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2. IMMOBILITY ISSUES
WHO ARE THE TRANSPORTATION DISADVANTAGED?
Overall mobility has improved for the average American. Although the U.S.
total population grew by only 4Yo between 1983 and 1990, total travel, measured by
person trips, increased by 6% over the same period. Thus, mobility is increasing at
a much higher rate than population.~1)
While overall mobility of the population has improved, a significant segment
of the population is moderately or severely immobile. This group is defined as the
trar~sportation disacivantagec! throughout this research. The transportation
disadvantaged are those people whose range of travel alternatives is limited,
especially in the availability of easy-to-use and inexpensive options for trip-making.
Examples include persons who are young, elderly, poor, with disabilities, or without
automobiles.
1. Individuals Without Access to Automobiles
In the auto-dominated American society, a primary factor for immobility is
lack of access to an automobile. In 1990, 9.2% of American households did not have
an automobile. The typical zero-vehicle household has no one in the labor force
(either employed or searching for work), has a lower than average income, and lives
in the central part of a large urban area, according to an analysis of the 1990
Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey. (2)
One measure of mobility is the average number of trips per day made by an
individual. During the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, 46% of the
households without an automobile took no trips, compared to 21% of the general
population. Almost half of those without an automobile are persons 65 years or
older, and of these, 81% are women. Those between ages 65-74 with no automobile
make about 1.34 trips per day, compared to 2.32 trips for individuals of the same
age with an automobile.
2. Demographic Factors Affecting Mobility
Income, disabilities, gender, ethnicity, and education are all factors affecting
mobility. For example, individuals with incomes below $10,000 make about one
trio per daY less than individuals with incomes over $40,000 per year. Non
,
~ · ~ ~ ~ ~ -~ ~ · 1 ~ ~ 1_ ~ · __( ·~ ·~ · _ _ ImN
disabled persons make over 5~)U/o more trips than persons wan c~lsaollltles. ail
Gender also plays an important role in mobility. Women, in general, make
slightly more trips per day than men. However ~~~ ^ ^
2-l
Biro ot tu~-t~me working mothers
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- - - ~
trips. As education level increases, the average member of person trips per day
increases for both those without an automobile and those with an automobile.
and almost 60% of part-time working mothers have non-traditional work hours.
This reduces their ability to join carpools or find appropriately-scheduled transit
options. (4) Furthermore, almost 70% of adults living in households without
automobiles are women.
According to the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, there is a
relationship between ethnicity and travel. Nearly 40% of central city African-
American households were without access to an automobile, compared to fewer than
one out of five white central city households. Nonetheless, African-Americans have
the least immobility stemming from absence of a vehicle, partly because of a higher
overall use of public transit: Their rate of transit use is more than twice as high as
whites'.~5)
Education probably has the strongest impact on the cronensitv to make
. .. . . -
According to an analysis by Dr. Charles Lave and Richard Crepeau, "increased
education produces increased income, which in turn produces more travel. The data
indicates that a change in education produces a greater overall effect on trip rates
than the change in income." (6)
3. Availability of Public Transportation
If a household does not own an automobile but has reliable, affordable, and
convenient public transportation, then mobility levels are retained. However,
almost four in ten American households do not have public transportation available
within two miles. This is most pronounced in non-urbanized areas, where only
20.2% have public transportation within two miles of their houses. By contrast, in
central cities almost 83% of the households have public transportation available,
and trip-making is greatly increased. For example, in areas with a million or more
in population, people without automobiles but with access to subways or elevated
rail lines took almost 30% more trips per household than those living in large urban
areas without these public transportation modes.
KEY BARRIERS TO IMPROVING MOBILITY
The following discussion highlights several major themes on the causes and
key barriers to countering the economic, social, and personal costs of immobility.
These barriers can be characterized by a lack of:
Access to job opportunities for inner-city residents.
Basic services in the inner city.
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Rural and small town transit services funding.
Public safety measures to combat crime and fear of crime.
Geography and Economics of Opportunity
Job Opportunities for Inner-CitY Residents
Changing land use patterns and resulting economic development locations
have had a profound impact on employment opportunities for residents of the inner
city. During the past 40 years, nearly two out of every three new jobs have been
created in the suburbs of metropolitan areas, and most of the new jobs are not
accessible by public transportation.~7) The pace of suburban employment growth
during the 1980s was phenomenal. In 1980, 57% of all office space was located in
urban centers and 43% in suburbs. By 1986, the situation had reversed itself with
60% of the jobs in suburbs compared to 40% in cities. A key factor in this growth is
that many films in the financial/insurance/real estate (FIRE) sectors, one of the
,,
. · ~ . . · ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ · 1 1 1 _ _1_ _ ~ _ _ __ 1
nations fastest growing, nave opted tor tne suouros, moving one oacK oInce ana
clerical workers to branch facilities. Low land prices and the availability of pools of
(primarily female) second wage-earners have been the primary lures attracting
FIRE firms to the fringes.~8)
Philadelphia, which was the location of one of the case studies for this
research, illustrates the impact of the suburbanization of jobs. Between 1982 and
1992, 163,000 new service jobs and 58,000 retail jobs were created. Approximately
87% of the new service jobs and 97% of new retail jobs opened outside of
Philadelphia. Philadelphia is following a nationwide trend of increased reverse
commuting. Between 1980 and 1990, there was a 43.7% increase in journey to work
trips between Philadelphia and the suburbs.
