A mini-symposium from the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies The automobile-dominated transportation system has historically and disproportionately harmed low-income communities and communities of color, dividing neighborhoods, increasing exposure to traffic and noise pollution, and contributing to long-term health and economic disparities. This virtual mini-symposium explores how innovative, justice-focused approaches to freeway removal can repair these harms, reconnect communities, and create more equitable and sustainable urban environments, issues highly relevant to transportation planning, policy, and engineering. The mini-symposium features two panels:
Panel 1: Impacts and Inequities of Freeway Construction
This panel examines the social, environmental, and health impacts of freeway construction, with a focus on racial-ethnic disparities in exposure to traffic-related air pollution, displacement, and community severance. Panelists will discuss how transportation planning and infrastructure policies have marginalized communities of color and created persistent inequities.
- Adam Paul Susaneck, AECOM/Segregation By Design
- Demetria Murphy, Estolano Advisors
- Amy Castaneda, Environmental Health Coalition
- Dilia Ortega, Communities for a Better Environment
Panel 2: Solutions and Opportunities in Freeway Removal
The second panel explores innovative strategies to reimagine urban transportation. Panelists will discuss freeway removal, boulevard replacement, and investments in public transit and active transportation as tools to reconnect communities, reduce environmental harm, and promote transportation equity. Case studies, including California examples, will highlight planning, policy, and design strategies to advance environmental justice.
- Dr. Ben Crowther, America Walks
- Randolph Belle, Outreach Lead for Vision 980
- Yesenia Perez, Senior Program Manager for Climate Equity, The Greenlining Institute
Why Attend
Attendees will gain insights into both the systemic challenges posed by freeway construction and the transformative potential of equity-driven transportation planning that prioritizes equity, environmental justice, and community well-being. The mini-symposium is designed to foster dialogue between researchers, students, and policymakers on practical and innovative solutions for more just and sustainable transportation systems.
Claim Your Credits
Attendees who are members of the American Institute of Certified Planners can claim up to 4.5 CM credits from the American Planning Association’s website.
Speakers
Randolph Belle
Executive Director at EVOAK!Randolph Belle is the founder of EVOAK!, a nonprofit advancing creative placemaking and equitable community development. He is also co-founder and partner of Creative Development Partners and founder of RBA Creative, a business development center for the arts. With 30+ years as an Oakland and San Francisco-based artist and social impact leader, he champions “community benefit by design.” His work includes harm repair initiatives addressing displacement from urban renewal, including Vision 980, a Reconnecting Communities Project. He also leads environmental justice and Black cultural research efforts.
Amy Castañeda
Associate Director of Policy at the Environmental Health CoalitionAs a product of the South Bay in San Diego County, Amy Castañeda is passionate about uplifting the issues that disproportionately impact underserved communities. Through her work, she is committed to continuing to build the next generation of community organizers.
Amy studied Public Policy & Public Health at Arizona State University. Through her work as a community organizer, Amy has worked on various local, state, and federal political campaigns. Before joining Environmental Health Coalition, Amy worked for the First Supervisorial District at the County of San Diego where she served as a policy advisor & small business liaison overseeing issues related to homelessness, public safety, small business stimulus grant, behavioral health and reproductive health. Amy also served as Campaign Manager for a state assembly race in her hometown. She is an experienced campaign manager that focuses on leveraging a grassroots strategy to consistently garner the support of labor organizations, and environmental justice organizations. Prior to her role as campaign manager, Amy was a community organizer at Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest where she helped bridge the need for reproductive health in the South Bay community and established the first-ever Planned Parenthood Generation Action club in two South Bay high schools.
On her free time Amy likes to travel, go on hikes, bake, and spend time with her dog Mariposa.
Dr. Ben Crowther
Policy Director, America WalksBen Crowther is the Policy Director for America Walks, where he works with state and local advocates supporting mobility for all. Ben runs America Walks’ Building Better Streets, Reconnecting Communities, and Safer Vehicles for Pedestrians campaigns. Prior to joining America Walks, Ben was the program manager for the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)’s Highways to Boulevards initiative. In this role, he assisted communities across the country seeking to remove aging highways and replace them with socially and economically valuable places. He also led CNU’s national advocacy for the federal Reconnecting Communities program. Ben has a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin.
Demetria M. Murphy
Senior Associate at Estolano Advisors and Steward at a.l.t. ^homelaDemetria M. Murphy is an equity architect, researcher, organizational strategist, and facilitator who seeks to build power with those divested and disenfranchised and leverage the reparative potential of public lands, funding, and infrastructure, centering an ethic of care. As a Senior Associate at Estolano Advisors, Demetria led the team’s development of the Restorative Justice Framework for the City of Pasadena that will guide a new Master Plan/Specific Plan to reconnect communities surrounding a portion of land formerly in the SR-710 “ditch,” addressing the legacy impacts of car-centric planning, racist ideologies and its displacement of thousands of residents and their descendants and envisioning new possibilities for this site. Demetria is a steward at a.l.t. ^homela, a creative residency, cultural archive, and community gathering space in Westmont /Athens / Harbor Gateway North, leading the South Menlo Avenue Community Mapping Project and a board member at Power California. Demetria holds a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and a M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA.
Dilia Ortega
Southern California Programs Co-DirectorDilia Ortega is the Southern California Programs Co-Director at Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), where she advances environmental justice and equitable transportation outcomes. Raised in Southeast Los Angeles, she brings a lived understanding of industrial pollution shaped by her family’s work and proximity to the City of Vernon. She spent seven years at CBE as a Community Organizer, leading park equity efforts and the campaign to stop the I-710 South freeway widening. She holds a BA in History from Williams College and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA.
Regan Patterson
Assistant ProfessorRegan Patterson is an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Samueli School of Engineering.
Research Areas:Environment, Access to Opportunities
Yesenia Perez
Climate Equity Senior Program Manager at The Greenlining InstituteYesenia Perez is a policy advocate and Senior Program Manager for Climate Equity focused on systems change in climate resilience and clean mobility. She works with public agencies and community partners to shift how climate and infrastructure policies are designed, funded, and implemented to better serve communities of color. Her background spans strategic consulting, environmental education, and climate equity research. She holds a B.S. in Global Environmental Policy from UC Berkeley.
Adam Paul Susaneck
Founder/Director at Segregation by Design: An Atlas of Spatial InjusticeAdam Paul Susaneck is an architect and urban planner researching how transportation and housing policy have been used as instruments of physical division within urban areas, and how we can reconnect communities divided by the infrastructure choices of the past. His project, Segregation by Design, aims to catalog the destruction caused by mid-century urban renewal and highway projects, and to highlight the work advocates are doing to heal the divide. Adam is a Project Manager at AECOM working on transportation projects both in the Benelux and in the Northeast US and is pursuing his PhD in urban planning at the Delft Institute of Technology in the Netherlands.