Community Transportation Access Program

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The Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) strives to facilitate an inclusive and transparent planning process and make investments that eliminate transportation-related disparities borne by people in disadvantaged communities. The Community Transportation Access Program advances the MPO’s commitment to fairness and equal access across all of the MPO’s work, including its transportation plans, the projects it funds, the studies it conducts, and the public engagement it carries out.

This approach is two-pronged as it involves:

• Gathering data and developing analyses to assess the impacts of the projects the MPO funds and whether and how they improve outcomes.
• Developing processes and engagement to ensure all people have meaningful opportunities to engage with and influence the transportation planning and decision-making processes affecting them.

Current Work

Mitigating Impacts

In the 2023 Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP), Destination 2050, MPO staff identified several potential adverse impacts on communities that would likely result from the projects in the LRTP, in the aggregate, if implemented. The MPO is working to mitigate these impacts through the projects funded in forthcoming TIPs.

Completed Work

Strategies for Environmental Outreach and Engagement

The Strategies for Environmental Outreach and Engagement study determined the most effective engagement strategies and platforms for the MPO to pursue in order to build stronger relationships with environmental advocacy groups and better identify, understand, and avoid potential adverse impacts on communities.

Exploring the Potential for Using Conveyal in TIP Project Evaluations

The Exploring the Potential for Using Conveyal in TIP Project Evaluations study examined how the MPO could use the destination access tool Conveyal to score projects proposed for funding in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) based on how they improve access to destinations, such as jobs and healthcare, for disadvantaged populations.

Identifying Transportation Inequities in the Boston Region

Completed in 2022,  the Identifying Transportation Inequities in the Boston Region study analyzed several destination-access and travel-cost metrics to better understand how the transportation system impacts minority and low-income populations and people in zero-vehicle households living in the Boston region.

• Report: An Exploration of Destination Access and Transportation Cost Analyses (PDF)
• Report: An Exploration of Destination Access and Transportation Cost Analyses
  (HTML)
• Report: An Exploration of Destination Access and Transportation Cost Analyses
  (appendices)
• Online Application: Explore the analysis results in this interactive application.
• GitHub Data Repository: Explore and download the data and methodology used in the study.

Unlocking the Blue Hills: Addressing Equity and Access in the Blue Hills Reservation

Completed in 2022, the Unlocking the Blue Hills StoryMap shows the results of a study that analyzed public transit access to the Blue Hills for communities facing transportation and economic barriers, including households without access to cars in the Boston communities of Mattapan, Dorchester, Hyde Park, and Roxbury. The study, led by an advisory group and supported by MPO staff, resulted in several proposals for improving public transit access to the Blue Hills from those communities.