The Philadelphia experience mirrors a national trend of increased reverse
commuting and a decline in the share of transit use for those trips. From 1970 to
l99O, the number of work trips from central cities to suburban rings increased by
25%; from 1970 to 1990, the number of work trips by transit declined by 33%.~9)
For many inner-city residents, there are fewer employment opportunities
closer to home. According to some observers, the inner-city job market is changing
to a highly skilled, predominantly white collar market for which many inner-city
poor lack the necessary skills to obtain gainful employment. The number of white-
collar jobs generated have failed to replace the loss of blue-collar jobs in the city.
The white collar jobs in the inner city are accessible by public transportation, but
many of the inner-city poor are not qualified for them.
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The disparity of opportunities between the inner city and suburbs is
documented in a study contrasting geographical and socioeconomic indicators
between the central cities and suburbs in eight of the largest metropolitan areas
plus four additional metropolitan areas. Mark Alan Hughes found that in 7 of 12
metropolitan areas, population growth in the central cities has declined between
1980 and 1990. Population suburbanization had gone so far that suburban
residents outnumbered city residents in all 12 of the metropolitan areas. Among
his other key findings were: (10)
.
A significant disparity of poverty rates exists in cities and suburbs. Six
percent of the residents in suburbs versus 28% of residents in the central
city are below the poverty level in Detroit. In general there is less
disparity as you go West and South. In Los Angeles, 10% of the suburban
population and 18% in the central city live in poverty.
· Central cities remain disproportionately African-American compared to
the general population. In all 12 metropolitan areas, the percentage of
central city population that was African-American was at least twice as
high as the suburban percentage, and in half of them it was at least four
times as high. In Milwaukee, 26.9% of City residents are African-
American compared to 0.~% in the suburbs.
In six of the eight largest metropolitan areas, most if not all job growth
during the 19SOs was located in the suburbs. The suburbs appear to be
the engines of employment growth in these metropolitan areas.
In sum, there is an extreme pattern in these metropolitan areas: poverty
and joblessness are concentrated in formerly central cities while
prosperity and job growth are Reconcentrating toward the metropolitan
periphery. In many metropolitan areas, jobs in the cities are no
longer around the corner. Jobs are over the horizon (emphasis
added).
Most public transportation systems were developed to converge in central
business districts (CBD). Access and headways are designed, in general, to
encourage the commute to the CBD. The widely dispersed settIement patterns of
the suburban office park are a difficult market to serve. There has been a long
history of attempts to provide reverse commute services. Overall, among the
lessons learned is that reverse commute transportation services alone will not
address the employment mismatch between the suburbs and inner-city residents.
Transportation access is not the problem, but it is certainly part of the
problem. The evidence points to declining transit access to suburban employment
opportunities as a significant problem, particularly in those cities with the largest
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numbers of transit dependent minorities. Steven Blake of the National Association
of Regional Councils concludes that the data strongly suggests that in most
metropolitan areas, "most jobs are beyond the reach of the transit dependent,
among whom minorities are disproportionately represented."
If transit service is available, it must be affordable and convenient.
According to a number of stakeholders interviewed in the Los Angeles case study for
this report, minimum wage jobs are available in the San Fernando Valley but are
inaccessible to inner-city residents because the fare on the bus would cost too much
to make it worthwhile to even take the job. For the new commuter rail services, it
would cost $200 dollars a month to travel on Metrorail from San Bernardino to jobs
in Los Angeles, a fare beyond the capability of most low income people.
Efforts to Improve Basic Services Within Inner CitY
Site visits to both Philadelphia and Los Angeles point to the lack of basic
services, such as a grocery store, in many inner-city neighborhoods. Residents have
to rely on more expensive convenience stores and spend a higher percentage of their
low incomes on food. Both site visits revealed significant community efforts to
improve basic services within the community.
After the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles, local services, such as grocery
stores and banks, left the community. Watts residents, who do not have
supermarkets near their homes, must pay $2.70 to get to the grocery store and back
on the bus. Consequently, residents often go to the local liquor stores with mini-
marts, where they can pay $5.00 for a gallon of milk. The lack of basic services in
the community has significant personal and social costs for residents.
In a progressive effort to improve local services, a 500-member community
cnurch in South Central Los Angeles is spearheading redevelopment plans for a
shopping center with a major supermarket as the anchor tenant. According to the
minister, residents are currently paying 30 to 50% more for their goods in the small
minimarts that are available in the neighborhood. He said that church members
often pay people with cars to go the market, because public transit service is
unreliable and inconvenient. The minister pointed to two-hour headways for some
routes and significant out of direction travel to an isolated transfer point, where
riders fear being assaulted. '~Young males enrolled in a job training program cannot
get to work on time because the bus service is infrequent," he said.
