Final Report: California Tribal Nations Transportation Planning Needs Assessment Study

Abstract:

The Tribal Transportation Planning Needs Assessment Study was a collaborative project conducted by Caltrans and the Mineta Transportation Institute, San Jose State University. The primary goal of the project was to identify the current state of transportation planning activities and partnerships within Tribal governments in California, so that Caltrans can meaningfully engage more actively with Tribal governments early in the planning process and better meet the transportation needs of Tribal communities. The study focused on the 109 federally recognized Tribal Nations in California, and collected data through a survey questionnaire. The key task undertaken by the study team was to engage and support Tribes to ensure that their opinions were heard and to provide as much or as little technical assistance on the questionnaire as they needed. The findings of the study clearly demonstrate that Tribal Nations have challenges related to technical and staff capacity, funding, lack of resources to meet transportation needs, and lack of collaborative partnerships at the local, state and federal levels, among other issues. This study identifies specific needs and provides recommendations for future engagement between Caltrans, local, state and federal agencies with the Tribal Nations.

Publications:

Final Report: California Tribal Nations Transportation Planning Needs Assessment Study (Full Report)

Research Brief

Authors:

SEETHA REDDY, PHD

Dr. Reddy (PhD 1994, University of Wisconsin) has more than 30 years of experience in anthropology, and her interests include research of subsistence systems, settlement patterns, human behavior, environmental management, Spanish colonialism in California, ethnography, Tribal engagement, and racial equity. She is a member of the Society for American Archaeology and Society for California Archaeology and is also registered as a member of the Registered Professional Archaeologist. Dr. Reddy’s has worked as an ethnographer since 1988, and her ethnographic research in California has included conducting interviews with Native American Tribes, communities, and individuals, Chinese American communities, reporting findings related to cultural land use and ethnographic significance of archaeological sites; identification and evaluation of Tribal resources. She has provided technical assistance to Tribal Grantees on California Housing and Community Development CARES Act grants including Emergency Services Grants (ESG-CV), and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG-CV). Her anthropological experience in California ranges from the Channel Islands, Coastal and Inland Southern California, Mojave Desert, Owens Valley, Central California and North Coast California; and she has worked in different settings (academic, state and federal government) in California.

ASHLEY PARKER, PHD

Dr. Ashley Parker joined Far Western in 2018 and is a Principal and Tribal Coordinator. She has been working as an archaeologist and ethnographer in the Great Basin since 2007, in academic, governmental, and cultural resource management settings throughout Utah, Nevada, and California. She received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of Utah, with a research emphasis exploring how ecological variation influences resource privatization and territorial land claims among hunter-gatherers. She has employed a variety of ethnographic methods in Nevada, California, and East Africa, which includes interviews (structured and semi-structured), participant observation, recording oral histories, and conducting archival and genealogical research. Dr. Parker is a Registered Professional Archaeologist and a member of the Society for American Archaeology and Society for California Archaeology.

DAVID REINKE, MS, MRP

Mr. David Reinke is a transportation engineer/economist with over 40 years of experience in travel demand modeling, transportation economics, survey design and management, database management, and software engineering. He has worked on a number of leading-edge projects in travel demand and economics, including development of activity-based travel demand models, development of discrete-choice travel forecasting models, development of microsimulation-based models for analysis of congestion pricing alternatives, and applications of economic methods to transportation policy analysis. His areas of expertise include policy analysis, advanced statistical methods, machine learning methods, economic analysis, survey design and management, and applications of advanced computational techniques to transportation. He is currently a Research Associate with the Mineta Transportation Institute, where he has worked on studies of transit equity and transportation economics. David currently co-chairs the Education and Outreach Subcommittee for the Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Applications (AED50) at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and is a past member of TRB committees on Statistics, Economics, and Travel Behavior and Values. He is also a member of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society.

KAELY COLLIGAN, BA

Ms. Colligan currently serves as a Senior Archaeologist and the Data Management Director at Far Western where she started her career in 2009. She is responsible for managing Far Western’s cultural resources database systems and has worked on several large-scale cultural resource inventory projects specializing in data collection, presentation, and interpretation. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an Advanced Certificate in Digital Assets and Services from San Jose State University in 2016. Ms. Colligan is currently a member of the Society of California Archaeology and serves as Chair of the Women in California Archaeology Committee.

Published:

March 2023

Keywords:

Transportation planning

Questionnaires

Data collection

Databases

Information, data, and knowledge

Technical assistance