Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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Rice’s conclusions are based on the best data available, and she is cautious about what can and cannot be said on the basis of her findings. She concludes that more work can and should be done to assess the transportation needs of low-income households, and that programs to make transportation more affordable should be evaluated to assess their effectiveness and efficiency. Government subsidies should be based on an understanding of the costs and benefits of the services provided, and this report provides some of the information necessary for that understanding in the Bay Area. David W. Lyon President and CEO Public Policy Institute of California iv
Summary Transportation is an important issue for low-income households. Prohibitive transportation costs can interfere with employment prospects and economic self-sufficiency, and researchers have confirmed links between transportation and employment outcomes. To reduce transportation barriers to employment, many policymakers have implemented or proposed programs to make transportation more affordable. These programs include vouchers to cover transit or gasoline expenditures and loans or grants to purchase or repair private vehicles. Yet very little empirical research has explored actual transportation costs and affordability more generally. The affordability question is an important one, for if transportation costs are exceptionally high, lowincome households may face difficult choices between mobility and access on the one hand and household necessities on the other. This report addresses the lack of empirical research by studying the role transportation expenditures play in the finances of the Bay Area’s low-income households. The report has two goals. The first is to analyze several existing datasets to arrive at a fuller understanding of transportation costs and expenditures and the factors that affect them. The second is to provide a menu of program options and research priorities for addressing transportation affordability. By focusing on expenditures, this study defers the examination of two other critical factors: the non-monetary costs of transportation (for example, time spent commuting) and the quality of transportation available to the Bay Area’s low-income households. In this sense, the report is best seen as a first step in addressing the larger question of transportation affordability among low-income households. Part I of the report includes an analysis of expenditure data for California households, estimates of transportation costs for several example commutes in the Bay Area, and an exploration of mode choice and other travel factors that influence monetary costs. Part II responds v
Page 1 and 2: Transportation Spending by Low-Inco
Page 3: Foreword Mismatches between jobs an
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 and 24: 1. Introduction Costs associated wi
Page 25 and 26: of “welfare-to-work” transporta
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
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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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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
Page 185 and 186:
Progressive Casualty Insurance Comp
Page 187:
About the Author LORIEN RICE Lorien
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