The minister is currently working with the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA), The U.S. Housing and Urban Development, the City of Los
Angeles Redevelopment Agency, California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans), and the International Council of Shopping Centers to secure financing to
support a 50,000 square foot national chain grocery store near the Harbor Freeway.
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He has involved MTA and Caltrans to ensure appropriate access to the proposed
grocery store.
In West Philadelphia, the community is planning a major mixed-use
intermodal transportation center at 52nd St. and Lancaster. One of the key
objectives presented by community leaders is to attract a local grocery store and
other basic services for local residents. Many of these services are only available
outside West Philadelphia and require long journeys by residents.
Almost 20 years ago, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority (SEPTA) discontinued stops on two different train lines at the 52nd St.
station, reportedly due to crime concerns. The abandoned station is a major public
eyesore to the community. There are currently 250 zone businesses ant! nearly
10,000 residents located in the vicinity of the former SEPTA rail station. AMTRAK
train service runs through the site, but does not stop. Two bus routes and a light
rail line provide good access to the site, but no bus shelters and little lighting
discourage use, according to community members.
Since January of 1993, a committee of business leaders and community
residents have been meeting to devise a strategy to improve both public
transportation and economic development in the area. Plans envision a major
intermodal center with a new supermarket, shopping center, a few strip stores, and
a parking garage as Dart of the master plan. Significant publicity and political
. ,
fanfare for the demolition of the old abandoned station overpass is expected to draw
continued external political support for the project. Improving public
transportation services and attracting basic services go hand-to-hand, according to
· -
commum ;y orgamzers.
Community members are hopeful that a successful intermodal transit center
will provide momentum to local economic development in an adjacent business
park. The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation now owns an adjacent
68-acre industrial park that was formerly an abandoned rail yard. The community
~ ~ ~ . . ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ - ~, ~ ~ ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ .
has a tuture vision ot local cons tor local residents ot west rmla~elphla.
The lack of services and reliable public transportation in the inner city has
significant economic, social, and personal costs. Because public transportation is
unreliable and basic services are not available locally, many residents buy old
junker cars according to the Los Angeles minister interviewed for this research.
Owners often do not have driver's licenses; and the cars are not smog checked,
registered, or insured because of the high costs for residents who can barely find
enough gas money. As a result, owners will leave the area and their job to avoid
being arrested for unpaid tickets, he said.
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Because employers want to know that employees will be able to get to work
on time, they won't hire employees without driver's licenses. The minister contends
that employers will not recruit from his area, because of its reputation for a labor
pool without driver's licenses. His experience has shown that since may
~ . , ~ .
~ - ~ ~ J
prospective employees no not nave a license or a car, they don't even try to find a
job, because they believe they won't be hired.
Deficient Rural and Small Town Transit Services
Much of rural America remains unserved by public transit. According to the
Community Transit Association of America (CTAA), 38~o of the nation's rural
residents live in areas without any public transit and another 28% live in areas in
which the service level is negligible.
Providing public transit in rural areas is the responsibility of a network of
1,162 agencies funded under Section 18 of the Federal Transit Act. Their collective
service area includes 53 million people, or six out of ten persons living in rural
areas or small towns. The network provides 95 million trips a year. This is
equivalent to less than TWO trips per capita in the service area, compared to 49 trips
per capita in urban areas.~12)
Interviews were held with six stakeholders in two rural empowerment zones
and two locations with CTAA JobLinks grants. The Kentucky Highlands
Empowerment Zone includes an 11-county area in southeastern Kentucky. The
overall population is 266,000 with 32.5% of the residents having incomes below the
poverty level. Despite the poverty, over 95% of households have at least one car.
According to the Executive Director of a local economic development program, "If
you cannot afford a car, you can't get to work." There is no public transportation in
the area. Local residents either have a car or have a family member who has one.
A key effort of the economic development program has been to invest in local credit
minions which make low- or no-interest loans to residents who wish to purchase cars.
For those without access to automobiles, a critical need is nonemergency
transportation to medical appointments within southeastern Kentucky and to
Louisville, which is three to four hours away by car.
The Rio Grande Valley Empowerment Zone consists of portions of four
counties with a total population of 29,900 over a 228-square mile area. Although
population densities are very low, there is an intercity fixed-route service that
provides minimal levels of service. During the strategic planning process for the
empowerment zone, transportation was frequently cited by all participants in the
process as a significant impediment to achieving an enhanced quality of life. Social
service agencies have expressed concern over their inability to provide services to
those most in need due to the lack of transportation. Residents have expressed
similar frustration over their inability to access even the most basic community
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facilities, such as grocery stores and medical facilities. Two primary objectives of
the strategic plan are to:
Enhance access to medical and social service providers.
Provide residents with access to training and employment opportunities.
To achieve these objectives, one of the empowerment subzones has set aside
$200,000 for improved transportation services. The Rio Grande Empowerment
~ _ ~ . . ~ ~ ~ . ~ . .
none Coerce Is currently acictress~ng policy Issues about how the funds should be
spent. For example,
.
Although empowe~-~'ent zone funds could be utilized to provide
transportation to job training, what transportation will be available when
trainees are placed in a permanent job?
