The Farm&City team spoke with Oni Blair, the Executive Director for LINK Houston, for the newest episode of Policy Drivers, the video podcast where we have a chance to talk with Texas officials and community leaders about their work and policy in general. We were also excited to be joined by Ines Sigel, Director of Communications and Outreach at LINKHouston.
LINK Houston is a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for a robust and equitable transportation network in the Houston region. Blair is also serving this mission in her role as a voting member of the Technical Advisory Committee for the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC). H-GAC is the local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and is responsible for creating long-range transportation plans that help determine which projects are prioritized for construction and funding based on the needs of the region. The Technical Advisory Committee evaluates different transportation plans and makes recommendations to the Transportation Policy Council.
Blair is a stalwart advocate for equity and justice in transportation. She emphasized the importance of ensuring that decision making processes effectively engage BIPOC. This means including those potentially affected by particular decisions in the process for that project, but also equitable representation on the decision making bodies, such as the MPO committees responsible for our regional transportation planning. We also had a chance to discuss both her and LINK Houston’s work surrounding the North Houston Highway Improvement Project (NHHIP) that would affect a portion of Interstate 45 that runs through downtown Houston.
Farm&City is dedicated to improving equity in Texas Planning and Transportation. Our Decide Texas initiative emphasizes the importance of ensuring that our decision making bodies are representative of our state. Vision Zero Texas is also dedicated to ensuring that traffic safety is equitable means our streets are safe for everyone.
We hope you will enjoy the full video and will join us for the next episode of Policy Drivers. Oni Blair was also a panelist for the Policy Hackers event on Equity and Transportation in August of 2020.
You can check out the other Policy Drivers episodes on the Farm&City YouTube Channel.
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