In 2020 and 2023, the Clean Mobility Options Voucher Pilot Program awarded Community Transportation Needs Assessment vouchers worth more than $2.2 million to under-resourced communities across California. Of this amount, nearly $350,000 was specifically set aside for Tribal governments and successfully awarded to five Tribal communities and organizations. These awardees include the Native American Environmental Protection Coalition, Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley, Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, and Fernandaño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians.
The Needs Assessment Voucher is intended to support communities in evaluating transportation gaps and identifying mobility challenges, needs, preferences, and priorities of residents. This voucher award also enables Tribes to use community engagement events to spread awareness around clean mobility options and begin planning for reliable and affordable zero-emission mobility services that can help residents overcome their mobility gaps. Each Tribal community may have unique transportation needs.
The Needs Assessment Voucher can fund a variety of culturally appropriate methods for community engagement and meaningful outreach, including online surveys, listening circles, in-person or one-on-one interviews, educational forums, and sessions with Tribes’ leadership to collect information about Tribal members’ travel needs and priorities.
The Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians expressed in a report after completing their project that “car ownership continues to be a drag on household’s budgets for their members and those without cars struggle to balance getting to work, completing routine errands such as grocery shopping, medical appointments or retrieving their kids from schools.” They noted that this needs assessment will “gather members’ feedback to create clean mobility solutions that specifically serve our members and surrounding community.”
Similarly, after completing their project, Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians noted in their exit survey that attendees at outreach events expressed a strong desire for easier or cheaper ways to get around on the roads, citing the issues of being in a rural community with a different schedule from their nearby neighbors.
Community engagement workshop in the Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley.
In other cases, awardees have been surprised by high resident enthusiasm for clean mobility options in places where none exist. The Native American Environmental Protection Coalition, a non-profit Tribal consortium representing several Tribal governments, including the rural Manzanita reservation, described feeling encouraged by resident support for electric vehicles.
The information collected from these needs assessments can be used to develop and improve transportation services, infrastructure, and policies that cater to the unique needs of tribal communities, leading to increased accessibility, efficiency, and overall quality of life for their residents. Funding opportunities do not end with needs assessments: six of the communities who have completed projects with Clean Transportation Needs Assessments, including two Tribes, have applied for and received funds for implementation grants from the Clean Mobility Options mobility project vouchers program.
Through projects like these, funding opportunities from Clean Mobility Options and California Climate Investments are providing resources for multiple steps of the path to clean transportation in Tribal communities.