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Total Results: 100
Policy Briefs
2020
What Can Be Done About Falling Transit Ridership in the Bay Area
Brian D. Taylor, Jacob L. Wasserman, Evelyn Blumenberg, Mark Garrett
Refereed Journal Articles
2020
Car-Deficit Households: Determinants and Implications for Household Travel
TransportationEvelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, Andrew Schouten
In the U.S., households with less than one car per driver (auto-deficit households) are more than twice as common as zero-vehicle households. Yet we know very little about these households and their travel behavior. In this study, therefore, we examine whether car deficits, like carlessness, are largely a result of financial constraint or of other factors such as built environment characteristics, household structure, or household resources. We then analyze the mobility outcomes of car-deficit households compared to the severely restricted mobility of carless households and the largely uninhibited movement of fully-equipped households, households with at least one car per driver. Data from the California Household Travel Survey show that car-deficit households are different than fully-equipped households. They have different household characteristics, travel less, and are more likely to use public transit. While many auto-deficit households have incomes that presumably enable them to successfully manage with fewer cars than adults, low-income auto-deficit households are—by definition—income constrained. Our analysis suggests that low-income car-deficit households manage their travel needs by carefully negotiating the use of household vehicles. In so doing, they travel far more than carless households and use their household vehicles almost as much as low-income households with at least one car per driver. These results suggest that the mobility benefits of having at least one car per driver are more limited than we had anticipated. Results also indicate the importance of transportation and employment programs to ease the potential difficulties associated with sharing cars among household drivers.
Refereed Journal Articles
2019
Low-Income Workers, Residential Location, and the Changing Commute in the U.S.
Built EnvironmentEvelyn Blumenberg, Hannah King
Numerous reports suggest that rising rents in some U.S. metropolitan areas are pushing workers to live further from their workplaces over time and contributing to lengthening commutes. Drawing on data from the last three vintages of the U.S. National Household Travel Survey (2001, 2009, and 2017), we test whether the relationship between residential location and commute distance varies significantly between low-income and higher-income workers and has changed over time. The data show that commute distances have increased for both low- and higher-income workers with much of the increase occurring in lower density areas. Statistical models show a strong positive relationship between living in a low-density neighbourhood and commute distance for all workers. This relationship appears stronger for low-income than higher-income workers but the strength of the relationship has not increased over time. The findings suggest that the growth in commute distance among low-income workers is largely due to a shift in their residential location towards low-density neighbourhoods.
Refereed Journal Articles
2019
Physical Accessibility and Employment among Older Adults in California
Journal of the Transportation Research BoardEvelyn Blumenberg, Andrew Schouten, Miriam Pinski, Martin Wachs
Older adults are delaying retirement and remaining in the paid workforce longer than in previous decades. There are many potential explanations for this trend. In this study, it is hypothesized that the ease or difficulty of traveling may significantly influence the labor force participation of older adults, just as it does for other working-age adults. As they age, older adults can face a number of barriers to mobility. The hypothesis is tested using data from the 2012 California Household Travel Survey (CHTS) and propensity score matching. The paper focuses on the effects of automobile ownership and transit access on the employment status of older adults (60+), controlling for a host of characteristics associated with the likelihood of employment. The analysis shows that transportation access has a substantial and positive association with employment for older adults, particularly older adults living in low-income households (those earning less than $35,000 per year). Access to jobs by public transit is especially influential among low-income older adults who live in households without automobiles. The findings underscore the importance of enhancing the transportation environment such that it allows older adults to travel regularly on their own by car or, in dense urban neighborhoods, by public transit. Limitations to this study suggest the need for additional quantitative analysis of longitudinal data as well as qualitative analysis of data from interviews and focus groups.
Refereed Journal Articles
2019
A Resurgence in Urban Living? Trends in Residential Location Patterns of Young and Older Adults Since 2000
Urban GeographyEvelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, Kelcie Ralph, Brian D. Taylor, Carole Turley Voulgaris
Some have heralded a resurgence of urban living in the U.S., particularly among young adults. Are Americans abandoning suburbs in favor of more urban lifestyles? What is the scope and scale of this urban resurgence? We develop a typology of neighborhoods to analyze the residential location of young and older U.S. adults from 2000 to 2011–15. Census and national travel survey data reveal that suburban population growth continues to outpace that in urban neighborhoods. Although young adults are more likely than older adults to live in urban neighborhoods, recent urban population growth is neither associated with suburban decline, nor being led by young adults. Significant recent population growth in the newest, suburban neighborhoods suggests that greenfield development remains the primary means to increase American housing supply. Shifting metropolitan growth from the suburban fringe would likely require expanding housing supply in urban neighborhoods, and bringing urban amenities to established inner-ring suburbs.