If public transportation services are expanded with empowerment zone
funds, where will the long term funds come from to continue the service?
Inadequate Funding and Equity Issues
Inadequate Funding
Inadequate funding was identified as a key barrier to addressing immobility
during the stakeholder interviews. In Philadelphia, at the time the site visit
interviews were held, a 10% budget cut was about to take place. Significant
concerns were expressed about future reductions in transit service levels and the
impact that they may have on the transit dependent population. The Rio Grande
Valley Empowerment Zone Corporation is reluctant to use Empowe~-~ent Zone
funds as seed money because it is fearful that longer term operating assistance will
not be available after the demonstration period is over. Federal Transit
Administration staff who were interviewed said that a constraint on public funding
and a failure to develop more diverse sources of funding is a primary barrier to
improving mobility.
Funding Equity
With scarce financial resources, the investment of transportation dollars
raises questions of policy priorities. A major policy issue raised during the
interview process and literature review is: "Are the transportation disadvantaged
receiving an equitable share of funding to address immobility issues?"
Studies of the benefits and tax burdens of transit subsidy allocations among
income classes have led to the following general conclusions: (13,14,15)
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1. Overall, transit subsidization redistributes income from high-income to
low-income classes, but it is not very effective in targeting benefits to the
poor.
2.
Long-distance, peak-hour, suburban trips are more heavily subsidized
and have significantly higher income riders than their converse.
3. Of the three modes (bus, commuter rail, and raid rapid transit), buses
transport the largest percentage of riders, transport the lowest income
riders, and receive the least amount of capital subsidy.
4. The transit industry generates indirect benefits to the local, state, and
national economy in terms of jobs created and business revenues from
operating and capital investments.
5. Federal income and corporate taxes are progressive. State and local
taxes, especially sales and property taxes, are regressive. (In 1981, the
conclusion was that since more transit subsidy is generated at the federal
level, the overall burden of transit taxation is progressively distributed.)
When MTA in the Los Angeles area raised its fares recently, a lawsuit was
brought against MTA by a legal defense fund representing bus drivers in the
NAACP, indicating that the fare hike was inequitable and the impacts would fall
, ,
1 _ ·~ 1~ me ~ ·' ~ ~ · ~ .~ . _ _~ ~ . . .
more nervy on the poor. Aloe lawsuit also claimed that M'l'A was investing more
in railways, which the lawsuit argued serves predominantly the affluent suburbs,
than it was in transportation for the poor. MTA is now sponsoring a mobility
allowance program, which is trying to determine how to subsidize transportation
equitably.
In his article, "Discrimination in Mass Transit," J. PuIcher includes four
recommendations for improving the equity of subsidy programs: (16)
1. Increase fares for commuter rail service. This would decrease the
amount of subsidy needed for the more affluent riders.
2. Put a hold on construction of new multi-billion dollar rail transit systems
which benefit the affluent.
3. Impose peak hour surcharges and distance-based fares on all transit
modes.
4. Set up a program of discount transit passes for the poor and improve
service in low-income neighborhoods.
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Public Safety
Crime and fear of crime is an important barrier to increased use of public
transportation by many inner-city residents. The elderly open are fearful of
walking to and waiting at the bus stop and riding with unruly passengers on the
bus. In West Philadelphia crime was a significant factor in closing the 52nd St.
station.
Fear of crime was expressed by a representative of the Los Angeles Housing
Authority, who runs a youth entrepreneur program. She is fearful of putting the
students of her program, who are 16 to 25 years old, on public transit because one of
her students was Jumped at a transfer point while participating in the program.
She now transports the students through more costly door-to-door service. In
general, public transit has a poor image in her community, in large part due to a
fear of crime, she said.
The MTA spends $6 million per year on security with 500 transit police
officers. There are police officers on most light rail trains, according to an MTA
representative, because lots of people can be protected on one train with one officer.
Because there are not public resources to put an officer on even bus, security on
buses is less than the security on the trains, and there is no security at most stops
and stations.
USING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION TO ADDRESS THE BARRIERS TO
MOBILITY
Prior to 1960, little effort was devoted to alleviating the barriers to mobility
described in the previous section. Persons who were poor, disabled or elderly were
thought to benefit from existing transportation programs. In the 1960s and 1970s
however, the civil rights movement brought greater political awareness of this
segment of society. In urban transportation, as in other areas, government
programs proliferated to meet the problems faced by the transportation
disadvantaged.
This section describes six significant public policy efforts to provide public
transportation that addresses the economic, social, and Herman costs of immobility:
Development of Public Transportation
Reverse Commute Services
Demand Responsive Services
Fare Subsidy Programs
Livable Communities
Social Services Coordination
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Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Communities (EZ/EC)
The development of these public policies is discussed below, illustrated by
specific examples from the case studies conducted for this research. Further
examples are given in the Compendium in Chapter 6. Documentation of the six
case studies can be found in Appendix A.
