To improve economic opportunity, we need better transit

Going to morning class meant a four-hour journey by bus and shuttle for J, an adult vocational education student in Louisiana’s Capital Region. The drive to campus would have been 25 minutes by car, but J didn’t have one, and the after-class commute would eat up another two of the three hours left to him before his night job started.

J’s story isn’t unique. Those seeking decent employment and the organizations that serve them have long pointed to inadequate transportation as a chief obstacle. It’s a reality that cuts against the belief that with enough gumption, anyone can climb the economic ladder. Luck of birth — and of geography — play all too great a role.

The economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren have found that the amount of time it takes to get to work affects a person’s odds of moving out of poverty. Low-income households are least likely to have stable access to a car and must contend with transit systems that don’t bridge the gap between home and work.

The need to own a car in areas without decent transit and the expenses that come with it — loan payments, repairs, and even the price of gas — erode poor households’ budgets. On top of that, the income instability they experience means that such households might not be able to afford a car from one year to the next, contributing to a cycle of precarity. The result is entrenched economic segregation and stunted opportunity for economic betterment.

The road(s) to inequality

Over the course of the 20th century, US urban planning orthodoxy increasingly prioritized the car at the expense of other forms of transportation. The immense funds plowed into the construction of highways and ring roads sealed our pact with the automobile.

The new routes carried wealthier suburbanites to and from downtown jobs and around the sprawl that spread outwards from cities. They also encouraged manufacturers to leave the city and build spacious suburban campuses on cheap land, carrying with them the jobs associated with industrial, union-powered upward mobility. The expense of suburban housing and rampant discrimination, though, kept suburban opportunities out of reach for poor and minority residents, and public transportation failed to connect old neighborhoods with new growth.

The composition of metropolitan areas has evolved in recent decades. Suburbs have diversified. Employment has become even more dispersed. The sorts of so-called “middle-skill” jobs that pay well and don’t require a college education are scattered across city and suburb and rural fringe.

More low-income residents than ever call older, inner suburbs home as urban neighborhoods gentrify and middle-class and wealthy subdivisions push outwards. This has brought about new challenges, namely that more people who need transit are living in areas where it is weak, while the old challenge of disconnection between cities and their suburbs remains.

Where jobs are, workers aren’t

The choice to plan our communities for the car above all else has carved what economists term a “spatial mismatch” between the location of middle-skill jobs and that of the workers who would most benefit from them. Often, poor and minority workers are left furthest behind.

In Chicago, for instance, Black workers have the longest average commutes. Only 50,000 jobs lie within a half-hour train or bus commute from the city’s mostly Black South Side, where poverty rates can exceed 50%. The same calculus nets nearly 700,000 jobs for the city’s wealthier North Side and Loop neighborhoods.

Many well-paying jobs are in the suburbs, but Chicagoans who rely on transit are hesitant to apply to them, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago found. Buses that serve the suburbs can be infrequent and unpredictable and do a poor job of meeting the needs of workers on early morning and late night shifts. Sometimes, missing the bus can mean a two-hour wait for the next one. In that case, one city resident lamented, “I might as well just turn around and go home. I don’t have a job anymore.”

Many workers can’t access economic and workforce development programming

Economic and workforce development is largely a public enterprise funded by tens of billions in taxpayer dollars each year. The spending is typically justified as a means to bring jobs to communities and increase overall prosperity.

Whether all workers can get to the opportunities created tends to receive too little consideration. If many cannot, one may fairly ask if the public is getting a good return on its investment. After all, locating an industrial park away from a freight line or highway is all but inconceivable. But putting one beyond the reach of reliable public transportation and not providing a shuttle service is often standard practice.

Take the example of Fort Custer Industrial Park, on the edge of Battle Creek, Michigan. The site counts 14,000 employees and is the largest industrial park in the state. Without a car, though, it is hard for many area residents to get there. The American Public Transportation Association pointed out in a report that bus service to the site only ran on weekdays, stopping in the afternoon, even though almost a third of workers were on the evening or night shifts.

There is little national data on how well people can get to programming funded by economic and workforce development dollars. However, state and local reports show that Battle Creek is far from alone.

Rapid economic growth along Interstate 10 in Louisiana hasn’t been accompanied by transit serving the new jobs. In New York, the state comptroller found that poor public transportation makes it hard for residents to access services from most of the state’s 33 workforce development boards. Upwards of 80% of registrants for a Connecticut job placement program identified transportation as a barrier to finding and holding a job, while only 23% cited education. Similar difficulties might be voiced by a resident of Birmingham, Alabama. Or by a young person in Appalachia trying to achieve a foothold in the workforce.

Improved transit helps communities and businesses — and some are making the investment

Some workforce and economic development organizations have recognized that the effectiveness of their investments depends on accessibility. So too have some enlightened businesses, understanding that greater accessibility makes it easier to find, hire, and retain workers.

The solutions put in place are varied, and funding has come from a mix of public and private sources. There are new bus routes that drop off at major employment centers and “last mile” services that take workers to their jobs from an existing transit stop.

Rochester, New York, combined city and federal funds for a flexible vanpool service, while the public transit authority for York and Adams counties, in Pennsylvania, secured money from businesses and the state to extend service to participating employers. Employers in South Bend, Indiana, came together to fund transit passes and discounted ride shares for workers. And in Cleveland, church vans have emerged as a way for people to reach training and jobs on demand. An innovative Massachusetts partnership brought together several towns and businesses to launch CrossTown Connect. The program provides direct transportation to workplaces from transit stops and flexible service for workers who need to reach other places or return home after working late.

Of course, car ownership may be necessary for some workers. One of the best ways to make it affordable is for employers to raise wages so that their workers can cover the basics. And initiatives that help pay down the costs of owning and maintaining a car can help people in isolated areas, especially when paired with on-demand transit.

That said, millions of households do not have a car, and the cyclical nature of car access for the poor means that countless others risk losing the use of one. There should be a ready alternative, and that is what public and other forms of transit provide. Transit is a public good that helps those currently on the financial edge and others who might face hard times in the future.

A fairer future is a matter of choice

Like a lot of problems that result from decades of public policy inertia, it can be hard to figure out how to chart a new course. But public policy is a product of choices — choices about how to steward public money for the common good. And we can make choices today that are informed by past mistakes and bring about a better future, even if it might take some time to get there.

For a long time, we have chosen sprawl, paved by newer and bigger and ever more far flung roads, and we have directed transportation dollars toward those roads while starving mass transit of the money that can make it a compelling alternative for some and a more reliable lifeline for many. And too often, the needs of the least fortunate have been left unmet when creating centers of employment through zoning or subsidy, or when devising programs intended to help workers move up.

Choosing to design and fund transit that maximizes workers’ access to jobs and services offers a path toward a fairer economic future. It is no small task, but communities and civic-minded employers, large and small, have shown what is possible. It is time for others to follow their lead.