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I've had some disagreements with Sonja, but her approach here (in
her letter to FTA) is hella' smart:<br>
<br>
"For instance, if you earn $10/ hour, then a dollar is equivalent to
6 minutes. If you earn $30/ hour, than a dollar is 2 minutes. That
means if fares increase by, say, $10/ month, (5% of a monthly BART
bill of $200) and you earn $10/ hour, then your fare increase is
equivalent to an hour of your time. If you earn $30/ hour, the fare
increase is 20 minutes. Measured in dollars, the increases appear to
be the same for the two riders, but measured in man-hours, the
poorer rider is facing an increase that is 300% bigger than the fare
increase for the less poor rider. That is a disparate impact, so the
policy should reflect that."<br>
<br>
(Monthly BART bill of $200?! Compare to telecommuting, with a
monthly cost of about $50 for decent broadband service. And no
pressure on housing when there's no "need" to live close to the
office.)<br>
<br>
This part is also interesting:<br>
<br>
"The FTA notes that low-income people are not a protected class for
the federal civil rights laws, but, (progressively) it encourages
Transit Agencies to include low-income populations as a protected
class [category] in their guidelines because minorities are
generally over represented in the lower incomes."<br>
<br>
A wider debate on the issue of low-income becoming a protected
category (equivalent to race, gender, religion, etc.) under federal
civil rights law, could open up the "class" issue (economic class)
generally. The original Occupy movement almost got us there.
What's the next step?<br>
<br>
-G<br>
<br>
<br>
=====<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 13-06-08-Sat 5:46 PM, Sonja Trauss
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAEMAOD51=-+knrq5X8qfR9d1NHd1eUxcko_dh0SZeFNouqDDwg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Whatever you like - the disparate impact IS very
unclear!!! The federal document has examples that help make it
clearer, but the BART document doesn't.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The federal standard is probably well defined by decades of
litigation. But the whole point of making a local policy is that
BART can specify its own definitions of disparate impact (within
limits I guess). That means we can write in like, "disparate
impact should mean ..." <span></span></div>
<div><br>
On Saturday, June 8, 2013, Anthony Di Franco wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<p dir="ltr">I don't fully appreciate the calculus of what is
or isn't a disparate impact that these agencies use, but
your idea seems like a good one to have in front of them.<br>
Are you asking us in the subject line to also send letters
on your suggestion, or on different suggestions we may have,
or both, neither, something else?</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jun 8, 2013 5:07 PM, "Sonja
Trauss" <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'sonja.trauss@gmail.com');" target="_blank">sonja.trauss@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2013/news20130605.aspx"
target="_blank">http://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2013/news20130605.aspx</a><br>
<br>
The federal transportation administration
released new, slightly different
guidelines for public transportation
providers. Basically what they say is that
the civil rights office of each Public
Transit Agency has to make up some
criteria to test whether proposed route
changes or fare increases
disproportionally affect minority riders.
For instance, if a transit agency were to
cancel a bus line (and replace it with
nothing) where 35% of the riders were
black, but the overall ridership of the
transit system was 12% black, then that
service change would be have a
disproportionate impact on black riders by
35-12=23% NOW, if the public wanted to sue
the agency to stop the discontinuation of
the bus line, but the agency's guidelines
said the disproportionate impact had to be
greater than, say, 25%, then the lawsuit
would fail. The FTA mandates the creation
of some guidelines, but doesn't say what
should be in them.<br>
<br>
</div>
Another example would be fare increases. If
a transit agency increases regular fare by
10%, but senior fares by 50%, and 21% of
seniors are some certain race, as opposed to
6% of the general population being that
race, that would be a disproportionate
impact of 15%. <br>
<br>
</div>
The FTA notes that low-income people are not a
protected class for the federal civil rights
laws, but, (progressively) it encourages
Transit Agencies to include low-income
populations as a protected class in their
guidelines because minorities are generally
over represented in the lower incomes. <br>
<br>
</div>
In the fare raising example above therefore, if
seniors are not disproportionately some
particular race, but if they are
disproportionally poor, a transit agency could
create guidelines that would recognize that. <br>
<br>
</div>
So if 13% of the general transit population earns
200% or less of the national poverty level, but
20% of the senior population earns that or less,
than that would be a disproportionate impact of
7%.<br>
<br>
</div>
If the transit agency prohibited disparate impacts
of more than 5% (for instance) that change would be
a no go. <br>
<br>
</div>
So, maybe stupidly, I submitted the following comment
to <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="javascript:_e({},
'cvml', 'officeofcivilrights@bart.gov');"
target="_blank">officeofcivilrights@bart.gov</a> and
copied <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'boardofdirectors@bart.gov');" target="_blank">boardofdirectors@bart.gov</a>:<br>
<br>
<div style="margin-left:40px">
<div>First of all, the policy needs more examples of
how to find disparate impacts, like the example on
pg 45 of FTA C 4702.1B, or the examples in
appendix K. Second of all, the BART DIDB Policy
should explicitly take into account the relative
nature of the price of a fare (relative, that is,
to the rider's overall income) and therefore the
relative nature of a fare increase. <br>
<br>
</div>
For instance, if you earn $10/ hour, then a dollar
is equivalent to 6 minutes. If you earn $30/ hour,
than a dollar is 2 minutes. That means if fares
increase by, say, $10/ month, (5% of a monthly BART
bill of $200) and you earn $10/ hour, then your fare
increase is equivalent to an hour of your time. If
you earn $30/ hour, the fare increase is 20 minutes.
Measured in dollars, the increases appear to be the
same for the two riders, but measured in man-hours,
the poorer rider is facing an increase that is 300%
bigger than the fare increase for the less poor
rider. That is a disparate impact, so the policy
should reflect that. <br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="margin-left:40px">Thanks for your attn in
this matter.<br>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<div>The number of people submitting comments on this
policy will be very small. Like under 30, maybe 10
people. There will be a couple of legal services
attys, some law students, some BART staff members ...
basically no one. So every letter will be read. If
there is anyone in the organization that has the
opinion you have, they will cite your letter many
times in trying to get their (and your) opinion heard.
That is why I write letters like this, just in case
there is some staff member who has my same thought. :/
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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