Development of Public Transportation Services
There are over 6,000 transit systems in the United States. About 2,250
operate bus service, 5,200 operate demand response service, and about 150 operate
other modes. In 1995, 3.5 billion miles of service were operated, providing about 7.9
billion trips.~17)
Today's network of bus, rail, and ferries provides an important mobility
option for millions of people. The development and maintenance of core public
transportation services, however, has been reliant on a number of public policy
efforts to ensure that public transportation services remain a viable choice. The
twentieth century has seen a significant transformation in public transportation
service levels and in how transit agencies are organized and funded.
.
To the urban dweller of the first quarter of the twentieth century, transit was
as pervasive a travel mode and sociological phenomenon as the automobile is today.
The street railway system provided significant access to downtown areas for urban
residents during their 6-day workweek, but also allowed the family a Sunday visit
to amusement parks located at the end of the transit line.~18)
As suburbanization and auto ownership increased, transit experienced a
well-documented countervailing downward spiral: diversion of patronage to the
automobile forced service reductions that further eroded patronage and revenue,
necessitating fare increases and loss of ridership. During World War II, the public
transportation service network and patronage reached its peak with over 20 billion
annual passenger. Many historians argue that the decline in public transportation
service really started in 1920s, and only the war provided an artificial boost to the
transit industry. (19)
An ~.~1;^ ~;l;~;^c! hater ~i~rmc!tir~o" their nilbli~ t.r~n.c:nort.~t.ion networks and
.
ray P"Lill~ "Vlll-V~=~ L'~-V^~ "-are race
private operators became increasingly financially unstable, Congress began to
debate the importance of maintaining a basic network of public transportation
services in 1960. The first federal aid passed in 1961 authorized $50 million in low-
interest loans and $25 million in demonstration projects. The first federal capital
assistance was included in the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1974, while funds
to defray operating expense were authorized by Congress in 1974.
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of their fleets with wheelchair lifts. In July, 1990, Congress passed the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA), requiring all transportation providers to equip new
vehicles with wheelchair lifts and to provide comparable paratransit service for
those unable to utilize the accessible fixed-route service.
The federal effort to reduce the economic, social and personal costs of
immobility has been impressive in both the number of programs and in the amount
of expenditures. In 1977 the U.S. General Accounting Office estimated that 114
~. .
separate several programs expended money on transportation services for the
disadvantaged and elderly, over half of which were located in the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS). By 1985, HHS estimated that it spent $800
million on transportation services alone, or roughly eight times the combined 1989-
90 expenditures of the U.S. Department of Transportation's funding for rural and
elderly and handicapped programs. (27)
An array of state programs also provide significant funding for demand
responsive services directed at the transportation disadvantaged. For example,
Florida's legislature has funded a state-level policy board charged with coordinating
specialized transportation services for transportation disadvantaged persons. In
1971, the California legislature enacted the Transportation Development Act,
creating a fiend out of i/~-cent of the statewide s~x-cent retail sales tax. The law has
provided a stable state funding source for public transportation, including demand
responsive services, in California.
Case Study Examples
Four very different demand response programs were studied during this
research. All have in common their success as mobility managers backed by
community support.
OATS INC.
Since 1971, OATS has been providing rural transportation, serving 87 of
Missouri's 114 counties. The extensive use of volunteers and a creative
blending of funding sources have been particularly important contributing
factors to reducing immobility in rural portions of the state. The door-to-door
service delivery is fairly conventional; the means of organizing, scheduling
and dispatching trips is not. OATS volunteers are responsible for scheduling
the trips in their county. In 1996, for example, volunteers donated almost
76,000 hours recording ride requests. communicating with drivers and riders.
func~raisin~ and ~roviclin~ nublicitv
~ , ~ ,
County committees are the backbone of
~ . ~ . ~
the OATS operation. This decentralized decision-making leads to a sense of
ownership and motivation among the volunteers. Local funding provides
35.~% of the total revenues. The diverse array of funding sources and
contracts is a testament to the flexible and entrepreneurial management
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style. OATS returns $2.30 to the community for every $1 invested in the
program.
MTA's Immediate Needs Transportation Program
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in
California has developed the Immediate Needs Transportation Program, a $5
million program funded from local sales taxes to underwrite both taxi
vouchers and bus tokens. MTA staff noses that Immediate Needs "is filling a
service niche which is not effectively addressed through other transportation
programs." (28) Under the administrative brokerage of two community-based
organizations, about 600 social service agencies participate in providing bus
and taxi trips to food banks and grocer stores, medical appointments, job
training and job interviews, and for emergencies. In the first half of 1997,
over 403,000 trips were provided at an average cost of $~.50. (29) For every
$1 invested in the program, the annual net economic benefit is $2.60.
City of Fremont's Travel Training Project
Unlike the two programs described above, the Travel Training Project
developed by Fremont, a suburban city of 190,000 located in Northern
California, seeks to increase mobility for the elderly and people with
disabilities by decreasing their reliance on demand responsive services.
