2024 National Planning Conference
Beyond Tough Conversations: Operationalizing Transportation Equity
With support from the American Cities Climate Challenge, Nelson\Nygaard, the NRDC, and iterative community input, the City created a framework to advance racial equity goals within its transportation work. The REF includes 24 strategies and 64 actions and a new approach to geography-based equity citywide. It offers a replicable process for planning, designing, building, and maintaining racial equity at the forefront of transportation plans, programs, and initiatives. Through a facilitated panel discussion, project partners will describe the foundational elements and critical infrastructure for developing the REF.
Yanisa believes in people-focused mobility, ensuring that the shift to a more multimodal world is inclusive and just. Her approach to transportation planning combines a data-driven, analytical foundation with a deep understanding of complex government decision-making processes and the needs and desires of communities reliant on public transit. With this approach, she helps cities and transit agencies across the country redesign their bus networks, prioritize transit improvements for operating and capital programs, and develop racial equity frameworks. She also brings expertise in project management and stakeholder facilitation, delivering projects supported by stakeholders and community members that are ready for implementation.
Naomi is a nationally recognized, collaborative transportation equity strategist, skilled at bringing diverse communities, organizations, and institutions together on core issues. She has extensive experience working with public sector staff, government agency leaders, and elected officials, as well as the technical experts on aspects of policymaking and planning that enable her to be effective at moving staff, leaders, and stakeholders towards a shared vision. She recently served as Seattle’s—and the nation’s—first ever Transportation Equity Manager. She is also the co-founder and national co-organizer for The Untokening, a national collective of leaders of color working to advance mobility justice.