Online Environmental Justice Analysis Tool

Posted by on July 04, 2011

DVRPC Launches Online Environmental Justice Analysis Tool

As the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Greater Philadelphia region, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC)’s plans, programs, and policies are guided by Title VI and Environmental Justice (EJ) statutes, which ensure non-discrimination in the transportation decision-making process. As part of DVRPC’s work in meeting these requirements, a methodology was created, and refined in subsequent years, to identify populations that may be impacted by transportation and regional planning decisions. Each population group identified may also have specific planning-related challenges to address. Since 2001, DVRPC staff have utilized this technical assessment in a variety of plans and programs undertaken by the Commission.

DVRPC has recently launched an online interactive tool to make this information available as a resource not just to DVRPC staff, but to the entire nine-county DVRPC region. The online map viewer allows users to view and identify EJ sensitive areas within the DVRPC region. Users can search by population group (DVRPC currently analyzes eight groups: minority, non-minority Hispanic, elderly (over 75), poverty level, carless households, female head of household with child, physically disabled, and Limited English Proficiency); municipality; or by census tract. The data currently used is from the 2000 Census, but will be updated as 2010 Census data is released.

To use the online EJ analysis tool, and for more information about EJ and Title VI, visit: http://www.dvrpc.org/GetInvolved/TitleVI/.