I-15 Expansion Versus the Rio Grande Plan: Comparing Environmental Risk Exposure

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 8: Environmental Inequalities and Harm 2

Abstract

Multiple transportation infrastructure projects are under consideration for the Wasatch Front metropolitan region in Utah, to support continued population growth, a changing climate, and other anticipated development trends. I utilize spatial methods and an environmental justice framework to predict and compare environmental justice impacts for two important proposals: The Utah Department of Transportation’s (UDOT) (2023) proposed expansion of I-15, and Salt Lake City’s (2023) citizen-led Rio Grande Plan. Over the past two decades, environmental justice scholars have documented the tendency for exposures to pollution and other environmental risks to be unequally distributed along race, class, gender, and other axes of social stratification (Mohai, Pellow, and Roberts 2009). Environmental justice considerations are part of public discourse about both projects, and they have been publicly compared as alternatives. Nevertheless, it is important offer a comparative analysis of the specific environmental harms anticipated for each project. I use geographic information system (GIS) methods to analyze how the environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ associated with I-15 expansion and the Rio Grande Plan are distributed among the population in geographic areas affected by each proposal. This analysis reveals environmental justice concerns for UDOT’s proposed expansion of I-15 and environmental benefits for historically marginalized populations for the Rio Grande Plan.

Author

• Winona Wood, University of Utah