Equity in Transit Service Planning Act
This bill requires the Department of Transportation (DOT) to issue best practices to assist providers of public transportation with defining major service changes for purposes of complying with federal civil rights laws. The bill also requires that, within three years of DOT issuing the best practices, the Transit Cooperative Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences must review how providers define major service changes.
Under current law, public transportation providers must evaluate the impact of major service changes on minority and low-income populations. Typically, a major service change is presented as a numerical standard (e.g., a change that affects more than a given number of route miles or hours) with the standards set by the providers.