Passengers get ready to board an MBTA Red Line train at Ashmont Station. (Photo by Michael Jonas)

THERE IS A clear threat to our public transit system here in Boston, and it is not crime or “vagrancy.” It is the systematic clawing back of federal funding and the withdrawal of environmental justice and equity guidelines that seriously imperil how residents move. 

On September 18, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy directed the MBTA to provide information, in two weeks, on its “actions and plans to reduce crime, vagrancy, and fare evasion on the transit system,” at what seems to be at the risk of losing federal funding.   

There are no data to suggest that the fifth-largest transit system in the country is unsafe or overtaken by crime or vagrancy. Over the past two years, the MBTA has not only addressed decades-old operational challenges by eliminating slow zones, it’s also shown how its leadership has regained public confidence, with the commuter rail enjoying the highest rate of ridership rebound post-pandemic in the country.  

About a month ago, as new Acela trains arrived in South Station, the US Department of Transportation deputy director suggested that the federal government could possibly take over South Station, as it did Union Station in Washington, DC. The rationale? To address crime and safety.  

However, the proposition that the MBTA is unsafe at a level that federal funding could justifiably be withheld is simply unsupported by facts. Despite the fact that South Station serves millions of passengers each year, 2023 and 2024 data from the Transit Police indicate that there were 30 or fewer incidents of property or violent crime each year at the station.  

The Trump administration’s continued reliance on a false narrative that a federal takeover is necessary to address safety and security concerns in cities like Boston, where city and state officials have challenged the rollbacks to funding, critical programs, and policies that make Boston more equitable and accessible is fear-mongering and punitive.  

Most recently, we’ve seen the cancellation of federal grants for Boston’s transportation projects simply because they included EV charging stations. For the last nine months, the rescission of federal funding has become so commonplace that it no longer makes for shocking headlines. And perhaps that is by design. What may potentially be the most insidious of all these assaults is one that relatively flew under the radar.   

On September 15, the Federal Transit Authority officially withdrew the Environmental Justice Circular — its commitment to ensure that transportation projects do not disproportionately cause adverse impacts on minority and low-income communities. One way that transit agencies do this is through an equity analysis of a project that identifies and addresses whether a particular program or policy has a disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on minority and low-income populations. 

Environmental justice is rooted in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Recipients of federal funding like the MBTA are subject to these requirements.  

In the 60 years since its passage, Title VI has been a critical tool for the federal government, lawyers, and community members. As a 1995 Fordham Environmental Law Review article put it, the law allows them to address the fact that “[s]tate, local and private sector actors make decisions every day that create or exacerbate racial inequalities” in exposure to pollution from industrial infrastructure and in access to benefits and services, including the transportation sector.  

In recent years, the MBTA itself had to look into why a higher percentage of its bus routes that serve largely minority communities perform subpar compared to bus routes that serve mostly white riders. Meanwhile, fare evasion was decriminalized and policies were adjusted because most of the tickets Transit Police issued were to people of color, even though they account for a smaller percentage of subway riders.  

Environmental justice builds on Title VI. When implemented and enforced appropriately, Title VI enables the federal government and funding recipients to identify areas where individuals are not receiving equal treatment and create a process to cooperatively create solutions that improve service delivery and outcomes for all people. And the EJ analysis guarantees that appropriate mitigation measures and alternatives are put in place to reduce disparate impacts when they could not be averted.  

A recent project that exemplifies the importance of this analysis is the Green Line Extension, which was designed to mitigate the disparate impacts the Big Dig, and historically, the Central Artery, had on low-income and minority communities. 

Title VI and the EJ circular were designed to go hand in hand. To be sure, Title VI remains the law, but the withdrawal of the EJ circular signals a disturbing regression.  The guidance and analyses breathe life into the disparate impact standard, which was put in place to ensure that federal dollars are not spent to perpetuate discrimination and structural marginalization. 

With the federal government’s withdrawal of the circular, the defunding of critical programs that seek to rebalance who gets the benefits and who bears the burden, and the unjustified threats to public transit, we are witnessing an assured erosion of civil rights and guarantees. 

At a time when the federal government has upended the rule of law and policy norms that have been in place for decades, it is critical that Massachusetts walk the walk on environmental justice and civil rights. Massachusetts leaders must ensure that benefits and burdens are shared evenly without leaving anyone behind.  

The state does not have its own comprehensive protections against such discrimination. But legislators can do something about this this session, by enacting a bill that creates a state version of Title VI (H.1889/S.1064), ensuring against disparate impacts and safeguarding civil rights protections for the long term for Massachusetts residents . 

Environmental justice is based on civil rights principles. Put simply, we cannot achieve environmental justice without robust compliance with and enforcement of civil rights laws, including Title VI.  

Passage of this legislation will protect our most vulnerable residents from capricious and political decisions that Title VI was designed to eliminate. We cannot wait for more rational actors in Washington, DC, to protect our most vulnerable populations.  

Our state legislative leaders must stand up to these decisions, much like the Massachusetts Bay Colony stood up to King George, to chart a new course for the Commonwealth when the federal government is assaulting our rights. 

Reggie Ramos is executive director of Transportation for Massachusetts. Dwaign Tyndal is executive director of Alternatives for Community and Environment.