2024 SAG Award Winners

Pennoni and Pennoni

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Project Goal

Our project goal was to conduct an Equity Analysis to ensure the decision-making process at Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) was inclusive of all populations. These decisions included where to invest funds, where to focus public outreach to engage our citizens and create a standardized tool that could be used by other State agencies to meet the requirements of HCR40 related to Justice40 IEO 14008).

Our methodology for discovering Equity Focus Areas analyzed the 2020 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year Summary Block Group data to determine Equity Focus Areas based on Median Household Income, Language Isolation, Percentage of Population in Poverty, and Minority Population Percentages with the inclusion of American Indian population percentages.?

Our process also included data related to Language isolation, Indigenous and Native American areas, Aging Population, Mobile Home Parks and Public Housing Locations.
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Business Problem Solved

Without geospatial tools it was very difficult to understand the relationship of DelDOT spending and the residents of Delaware, we quickly realized that the power of GIS would help us through this process and more easily incorporate other authoritative data sources that were important to meet our goals.

While looking at source data and evaluations the?Environmental Justice (EJ) Indicators provided by the United Stated Department of Transportation (USDOT) to be too broad for our needs, so we decided to look at ways we could take our analysis to a more granular level by overlaying land use data to focus on residential areas only.

Technology Implemented

ArcGIS Pro
ArcGIS Story Maps
ArcGIS Online
ArcGIS Survey123
ArcGIS Web App Builder
ArcGIS Experience Builder
ArcGIS Hub

Development Team Biography

Stephanie Johnson is the Director of DelDOT’s Division of Transportation Resilience and Sustainability focused on improving the resiliency of our transportation network and the impacts climate change and sea-level rise are having on Delaware’s transportation infrastructure. Stephanie’s career within DelDOT spans over twenty-five years and has included positions within accounting, audit, finance, and planning.

Nick Coughlin is a GIS Specialist on Pennoni's Geospatial & Asset Management team. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Science from Kutztown University. Nick obtained his ENVSP certification in 2022 and is currently working on obtaining his GISP certification. He has a passion in sustainability and resiliency related social impacts and enjoys combining those interests with his GIS skillset.

Matt Quackenbush, GISP is the GIS Manager at Pennoni. He leads the company’s GIS practice and manages a portfolio of resiliency projects. He has a master’s in GIS from Tem