An Equity Lens on Automated Fare Payments: New Pooled Fund Study

Dec 19, 2018
Principal Investigator: Aaron Golub, Portland State University

As transit agencies modernize their fare payment systems, opportunities to pay with cash diminish. This speeds boarding and lowers the cost of operations, while also creating new sources of ridership data. Arguably, service is improved for riders as well, where payment systems work across modes, and in some cases different transit providers, creating a more seamless and simplified experience. Still, about 15% of adults in the United States are without a bank account or credit card, and many rely on restrictive cell-phone data plans or don’t have access to a smartphone. These shares are even higher for public transit users. As transit fare technologies move further from cash, these digitally-excluded riders will find it more difficult to conveniently pay their transit fares.

In the latest project to be funded under the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC)'s Pooled Fund grant program, researchers from...

Read more
A bicyclists rides down a neighborhood greenway

Bicycle Accessibility Measures: Advancing Equitable Economic Benefits through Urban Greenways

Aug 23, 2018
Principal Investigator: Jenny Liu, Portland State University
Learn more about this research by viewing the Executive Summary and the full Final Report, or watching the January 2018 seminar on the Project Overview page.

Portland, Oregon's 2035 Comprehensive Plan calls for “City Greenways” - a citywide network of park-like streets focused on moving pedestrians and bicycles safely. Such a connected network of safe, welcoming active transportation options could have significant benefits for residents—but which residents?

Benefits of bike and pedestrian infrastructure include environmentally sustainable transportation, livability, and improvements in economic development and public health. While these outcomes are well documented, it is also known that both transportation and...

Read more
People board a bus

A Comprehensive Tool for Transit Performance Evaluation: Operational Efficiency and Access Equity

Jul 25, 2018
Principal Investigator: Ran Wei, University of California, Riverside
Learn more about this research by viewing the Executive Summary and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page, or sign up for our September 14 half-day workshop in Portland, OR.

Regular assessment of public transit performance is essential. With limited funding and growing public needs, performance evaluation helps identify areas for improvement. But what, exactly, is the desired improvement that transit agencies seek?

If the answer is operational efficiency, then agencies have a clear goal: to achieve the highest ridership possible with the lowest operational costs.

If the answer is access equity, then again a clear goal emerges: to extend transit to neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-income residents and minorities, and to evaluate proposed route changes through the lens of supplying much-needed services.

The real answer, of course, is both. Historically, research has examined...

Read more

Proposed Transit Investment Could Impact Affordability, Access in SE Portland Neighborhoods

Jul 11, 2017
Principal Investigator: Lisa Bates, Portland State University
Learn more about this research by viewing the two-page Project Brief, related publications and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page.

Lead Investigator Lisa Bates gave a lecture at Portland State University in December 2017. Watch the video or ...
Read more

Survey Insights Could Help Underrepresented Residents Reap the Benefits of Bike Share

Jun 26, 2017
Principal Investigator: Nathan McNeil
Learn more about this research by viewing the Summary Report, related publications and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page.

Also check out this series of articles about the project from our partners at Better Bike Share Partnership:

Evidence has...

Read more

Research offers bird’s-eye view of equity in regional transportation plans

Jun 13, 2017

A NITC study took a look at how metropolitan planning organizations, or MPOs, can better serve transportation-disadvantaged and historically marginalized populations when creating regional transportation plans.

The transportation disadvantaged are those unable to drive or who lack access to an automobile, and may include the elderly, low income, young people, persons with disabilities, and those with permanent or temporary health conditions. Historically marginalized communities are often left out of the planning process and include many of the same groups but also ethnic and racial minorities.

A new freeway, with all its attendant air and noise pollution, might cut through a part of town where low-income and minority populations are concentrated. Bike lanes sometimes wait to make an appearance until a neighborhood has begun to gentrify. People over the age of 60, as well as people of color, are at greater risk of being killed by a car while walking. Low-income neighborhoods often have poor access to regional transportation networks, making getting to and from work and other destinations a challenge for residents. English language proficiency is a barrier to participating in the transportation planning process and is also recognized as a dimension of transportation disadvantage.

To address problems like this, equity needs to be a priority in every regional transportation planning process. The report, ...

Read more

Operator Survey Illuminates Barriers to Bike Share Equity

May 29, 2017
Principal Investigator: Nathan McNeil
Learn more about this research by viewing the Summary Report, related publications and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page.

While bike-sharing systems become increasingly common in American cities, questions about the equity of such systems are making their way to the forefront of the conversation.

Bike share can provide a cheap and healthy means of transportation, but many systems are not serving the lower-income and minority populations who, arguably, could benefit most from having the additional travel option.

A survey of 56 bike share system operators in the United States offers an overview of how these equity concerns are being addressed.

The survey is part of a larger research effort, Evaluating Efforts to Improve the Equity of Bike Share Systems. To gain an understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved in providing more equitable bike share, TREC and NITC teamed up with the Better Bike Share Partnership: a collaboration between PeopleForBikes, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), the...

Read more

TOD Offers Path Away from Gentrification

Apr 11, 2017
Principal Investigator: Gerardo Sandoval
Learn more about this research by viewing the two-page Project Brief and the full Final Report on the Project Overview page.

Gentrification is a common, and deeply controversial, outcome of urban development.

It's usually the same story: investments in new infrastructure draw the affluent, causing market forces to displace lower-income residents. Neighborhoods become renovated, and the people who once defined the neighborhood can no longer afford to live there.

NITC researcher Gerardo Sandoval shows in his latest project that it doesn’t have to be that way. With the right level of community input, transit-oriented development has the potential to bring needed services to low-income residents while revitalizing their...

Read more

Webinar: Transit-Oriented Development and Equity in Latino Neighborhoods: A Comparative Case Study of Macarthur Park (Los Angeles) and Fruitvale (Oakland)

Watch condensed webinar preview video

Watch full webinar video

View presentation slides in English

View presentation slides in Spanish

Transit-oriented development (TOD) projects in low-income neighborhoods have the potential to provide needed transportation access to a segment of the population that stands to benefit significantly from these large-scale transit infrastructure projects. This research project reveals that large-scale TOD projects have the potential of leading to neighborhood revitalization and equitable outcomes in low-income Latino communities. But these positive outcomes depend on both the process and context of these particular neighborhoods, and how transportation planners incorporate the various forms of political, financial and cultural capital that exist in these communities into the planning and implementation process of TOD projects. This comparative case study analyzed the Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland and the MacArthur Park METRO TOD in Los Angeles. We...

Read more

The Trade-offs between Population Density and Households' Transportation-housing Costs

Watch video

View slides

As metropolitan area governments and others promote density-promoting “smart growth” policies, finer analysis is needed to quantify the impact of such policies on households' transportation and housing costs. Existing research suggests that households in urban areas trade-off between housing costs and transportation costs, but does not explore how policies to increase urban densities might explicitly impact this balance. Furthermore, the research does not adequately distinguish between the effect of urban area density and the effects of other factors associated with urban area density (e.g metropolitan area size and household incomes) on housing costs. This research uses the 2000 Census Public Use Micro Sample (PUMS) person and household data from 23 of the nation's most densely populated states to identify the impact of increased population density on three housing cost measures: household rents, housing unit values, and monthly mortgage payments. Log linear models were estimated for each housing cost measure using least-squares regression. Dependent variables included household, housing unit, and geographic area characteristics, including population density. The models were found to be very similar to one another in terms of the statistical significance...

Read more

Pages