Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0006-8884-4954
Graduation Year
2025
Date of Submission
4-2025
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Government
Reader 1
Bill Ascher
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2025 Daniella P Tedesco
Abstract
Transportation equity has long been promised in public discourse but denied in practice. Despite decades of reform, systemic inequities remain embedded in the transportation landscape, shaped by policies that prioritize suburban expansion and economic growth over equitable community mobility. This thesis examines how transportation systems have historically reproduced structural exclusion, using Los Angeles and its Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) as a case study. It identifies four dimensions through which inequity persists: time inequity, geographic inequity, financial inequity, and environmental inequity. Through historical and institutional analysis, the research demonstrates that public transportation infrastructure was never designed to serve low-income communities, and that governance frameworks continue to obstruct meaningful resource reallocation. In response to these structural barriers, the project proposes a Full-Mode public-private partnership model that embeds enforceable equity metrics into service contracts, finances innovation independently of legacy fiscal constraints, and institutionalizes community participation as a foundational component of governance. The Full-Mode model offers a blueprint for making equity not a promise, but a practice.
Recommended Citation
Tedesco, Daniella, "The Infrastructure of Injustice: The Structural Roots of Transportation Inequity and a Blueprint for Systemic Reform" (2025). CMC Senior Theses. 3936.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3936
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