Goals are to expand travel options and create long term behavioral change by
training this population to ride fixed-route, public transit. Central to the
philosophy of the program's design is that training should occur in groups
with peers as travel training assistants. The Travel Training Project was
conducted with residents from Fremont and four adjacent cities in study, 1993
through June, 1996. AC Transit District, the Bay Area Rapid Transit
District and Union City Transit funded the project to determine whether it
could reduce the costs and demands on their paratransit systems resulting
from ADA. An analysis demonstrates that the transit agencies will
potentially save $407,442 over five years, assuming each transit trip made by
participants offsets one paratransit trip. The benefit/cost ratio is 1.9,
meaning that for every $! invested in the Travel Training Project, the benefit
is $~.90. Individuals who have been trained also save $~.90 (the difference
between the bus fare and the paratransit fare).
Numero Uno Market Shoppers' Shuttle
As was shown in the reverse commute case studies, private businesses will
often provide transportation assistance if they perceive a positive economic
return. The owner of Numero Uno Supermarket in South Central :Los
Angeles, California, recognized difficulties his customers had carrying their
groceries home without an automobile. Many ride an MTA bus or walk to
the store, very often accompanied by their children. To help his customers
and to build customer loyalty, this entrepreneur provides a modified demand
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responsive system to customers who buy at least $30 worth of groceries.
After making their purchases, customers can board one of the nine vans he
has available to take them and their families and bags of groceries home free
of charge. The store is one of the top five supermarkets in Los Angeles,
grossing more than the industry's average sales. The van service is less than
1% of the market's gross volume in sales.
The Compendium includes additional examples of demand responsive
services, such as the San Diego DART in California, which uses vans as feeders to
fixed routes, picking up callers in suburban and rural areas and transporting them
to a transfer point for the mainline bus routes.
Reduced Fares
Historically, mechanisms to reduce fares have been focused on the elderly
and people with disabilities. In late 1974, Congress made discount fares for the
elderly virtually universal by requiring that any urban transit system receiving
federal operating assistance charge elderly and disabled riders half or less of the
base fare. In the late 1970s and early 19SOs, the federal government funded
demonstration projects to provide low-cost, shared-ride taxi services for the elderly
and people with disabilities. These "user~side" subsidies consisted of below-cost
vouchers, scrip, or tickets which the user could buy from a sponsoring agency and
then redeem from a transportation provider for the full value of a trip. (30)
Case Study Examples
Both these mechanisms~iscounted fares and user subsidies-continue to be
cost-effective means of reducing fares for the transportation disadvantaged. Use of
the mechanisms has expanded to aid low-income groups, although not with the
widespread application afforded the elderly and people with disabilities. The
Immediate Needs Transportation Program, described in the previous section,
is an example where the MTA has used discounted tokens and taxi vouchers to fiend
$5 million toward the unmet transportation needs of its poorest constituents. In the
case study below, a reduced fare program provides greater mobility for Medicare
patients in Miami, Florida, while containing the state's Medicare costs and
increasing the transit agency~s fixed-route ridership.
MDTA's Medicaid Metropass Program
Medicaid is a federal entitlement program that pays for basic health care
services for low income people and long-term care for the elderly and persons
with disabilities. In order to reduce its transportation costs for non-
emergency medical services, the Medicaid office in Miami, Florida, contracts
with Metro-Dade Transit Agency (MDTA) to administer a Metropass
program. Under this program, a Medicaid recipient who agrees to give up
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door-to-door paratransit receives a monthly bus pass for I. To make the
program cost-effective, Medicaid requires that only recipients who make six
or more one-way trips a month for three consecutive months are eligible. The
third one-way trip is the break-even point for Medicaid, when the cost of the
paratransit trips matches the cost of a monthly pass. The result of the
Metropass program is a savings to Medicaid of over $500,000 a month in
transportation costs. MDTA benefits by increased pass sales of 3,600 a
month, by receipt of $4-6 per pass in reimbursement from Medicaid for
administration of the program, and by avoidance of $10 million in potential
ADA costs. Riders benefit from increased mobility, independence and
flexibility. Since the $! per month bus pass is less than the $l per ride co-
payment on paratransit, Medicaid recipients also have an economic incentive
to enroll in the Metropass program.
The Compendium features additional examples, including systems in Utah
and Washington where fares are free.
Livable Communities
In 1994 the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) introduced the Livable
Communities Initiative to improve mobility and the quality of life by:
strengthening the link between transit and community planning, including land
use policies and urban design standards which support the use of transit;
2) promoting increased participation by neighborhood and community
organizations, small and minority businesses, persons with disabilities and the
elderly;
3) increasing access to or generating employment through high quality community-
oriented transit services and facilities; and
4) serving, where appropriate, as the transportation component for the
Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities (EZ/EC) Program of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA). (31)
To date, FTA has awarded 17 demonstration grants in various communities,
including the Fruitvale BART Station project in Oakland, California, detailed
below.
Case Study Examples
Fruitvale BART Transit Village
The Fruitvale BART Transit Village is an example of community-based
planning which responds to immobility by moving the services to the people
who need them. The centerpiece of the plan is the Bay Area Rapid Transit
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District's (BART) commuter raid station located in the Fruilvale
neighborhood of Oakland, California. The Spanish Speaking Unity Council,
a community development corporation serving the 51,000 people in this
neighborhood, has taken the lead in the revitalization of the BART station
area. Tt has proposed the Transit Village, which will link transportation with
a mix of social services, retail, and residential uses. Among the community
services planned are a health care center, a senior citizens' center, housing
for senior citizens, a child care center, a community resource center, and a
library branch. One of the most impressive aspects of the Transit Village
project is the package of public funding that has been assembled by the Unity
Council, which in;clucles federal funds from FTA, HUD, the EC Program and
three other agencies, along with county and city funds. A private developer
will build the market rate retail and residential projects in partnership with
the Unity Council.
