About Us

The Transportation Equity Hui is coordinated by Papa Ola Lōkahi as a contractor of the Hawai‘i Department of Health's Chronic Disease Prevention & Health Promotion Division (DOH CDPHPD). As a hui, we are working toward a Hawai‘i where communities and people are connected, empowered and engaged in the transportation systems that keep our state moving.

Background

Our work began mid-year 2021 as we worked to gather like-minded community members. In Fall 2021, we convened a steering committee over four meetings to set our foundation. Our steering committee included representation from individuals and organizations across sectors and communities. Below is a list of organizations represented in our steering committee.

  • KVIBE (Kōkua Kalihi Valley)

  • Planned Parenthood

  • PATH Hawai‘i

  • Papa Ola Lōkahi

  • Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (State Dept. of Human Services)

  • Local 5

From our collaborative work over four meetings, our project team created a draft plan for moving the work of the transportation equity group forward. We paused for a short period in 2022 as we were between funding periods.

Beginning in June 2022 though, we restarted our work officially. DOH CDPHPD again contracted with Papa Ola Lokahi to do a second year of work. To start, we reconvened our steering committee in late June. We will continue working to build and maintain a transportation equity hui.

Draft Vision & Values

As part of our initial four meetings, the steering committee and project team developed the below draft vision and values.

Vision

We envision a Hawai‘i where resilient, inclusive communities have reliable ways to connect to people, places, basic health, economic, and cultural needs and opportunities with dignity and autonomy that honors their strengths, limitations and histories with these islands. We envision that a healthy, thriving Hawai‘i requires that communities and people are activated, empowered and engaged in both their individual active transportation choices and the larger transportation decisions and systems that impact their access to health, economic and social capital and potential.

Values

  1. Community-grounded: We are grounded in the lived experiences of the communities we come from in all their diversity, strengths and challenges. We seek to facilitate communities’ activation in transportation systems and decisions because we recognize they directly impact the health and well-being of our communities. We believe the best transportation decisions are made when communities are actively engaged in them. We seek to be a conduit to connect decision-makers directly to communities and their changemakers.

  2. Centered on justice and equity: We seek to include in our work the histories and movements of various communities who have often been left out of positions of power, including but not limited to disability, mobility, economic, and racial justice movements. We seek to center communities that are most often left out of transportations decisions as well as systems of power that direct basic health and economic investments in Hawai‘i. We are committed to increasing the presence of these movements and communities in important discussions, including reducing barriers for their inclusion and carrying their voices with us when they cannot be present.

  3. Centered on the earth: We center our work on our planet, understanding that we must honor and care for the environment, especially these islands, when influencing transportation decisions. We recognize that the health of Hawai‘i depends on the health of its people and communities in connecting with people, places and systems.