Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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Specifically, this report • Measures how much low-income Californians spend on transportation; • Estimates the monetary costs of specific commutes that lowincome households face in the San Francisco Bay Area; • Discusses tradeoffs among monetary costs, time costs, and mobility; • Considers policy options for dealing with transportation affordability issues; and • Proposes areas for further research. Context Researchers and social service agencies alike have long noted that transportation problems can negatively affect employment outcomes for low-income populations. 2 Recent research has focused specifically on the role of transportation in determining employment status, wages, and earnings. Several articles have documented the advantages of private automobile ownership in terms of increasing the likelihood of employment. 3 Some research has also found that transit service has a small, positive effect on employment prospects. 4 Since the passage of federal welfare reform legislation in 1996, time limits for welfare usage have led to a greater sense of urgency for connecting low-income households to employment opportunities. This urgency generated a great deal of research and policy interest in the issue _____________ 2 The academic research literature on the topic extends back to an influential 1968 paper by John Kain, in which he presented evidence that physical distance from jobs helped to explain the differences in labor market outcomes between races. This concept, referred to as the “spatial mismatch hypothesis,” has been the subject of a vast and rich body of articles, some of which found evidence in support of the hypothesis and others against. However, several recent survey articles come to the conclusion that the bulk of the evidence has supported the spatial mismatch hypothesis. See, for example, Holzer (1991), Kain (1992), and Ihlanfeldt and Sjoquist (1998). 3 Ong (1996, 2002), Raphael and Rice (2002), and Cervero, Sandoval, and Landis (2002). 4 Holzer, Quigley, and Raphael (2003), Ong and Houston (2002), Rice (2001), and Sanchez (1999). 2
of “welfare-to-work” transportation. When the federal government passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21 st Century (TEA-21) in 1998, $750 million was authorized for assisting low-income persons with transportation to work through the JARC (Job Access and Reverse Commute) program. Several studies have focused specifically on the effect of transportation on the probability of leaving welfare. Others have mapped out where welfare recipients live, where jobs are located, and where the transit lines go, thereby pointing to gaps in service that need to be addressed. 5 The Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) recently undertook its own major study to identify the spatial gaps within its nine-county region. 6 This last study, the Lifeline Transportation Network Report, also documented gaps in temporal service, identifying situations where transit does not always meet the needs of workers who work nonstandard hours. The Public Health Institute recently conducted a study in Alameda County looking at barriers to work for participants in CalWORKs, California’s version of the TANF program. 7 The study found that onethird of CalWORKs recipients cited a need for assistance with transportation and concluded that “transportation barriers were consistently found to be associated with lack of full-time work.” 8 A separate report on welfare leavers in six Bay Area counties found that transportation was a barrier to full-time employment “for about 16 percent of one-parent families and 12 percent of two-parent families.” 9 Although these studies underline the importance of transportation for _____________ 5 Coulton, Leete, and Bania (1999) and Rich and Coughlin (1998). A related article is Blumenberg and Hess (2002). 6 Metropolitan Transportation Commission (2001b). 7 TANF is the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare-to-work program, which replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) entitlement program. 8 Dasinger et al. (2002). 9 MaCurdy, Marrufo, and O’Brien-Strain (2003), p. 26. However, this report did not find that having a travel barrier to full-time employment was a significant determinant of whether the welfare leaver was likely to return to CalWORKs (see pp. 65 and 66). 3
Page 1 and 2: Transportation Spending by Low-Inco
Page 3 and 4: Foreword Mismatches between jobs an
Page 5 and 6: Summary Transportation is an import
Page 7 and 8: Table S.1 Median Annual Transportat
Page 9 and 10: about 5 to 10 percent of the median
Page 11: providing discounted transit fares
Page 14 and 15: 5. COMMUTE BEHAVIOR IN THE BAY AREA
Page 17: Figures S.1. Vehicle Ownership and
Page 20 and 21: 4.3. Costs of Illustrative Within-C
Page 23: 1. Introduction Costs associated wi
Page 27: lays out policy options for address
Page 31 and 32: 2. Data and Methods In this report,
Page 33 and 34: advantage to this approach is that
Page 35 and 36: 3. Transportation Expenditures in M
Page 37 and 38: Table 3.2 Vehicle Use, Vehicle Owne
Page 39 and 40: Components of Vehicle-Related Expen
Page 41 and 42: inspection, and auto club membershi
Page 43 and 44: income households and the higher-in
Page 45 and 46: eport looks primarily at cost and n
Page 47 and 48: The results from Table 3.5 indicate
Page 49 and 50: variation in transportation costs w
Page 51 and 52: overall household expenditures for
Page 53 and 54: 31 Table 3.9 Transportation Expendi
Page 55 and 56: Table 3.10 Comparison of California
Page 57 and 58: Table 3.11 Comparison of the San Fr
Page 59 and 60: Table 3.10 have lower expenditure f
Page 61 and 62: 4. Costs of Illustrative Bay Area C
Page 63 and 64: 0-300 301-600 601-1100 1101-6813 Ba
Page 65 and 66: Table 4.2 Place of Work Comparison
Page 67 and 68: Concord CONTRA COSTA SAN FRANCISCO
Page 69 and 70: 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
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Table 4.4 Costs of Illustrative Wit
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55 Table 4.5 Costs of Illustrative
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57 Table 4.6 Costs of Illustrative
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commutes is $4,240, whereas the hig
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The results from this chapter seem
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5. Commute Behavior in the Bay Area
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We also looked at mode choice using
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longer for higher-income workers if
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Table 5.3 (continued) Low- Income H
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Table 5.5 depicts the share of the
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73 Table 5.6 Mode Choice and Vehicl
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75 Table 5.8 Mode Choice and Vehicl
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households report having access to
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Table 5.9 (continued) % Using Each
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• Marin to San Francisco: As with
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Table 5.10 Median Commute Durations
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85 Table 5.11 Differences in Mode C
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Table 5.13 Mode Choice, Work Schedu
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trips, make more household-supporti
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only expenditures. Paying a given n
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improving service quality rather th
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Part II Policy Strategies and Areas
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potential social costs such as poll
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• Increasing income directly, to
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grants for developments that meet c
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make it easier for various entities
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pass.” 10 Perhaps discounts could
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free transit is most likely not app
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have fares based on the time of day
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hours for late night and graveyard
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credit ratings, assisting with insu
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would have paid with traditional au
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citizens. Rather, the question shou
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Facilitating Bicycling or Walking A
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transportation hubs may be another
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allowing flexibility at the local l
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services, health care, drug treatme
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costs. Efforts to incorporate infor
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are differences) and by looking at
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Dataset Poor Low-Income Higher-Inco
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income, problems common to most hou
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or the Bay Area specifically. We us
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Appendix B Information on Specific
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We also excluded expenditures on bi
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Atlanta: Atlanta, GA MSA Miami: Mia
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147 Table B.1 (continued) CES Metro
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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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