City of Compton's Blue Line TeleVillage
The Blue Line TeleVillage creates mobility through technology. Located in
Compton, a California city of over 90~000 near South-Central Los Ankles,
~ ~ ~ ~ ~-~ ~ · ~ ~
the ~ Savage allows residents and employees to access many services
without the need to travel. The TeleVillage is a virtual Main Street which
connects people electronically through a Telework Center, a computer lab
with Internet access, a video conference center, and interactive kiosks.
Funded by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
(MTA) and the City of Compton, it is served by local bus routes, MTA routes,
Greyhound and the Blue Line light rail at Compton's trap sit hub. Although
the project was not FTA-fi~nded, part of the impetus for building the
TeleVillage was the transportation agency's desire to create Livable
Communities through joint development at the light rail stations. With
federal welfare reform, the TeleVillage will now also become part of a one-
stop training center, where welfare recipients will be enrolled in computer
courses and distance learning classes.
While not formally Livable Communities Initiative projects, examples in the
Compendium of a Neighborhood Travel Center in Texas and the Broadway-
Manchester Transit Center in Los Angeles follow the Initiative's principle of
strengthening the link between transit and community planning.
Social Services Coordination
While coordination of public transportation with the transportation provided
through the social service system has long been a goal, the goal has been difficult to
achieve. One reason is the division of responsibility for transportation at the
federal level. Whereas public transportation is the primary focus of the Federal
Transit Administration, it is only an ancillary service for many other federal
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departments that fund transportation. Yet Medicaid non-emergency
transportation, which the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
funds, is the second largest federal expenditure for public transportation,
amounting to $~.5 billion. (32) Although transportation is recognized as important
to current welfare recipients' successful entry into the job market, transportation is
not called out specifically as an expenditure in the $3 billion the federal
Department of Labor will administer to accomplish welfare reform. (However,
Congress has required the Department of Transportation to develop joint planning
guidelines with HHS on ways to provide transportation under welfare reform.)
Instead, coordination of public transit and social services has historically
taken place at the state level. Florida has developed a five-year plan and has
designated an official planning agency in each county to coordinate services for the
transportation disadvantaged. California state law allows for the designation of a
consolidated transportation service agency to coordinate social service agency
demand responsive services through such actions as joint dispatching, purchase of
vehicle insurance, driver training and shared vehicle use. South Carolina has
formed an Interagency Steering Committee to address the concerns of inefficiency
in transportation services. Thus, although implementation of the public policy to
coordinate public transportation with social services transportation has been spotty,
it is continuing to evolve with the impetus of welfare reform.
Case StudY Examples:
Even at the local level, coordination of transportation among social service
agencies and with the public transportation provider is not easy. Many social
service agencies clo not track transportation costs as separate line items. Within
some social service agencies, drivers serve dual functions, and the salaries are
allocated to a program other than transportation, Some vehicles are multi-purpose,
used for transporting clients, staff, hot meals, supplies, etc. (33) Agencies lack an
understanding of each other's goals and fear that their programs will suffer if they
share scarce resources. This TCRP research includes a case study on such barriers
to coordination faced by a rural county in South Carolina and the methods
participants undertook to overcome them.
Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina
The Chesterfield County Coordinating Council (CCCC) strives to better
utilize existing resources in order to increase mobility for clients of rural
human services agencies. BY tanging into unused capacitor of vehicles owned
. .
. .. . . ~. - . ~. ~·
by several organizations, it is an example of coordination among the social
services, school district, and the public transportation provider.
Transportation has emerged as one of the primary obstacles to better delivery
of social services among its 43 member agencies. Some of the elements of its
coordinated transportation plan include:
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sharing vehicles and drivers among agencies,
pooling driver training,
layering a new fixed route on top of door-to-door transportation,
adding adult passengers on school buses, and
· freeing case workers from transporting clients.
For other case study examples of coordination with health and human
services transportation. refer to these practices described above in other
sections:
MDTA's Medicaid Metropass Program ;
MTA's Immediate Needs Transportation Program;
PDRTA's 24-hour rural commute service; and
OATS, INC.
EMPOWERMENT ZONE AND ENTERPRISE COMM[~41TIES (EZtEC)
At the time of this research, the EZ/ECs contacted were only in the planning
stage for the transportation projects under consideration. Future research could
document the community efforts and barriers overcome in moving these projects to
implementation. The ideas being developed by these EZ/ECs are described earlier
in this chapter on pages 2-6 to 2-~.
KEY FINDINGS
The next chapter presents eight key findings of this research. It is based on
the literature review, stakeholder interviews, and case studies, including an
economic analysis of the 11 practices investigated. The chapter captures themes
that are central to using public transportation to address the economic, social and
Herman costs of personal immobility.
