Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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pass.” 10 Perhaps discounts could be made available in smaller increments of 10 or 20 days, or another innovative way could be found to smooth out the relatively large expenditure of a monthly pass. Expanding the number of employers participating in the Commuter Checks program (where employees can pay for a monthly pass with pretax earnings) may also help in this regard. Again, the TransLink® smart cards may make it easier to implement various kinds of multi-ride discounts, and the cards can keep track of multiple discounts with different agencies. If vehicles are equipped with an “accumulator,” then a TransLink® card could allow low-income riders to enjoy the benefits of a multi-ride pass without having to pay the full price up front. An accumulator could keep track of the accumulated value of the rides that the individual has taken so far during the month, and once that value exceeded the value of a monthly pass, every trip after that would be free. Essentially, the rider would be paying for a monthly pass, but in small installments until the pass was paid off. This may make monthly passes more accessible for households that ordinarily have trouble saving up for a monthly pass. Note that this is a potential use of the TransLink® cards and is not a use that is currently planned. (VTA currently has accumulators in use, but on a daily basis, so that riders do not have to pay for more than a certain number of fares in a day.) Depending on the cost of implementing accumulator-based monthly passes, it may well be worth investigating whether paying for a monthly pass up front is a significant barrier to buying the passes. TransLink® is currently working to create a distribution system to ensure that all Bay Area residents can access TransLink® fare payment options. TransLink® includes an Autoload feature where a certain amount can be automatically loaded to the card regularly or when the balance gets low, and a Remote Add Value feature where value can be added to the card by charging the value to a credit card over the telephone. However, MTC estimates that 13 percent of potential TransLink® cardholders will not be able to use these two payment options because they do not have a bank account. To add value to a TransLink® card, these households will need to use Add Value _____________ 10 Crain and Associates, Inc. (2000), pp. ES-2–ES-3. 108
Machines (AVMs), Ticket Office Terminals (TOTs), or Third Party Distributors (TPD), or obtain TransLink® benefits through their employers. MTC plans to increase the availability of AVMs and TOTs for all transit customers throughout the Bay Area. However, AVMs and TOTs may not be particularly convenient for those bus users who do not usually make stops at BART stations or bus terminals. TransLink® is planning to contract with 400 TPDs throughout the Bay Area to vend TransLink® cards and value, primarily to serve the needs of those who are unable or unwilling to use the other options. MTC has undertaken a study to identify potential TPDs, with special attention to merchants who have locations in low-income areas, such as check-cashing outlets. Locations for TPDs will need to be carefully selected. The distribution plan for TPDs is now under development. 11 Systemwide Free or Reduced Fares Private spending on transportation could be reduced by cutting or eliminating transit fares systemwide—however, the wisdom of decreasing or eliminating fares depends on the farebox recovery rate. Perone (2002, p. 11) makes the following observations: In larger transit systems, fareboxes generate much more of an agency’s operating revenue than smaller systems. . . . Comparatively, in many smaller systems the farebox recovers less than ten percent of the yearly operating cost. Removing the fareboxes might make fiscal sense in smaller systems. In fact, the costs associated with farebox collection and farebox maintenance might equal the revenue collected in some smaller systems, making fare collection an exercise in fiscal futility. However, in larger transit systems, the actual cost of removing the fareboxes will leave the system with a very large revenue shortfall, which will need to be filled by some type of public funding. If the costs associated with fare collection are close to the amount of revenues collected through fares, then simply abolishing fares altogether might be a reasonable course of action. However, the Statistical Summary of Bay Area Transit Operators reports that total farebox revenue accounts for 19 percent of total operating revenue for AC Transit. For BART, the percentage is 48 percent, indicating that fare- _____________ 11 See Bernheim (2003) for details on plans regarding TransLink® distribution channels. 109
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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
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49 Table 4.3 Costs of Illustrative
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participants who took transit or ca
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Table 4.4 Costs of Illustrative Wit
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55 Table 4.5 Costs of Illustrative
Page 79 and 80: 57 Table 4.6 Costs of Illustrative
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 122 and 123: potential social costs such as poll
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 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
Page 173 and 174: 151 Table C.1 (continued) Poor Low-
Page 175 and 176: transportation expenditures constit
Page 177 and 178: Appendix D Methods Used for the Exa
Page 179 and 180: Bibliography American Automobile As
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Implications of Welfare Reform for
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Lucas, M., and C. Nicholson, “Sub
Page 185 and 186:
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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