Equitable access to transit within and across megaregions

There is increasing concern about equitable access to transit within, and cross, megaregions and what this means for access to jobs, amenities, and live in economically and racially diverse neighborhoods. The average household in the United States spends more on transportation than on any budget item aside from housing. How much they spend is strongly influenced by where they live. In many cases, cheaper housing is, by virtue of its location, offset by more expensive transportation. Concerns about location affordability date back decades, but have been gathering steam in recent years.  In this project, the research teams explore how housing and transportation costs, and transportation time, varies by income and race across the nation, and then within three megaregions: Northeast (Boston‐Washington); the Texas Triangle; and Cascadia (Seattle‐Portland).  Together, these three megaregions house a quarter of the national population, and all three regions are witnessing increased housing market pressures which raise important concerns about equitable access to transit. In this project, the team first looks at housing and transportation costs across race and income, and within and across cities and megaregions. Next, the team explores concerns that headlong efforts to integrate location affordability criteria into the siting of new affordable housing risk a collision with fair housing goals and overall access to higher opportunity areas. In essence, the team seeks to answer a simple empirical question: is incorporating location affordability into the siting of new subsidized housing projects tantamount to steering such developments into predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods? Furthermore, does the answer vary across metropolitan regions, perhaps conditioned by differing spatial patterns of racial and ethnic segregation, housing costs, and transportation infrastructure? Finally, could the goal of decreasing transportation costs reduce a household’s ability to access amenities that directly affect household outcomes within and across markets. Combined these questions explore important equity implications for both including transportation costs into housing goals and vice versa, and provides an important means for exploring the prevalence of transit desserts issues of transportation justice within and across regions. The team asks these questions at a national scale, and then focuses on three megaregions: Northeast (Boston‐Washington); the Texas Triangle (Dallas‐Houston‐San Antonio); and Cascadia (Seattle‐Portland). These megaregions each provide unique venues to explore the relationship between transportation and housing costs. The Northeast represents a series of high cost cities where market pressures and gentrification are pushing low‐income households further from the center of cities and into suburbs or neighboring towns. The Texas Triangle region is home to Dallas, which recently was engaged in a significant fair housing lawsuit, and the subsequent court mandate to affirmatively further fair housing has led to an active debate about when and how to incorporate transit into housing decisions. Finally, Cascadia represents an area where poverty rates have decreased, but the cost of both transportation and housing have increased dramatically, affecting where people live and how they access jobs, schools, etc. Combined these three mega‐regions offer unique lens to explore issues of transportation equity, and the whether and how transportation and housing policies can address these issues.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $62804.70
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747135

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Department of Transportation

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  Department of Transportation
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  University Transportation Centers Program

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Department of Transportation

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  Department of Transportation
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  University Transportation Centers Program

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Stearns, Amy

• Performing Organizations:

  Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)

  University of Texas at Austin
  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Principal Investigators:

  Reina, Vincent

  Guerra, Erick

  Wegmann, Jake

• Start Date: 20170901
• Expected Completion Date: 20180831
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Access; Costs; Equity; Housing; Income; Public transit; Race; Regions; Travel time
• Geographic Terms: Cascadia megaregion; Northeastern United States; Texas Triangle megaregion; United States
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01650990
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Cooperative Mobility for Competitive Megaregions (CM2)
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747135
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Nov 16 2017 12:37PM