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CHAPTER REFERENCES
(~) For a complete discussion of mobility rates, see Appendix B. General
Population Mobility Trends.
(2)
The summary presented in this section is derived from Lave, C. and Crepeau,
R., "Travel by Households Without Automobiles," Nationwide Personal
Transportation Survey, Travel Mode Special Reports, U.S. Department of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (December 19941. For a
more complete discussion, see Appendix B. Travel Impacts on Individuals
Without Access to Automobiles.
(3) Grey Advertising, Technical Report of the National Survey of Transportation
Handicapped People. U.S. Department of Transportation, Urban Mass
Transportation Administration, Washington, D.C. (September 19781.
(4) Rosenbloom, S., "Travel by Women," Nationwide Personal Transportation
Survey, Demographic Special Reports, U.S. Department of Transportation,
Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C. (February 1995).
hi) Blake, S., Inner City Minority Transit Needs in Accessing Suburban
Employment Centers: Final Report of the Project to Assess and Address
Suburban Employment Centers. National Association of Regional Councils,
Washington D.C. (1990).
(6) have, C. and Crepeau, R., "Travel by Households Without Automobiles,"
Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, Travel Mode Special Reports,
U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
(December 1994).
(7) Blake, S., Inner City Minority Transit Needs in Accessing Suburban
Employment Centers: Final Report of the Project to Assess and Address
Suburban Employment Centers. National Association of Regional Councils,
Washington, D.C. (1990),
p. 2.
is) Cervero, R., American Suburban Centers: A Study of leans Use-Transportation
link. Department of Transportation Urban Mass Transportation
Administration (1988), p. 2.
(9) American Public Transit Association, Access to Opportunity, Linking Inner
City Workers to Suburban Jobs. Washington D.C. (May 1994), p. 15.
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(10) Hughes, M., Over the Horizon: Jobs in the Suburbs of Major Metropolitan'
Areas. Report to Public/Private Ventures (December 1993), p. 10.
(11) Blake, S., Inner City Minority Transit Needs in Accessing Suburban
Employment Centers: Final Report of the Project to Assess and Address
Suburban Employment Centers. National Association of Regional Councils,
Washington, D.C. (1990~.
(12) Community Transit Association of America, "Rural Transit: Stretching to
Meet the Needs of the Neediest." Fact Sheet 9, Washington, D.C. (January
19951.
(13) Pucher, J., "Equity in Transit Finance." Journal of the American Planning
Association, Vol. 47 (October 19811.
(14) Pucher, J., "Discrimination in Mass Transit." Journal of the American
Plating Association, Vol. 48 Number 3 (Summer 1982b).
(16) Rock, S. M., "Income Equity of Two Transit Funding Sources." Trar~sportation
Research Record #791 (19811.
(16) Pucher, d., "Discrimination in Mass Transit." Journal of the American
Planning Association, Vol. 4S, Number 3, Summer (1982b).
(17) APTA, Statistics Summary, www.apta.com (February 2, 19981.
(18) Saltzman, A., "Public Transportation in the 20th Century," Public
Transportation, in Edition Prentice Hall New Jersey (1992), p. 24.
(19) See for example: Jones, D., Urban Transit Policy: An Economic and Political
History. Prentice Hall, New Jersey (1986~.
(20) Public Transit Association, Transit Operating Reports-1960, New York (1961),
p. 2-6.
(21) Jones, D., Urban Transit Policy: An Economic and Political History Prentice
Hall, New Jersey (1986), p. 81.
(22) Lave, C.A., ed. Urban Transit: The Private Challenge to Public Transportation,
Pacific Studies in Public Policy, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (19791.
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(23) Saltzman, A., "Public Transportation in the 20th Century," in Public
Transportation, in Edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey (1992), p. 41.
(24) These two paragraphs are summaries from Sandra Rosenbloom, Reverse
Commute Transportation; Emerging Provider Roles, U.S. Department of
Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Washington, D.C. (March
19921.
(25) American Public Transit Association, Access to Opportunity, A Study of Reverse
Commute Programs, Washington, D.C. (September 19931.
(26) Crain, d., The Reverse Commute Experiment: A $7 Million Demonstration
Program, Stanford Research Institute for the Urban Mass Transportation
Administration, SRT Project MSU-759S, MenIo Park, CA (December 19701.
(27) Rosenbloom, S., "The Transportation Disadvantaged," Public Transportation,
Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (19921.
(28) Report to Board of Directors dated June 1S, 1996.
(29) MTA spreadsheet from the Program Manager, dated November 7, 1997
.
(30) Spear, B.D, "User-side Subsidies: Delivering Special-Needs Transportation
Through Private Providers." Transportation Research Record 850: Issues in
the Provision of Transportation Services for the Elderly and Handicapped,
Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C. (191321.
(31) Federal Transit Administration, "Livable Communities Initiative," U.S.
Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C. (November 19941.
(32) Community Transportation Association of America, "Medicaid Transportation
and Managed Care: An Overview," Washington, D.C. (May 8, 1997)
(33) CCCC Coordinated Transit Grant Final Report (September 29, 19971.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
reverse commute
