Event Recap: Dividing Lines, A Conversation Between Deborah Archer and Dean Polly Trottenberg

Transportation policy decisions have the potential to significantly affect communities’ wellbeing and quality of life, and these decisions have historically had disparate impacts on communities of color.

On February 25, Dean Polly Trottenberg and NYU Law Professor & President of the ACLU Deborah Archer came together for a discussion exploring how transportation and infrastructure decisions have contributed to racial inequality across the country.  

The discussion drew on Archer’s scholarship in her new book, Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality, and Trottenberg’s experience as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT). 

Archer grounded the conversation in her personal experience reckoning with racial inequity in her hometown of Windsor, Connecticut. Dean Trottenberg also shared her experience visiting Tulsa as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation and working with local communities facing racial and spatial inequity. 

A central focus of the discussion was the harmful legacy of urban highway construction through Black and Latino neighborhoods. Dean Trottenberg offered the Brooklyn Queens Expressway—a pervasive challenge for New York City transportation policy—as a model. Their conversation highlighted how urban planning decisions in previous decades have sustained segregation into the 21st century. 

Audience members had the chance to ask questions about how to improve American transportation policy, from promoting safety on public transit to beautifying transportation infrastructure. Archer closed by emphasizing the inspiring advocacy work being done across the country to address negative policy impacts.