Civil Engineers Engage in Transportation Issues. What does infrastructure have to do with social justice and equity?

Civil engineers influence the built environment through Environmental Justice (EJ); EJ evaluates the implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies to ensure fair treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, concerning development. EJ is addressed in transportation engineering by disallowing low-income communities to suffer disproportionately from transportation infrastructure and programs' negative impacts. EJ issues arise when all communities benefit from improved accessibility, faster trips, and congestion relief while others experience fewer benefits. This poster presents a pilot study into how civil engineers work toward more diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices. We used a semi-structured interview approach to study the effects of transportation engineering among all socioeconomic groups. We interviewed three civil engineers at various career stages to understand the social struggles disadvantaged communities face and pair them with civil engineering practices, allowing transportation needs to be met for all transport users. Shifting between interviews and data analysis allowed us to adapt our methodology to answer our question about social justice and equity implementation in civil engineering. The study started in June 2023 and will continue into 2024. The interview results demonstrated that civil engineers engage in social justice by acknowledging and considering the community's social and cultural needs. For instance, the cost of travel is influenced by distance, and the desirability to live in a neighborhood is mainly dictated by the multimodality of streets. Future efforts will focus on better understanding EJ in engineering and how we train future engineers.