ABSTRACT
Transportation provides access to opportunity and serves as a key component in addressing poverty, unemployment, and equal-opportunity goals while ensuring access to education, health care, and other public services. Transportation is also a necessary and essential element in emergency preparedness, response, and evacuation from natural and human-induced disasters. Many of the nation’s transportation policies and public investments leave some Americans “stranded on the side of the road”. Unequal access to automobile ownership contributes to the racial economic divide and vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters. Private automobiles are the principal mode of urban evacuation, and having a car can mean the difference between being trapped by or escaping from natural disasters. Unequal access to transportation alternatives in disasters heightens the vulnerability of the poor, elderly, disabled, and people of color. The need to safely and efficiently transport people, particularly individuals for whom public transportation is the primary means of mobility, before, during, and after emergencies, is crucial to disaster preparedness.
