Transportation Spending by Low-Income California Households ...

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public transit costs, depending on which mileage rate is used to calculate the private vehicle costs. To compute commute costs as a percentage of family income, we calculated median annual family income in each county for low-income families with at least one employed adult. On average, our withincounty public transit commutes would take up roughly 5 percent of the median income for these families, and intercounty commutes would take up roughly 10 percent. For low-income families that can take advantage of the monthly discount rates, the commutes take 1 to 2 percentage points less of the median income than the undiscounted rates. Estimated private vehicle costs for within-county commutes make up 5 percent to 7 percent of the median income for low-income families. Costs for between-county commutes account for 22 percent to 30 percent of median income for low-income households, depending on which mileage rate is used. Parents without vehicles are particularly vulnerable to increased costs from transfer expenses because they may need to take an additional bus to transport children to school or child care on the way to work. If the $4.50 VTA day pass were not available, for example, parents served by VTA would have their within-county transit costs doubled by the need to drop off children. 11 Parents served by Sonoma County Transit may have costs that are up to a third higher depending on their exact commute patterns, and parents served by AC Transit face transit costs that are one-quarter higher. The other transit agencies offer free transfers, which means that parents face no financial penalty for having to drop off their children. However, free transfers within each agency will not be enough to help those families who need to transfer across agencies. Depending on the locations of home, school or child care, and work, an added destination may mean using multiple transit agencies. Because few of the interagency transfers provide any discounts, this would approximately double the transit costs for parents who face such commutes. _____________ 11 Although the price of the day pass is still relatively high, VTA does give a fairly deep discount to those who are willing and able to buy the $52.50 monthly pass for unlimited local service. 60
The results from this chapter seem to imply that the difference between public transit costs and private vehicle costs is smaller than was indicated by the CES results from the previous chapter. The CES analysis found that private vehicle expenditures (for low-income households that use vehicles) were roughly 10 times the size of public transit expenditures (for low-income households that use transit). In contrast, the example commutes in this chapter suggest that private vehicle costs are only one to 1.5 times the size of public transit costs for within-county commutes, and two to three times the size of public transit costs for between-county commutes. The difference in results between the two chapters may indicate that we have underestimated private vehicle costs in this chapter by not including parking costs, by using national mileage rates that do not reflect local costs, and by using straight-line distance instead of actual driving distance in our calculations. On the other hand, the private vehicle costs may actually be overstated because the mileage rate calculations include depreciation amounts based on the value of a new vehicle, whereas most low-income households purchase used vehicles. Another difference between the CES analysis and the current analysis that may account for the contrasting results is that this chapter’s emphasis is on commutes rather than overall travel. If households with vehicles tend to make more nonwork trips than households without vehicles, then total expenditures for households with vehicles would be higher even if the cost of commuting were the same for both public transit and private vehicles. Another possible explanation as to why these results differ from the CES findings is that the cost of transit commutes that we estimate in this chapter may be so high that most low-income workers will choose not to take them. Thus, the unaffordable commutes would not show up in CES data. 12 Households will also choose not to take commutes that are excessively long, and many of the more expensive public transit example _____________ 12 As a purely hypothetical example, say that low-income individuals will choose to not take public transit if the cost is above average for the Bay Area ($867), choosing instead another mode or to not commute at all. Then the average expenditures on public transit for Bay Area low-income workers will be only $650 (the average over commutes where the cost is below $867), whereas the average of the actual cost is $867. 61
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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
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
Page 75 and 76: Table 4.4 Costs of Illustrative Wit
Page 81: commutes is $4,240, whereas the hig
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 130 and 131: 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
Page 181 and 182:
Implications of Welfare Reform for
Page 183 and 184:
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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