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to ensure that public projects like the prospective Red Line in Baltimore improve social mobility in the region while being completed efficiently within time and budget constraints.

Subject Areas

Public Policy, Sustianability, Infrastructure Design and Planning