Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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potential social costs such as pollution and congestion must be taken into account. In short, the estimated total benefits and costs of a project should be taken into consideration and compared to the total benefits and costs of the alternatives. However, when choosing among several projects that all have positive benefits, policymakers should pay attention to the distribution of the benefits as well as to the overall net gain from each potential project. In some cases, particularly for new, untested approaches, it may be difficult to get precise estimates of the costs and benefits. Lack of precise estimates should not necessarily preclude a policy from being considered, but if a policy with unknown costs and benefits is undertaken, policymakers should seriously consider implementing a formal evaluation, so that a more accurate understanding of the costs and benefits can be acquired for the future. It should be kept in mind that the options discussed in this chapter are not mutually exclusive; indeed, an optimal approach will include a mix of strategies. Blumenberg and Hess (2002) provide a useful fourpart structure for tailoring programs to the geographic areas to which they are best suited. The article is specifically about welfare recipients, but the following recommendations can easily be extended to the wider low-income population: • For job-rich areas with a high density of welfare recipients, they suggest focusing on fixed-route public transit service. • For job-rich areas with a low density of welfare recipients, they recommend employer-sponsored vanpool or shuttle services and a focus on housing mobility policies to enable welfare recipients to move into the area. • For job-poor areas with a high density of welfare recipients, they suggest an emphasis on private vehicle ownership, nonfixedroute service, rapid buses and freeway flyers, and local economic development. • Last, for job-poor areas with a low-density of welfare recipients, they recommend concentrating on increasing private vehicle ownership. 100
An appropriate mix of strategies will also need to evolve over time, because some policies may take longer to implement whereas others are more easily implemented in the short-term and might be phased out when the longer-term projects come to fruition. The policies discussed in this chapter span a broad range and are not targeted to any single level of jurisdiction. The menu includes strategies that could be implemented variously at the community, city, county, regional, state, and national levels. The policy options address not only the arena of transportation, but also housing, land use, social services, child care, and education. Similarly, the authority to implement the different options is spread across many different groups, including regional and state transportation planning organizations, transit providers, social services agencies, legislators at various levels of government, community organizations, and private citizens. We do not identify which group or groups would be best suited to take on responsibility for pursuing a given idea, but in many cases, a collaborative approach would probably work best. Policy responses to the transportation needs of low-income groups are often classified into three general approaches: • Enabling low-income households to live in places where jobs, services, and educational opportunities are easily accessible; • Increasing the number of jobs that are accessible to low-income communities; and • Improving transportation links between home and work. The first two of these three options operate to make transportation more affordable by allowing people to use less-expensive forms of transportation (walking, biking, or public transit) or by reducing the variable costs associated with driving. The third option can reduce monetary costs either by directly reducing the costs of transportation or by enabling individuals to meet their transportation needs by relying on cheaper forms of transportation. Below we also discuss two additional approaches: • Reducing the extra costs associated with having to transport children to and from school or child care; and 101
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Transportation Spending by Low-Inco
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Foreword Mismatches between jobs an
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Summary Transportation is an import
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Table S.1 Median Annual Transportat
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about 5 to 10 percent of the median
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providing discounted transit fares
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5. COMMUTE BEHAVIOR IN THE BAY AREA
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Figures S.1. Vehicle Ownership and
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4.3. Costs of Illustrative Within-C
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1. Introduction Costs associated wi
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of “welfare-to-work” transporta
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lays out policy options for address
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2. Data and Methods In this report,
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advantage to this approach is that
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3. Transportation Expenditures in M
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Table 3.2 Vehicle Use, Vehicle Owne
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Components of Vehicle-Related Expen
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inspection, and auto club membershi
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income households and the higher-in
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eport looks primarily at cost and n
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The results from Table 3.5 indicate
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variation in transportation costs w
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overall household expenditures for
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31 Table 3.9 Transportation Expendi
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Table 3.10 Comparison of California
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Table 3.11 Comparison of the San Fr
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Table 3.10 have lower expenditure f
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4. Costs of Illustrative Bay Area C
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0-300 301-600 601-1100 1101-6813 Ba
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Table 4.2 Place of Work Comparison
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Concord CONTRA COSTA SAN FRANCISCO
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Administration (FHWA) mileage rate
Page 71 and 72: 49 Table 4.3 Costs of Illustrative
Page 73 and 74: participants who took transit or ca
Page 75 and 76: Table 4.4 Costs of Illustrative Wit
Page 81 and 82: commutes is $4,240, whereas the hig
Page 83 and 84: The results from this chapter seem
Page 85 and 86: 5. Commute Behavior in the Bay Area
Page 87 and 88: We also looked at mode choice using
Page 89 and 90: longer for higher-income workers if
Page 91 and 92: Table 5.3 (continued) Low- Income H
Page 93 and 94: Table 5.5 depicts the share of the
Page 95 and 96: 73 Table 5.6 Mode Choice and Vehicl
Page 97 and 98: 75 Table 5.8 Mode Choice and Vehicl
Page 99 and 100: households report having access to
Page 101 and 102: Table 5.9 (continued) % Using Each
Page 103 and 104: • Marin to San Francisco: As with
Page 105 and 106: Table 5.10 Median Commute Durations
Page 107 and 108: 85 Table 5.11 Differences in Mode C
Page 109 and 110: Table 5.13 Mode Choice, Work Schedu
Page 111: trips, make more household-supporti
Page 114 and 115: only expenditures. Paying a given n
Page 116 and 117: improving service quality rather th
Page 119: Part II Policy Strategies and Areas
Page 124 and 125: • Increasing income directly, to
Page 126 and 127: grants for developments that meet c
Page 128 and 129: make it easier for various entities
Page 130 and 131: pass.” 10 Perhaps discounts could
Page 132 and 133: free transit is most likely not app
Page 134 and 135: have fares based on the time of day
Page 136 and 137: hours for late night and graveyard
Page 138 and 139: credit ratings, assisting with insu
Page 140 and 141: would have paid with traditional au
Page 142 and 143: citizens. Rather, the question shou
Page 144 and 145: Facilitating Bicycling or Walking A
Page 146 and 147: transportation hubs may be another
Page 148 and 149: allowing flexibility at the local l
Page 150 and 151: services, health care, drug treatme
Page 152 and 153: costs. Efforts to incorporate infor
Page 154 and 155: are differences) and by looking at
Page 156 and 157: Dataset Poor Low-Income Higher-Inco
Page 158 and 159: income, problems common to most hou
Page 160 and 161: or the Bay Area specifically. We us
Page 163 and 164: Appendix B Information on Specific
Page 165 and 166: We also excluded expenditures on bi
Page 167 and 168: Atlanta: Atlanta, GA MSA Miami: Mia
Page 169 and 170: 147 Table B.1 (continued) CES Metro
Page 171 and 172: Appendix C Sensitivity Analysis for
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151 Table C.1 (continued) Poor Low-
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transportation expenditures constit
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Appendix D Methods Used for the Exa
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Bibliography American Automobile As
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Implications of Welfare Reform for
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Lucas, M., and C. Nicholson, “Sub
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Progressive Casualty Insurance Comp
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About the Author LORIEN RICE Lorien
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Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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