Refereed Journal Articles
2019
Severe Housing-Cost Burden and Obesity among Preschool-aged Low-Income Children in Los Angeles County
Preventive Medicine ReportsTabashir Z. Nobari, Shannon E. Whaley, Evelyn Blumenberg, Michael L. Prelip, May C. Wang
Despite high rates of housing-cost burden in the United States, little is known regarding its impact on childhood obesity. In this article, we determine whether low-income 2-5-year-olds living in housing-cost burdened households are more likely to be obese and examine the potential moderators and behavioral and psychosocial mediators of this relationship. We used data from a triennial survey (2011, 2014) of a random sample of Los Angeles County participants of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (n = 2307). Logistic regression was used to examine the association between child's obesity status (Body Mass Index for age and sex ≥ 95th percentile) and severe housing-cost burden (finding it very difficult to pay for housing). Mother's depressive symptoms and child's diet and screen time were tested for mediation. We found that 16% of children lived in severe housing-cost burdened households. Severe housing-cost burden was associated with an increase in the odds of childhood obesity [aOR (95%CI) = 1.33 (1.00, 1.78)] and household size moderated this relationship. Child's diet and screen time and mother's depressive symptoms were not mediators. Given the high and vacillating rates of early childhood obesity and the increasing burden of housing costs in low-income populations, there is an urgency to better understand the role of housing-cost burden in epidemiologic investigations of early childhood obesity.
Refereed Journal Articles
2018
Is Bigger Better? Metropolitan Area Population, Access, Activity Participation, and Quality of Life
Journal of Transport and Land UseEric A. Morris, Andrew Mondschein, Evelyn Blumenberg
Researchers have posited that larger, denser metropolitan areas have important consumption advantages. We examine this us ing Cragg two-part hurdle and ordinary least square (OLS) regression models employing data from the American Time Use Survey. We test whether: 1) large metropolitan area residents participate in more out of-home activities because these activities are more plentiful, richer, and/or easier to access, 2) large metropolitan areas have lower travel times because of higher densities, and 3) activities in larger metro politan areas have more positive associations with subjective well-being than those in smaller places. We reject all three hypotheses. Metropoli tan area population size is largely unrelated to time spent outside the home, excluding travel. Large-metropolitan-area residents participate in more arts and entertainment activities and eat and drink out more often, but they socialize, volunteer, and care for others outside the home less. Larger metropolitan areas are associated with dramatically more travel time. We find no evidence that large metropolitan area
activities contribute any more or less to life satisfaction or affect than activities in smaller places. We also find that life satisfaction does not covary with metropolitan area size. In sum, living in a large metropoli tan area may primarily involve a tradeoff of (travel) time for money (higher wages), with little net change in welfare.
Reports
2018
Falling Transit Ridership: California and Southern California
Michael Manville, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg
In the last ten years transit use in Southern California has fallen significantly. This report investigates that falling transit use. We define Southern California as the six counties that participate in the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) – Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Imperial. We examine patterns of transit service and patronage over time and across the region, and consider an array of explanations for falling transit use: declining transit service levels, eroding transit service quality, rising fares, falling fuel prices, the growth of Lyft and Uber, the migration of frequent transit users to outlying neighborhoods with less transit service, and rising vehicle ownership. While all of these factors probably play some role, we conclude that the most significant factor is increased motor
vehicle access, particularly among low-income households that have traditionally supplied the region with its most frequent and reliable transit users.
Refereed Journal Articles
2018
Transit in the 2000s: Where Does It Stand, and Where Might It Be Headed?
Journal of Public TransportationMichael Manville, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg
U.S. public transit has experienced something of a renaissance in the 2000s, with per capita service levels increasing nationwide and public investment growing even faster—particularly expenditures on rail transit. Despite this expansion, overall transit patronage has been relatively flat, and has declined significantly since 2014. What is behind these trends, and what do they portend for the future of transit? In this paper we consider three challenges shaping transit today and in the years ahead: (1) the asymmetry of transit supply and use make it especially vulnerable to changes and disruptions; (2) many of the factors that determine transit ridership, such as levels of private vehicle ownership and use, are largely beyond the control of transit agencies; and (3) there remains no consensus about what purpose transit should serve—politically the industry thrives on the idea that it will reduce congestion or clean the air, while in practice it primarily moves poor people, a very different and sometimes conflicting role. How successfully transit systems manage each of these challenges will shape their future roles and significance.
Reports
2018
Heightening Walking above its Pedestrian Status: Walking and Travel Behavior in California
Evelyn Blumenberg, Katherine Bridges, Madeline Brozen, Carole Turley Voulgaris
Refereed Journal Articles
2017
Car Access and Long-Term Poverty Exposure: Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Experiment
Journal of Transport GeographyEvelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department designed the landmark Moving to Opportunity (MTO) Experiment for Fair Housing Voucher Program to help low-income households move out of and stay out of concentrated poverty. The program was designed based on the assumption that households benefit from living in higher-opportunity neighborhoods. Early evaluations of the MTO program, however, showed minimal gains for participant families. One explanation for these findings is the short length of time which MTO families typically spent in lower-poverty neighborhoods; the positive effects of longer-term exposure to low-poverty neighborhoods appear more promising.
In this study we examine the role of automobiles in increasing the length of time that MTO households remain in lower-poverty neighborhoods over a much longer period than previous studies, 1994–2010. A growing body of research suggests that automobiles provide households with better access to opportunities than other modes of travel, particularly in neighborhoods with lower poverty rates in more dispersed urban environments. We find that automobile access reduces households' neighborhood poverty exposure by between 3% and 4%, and automobile access trails only successful lease-up among policy-relevant factors in reducing exposure. Therefore, to maximize the effects of housing mobility programs, we suggest that voucher receipt ought to be paired with policies to increase participants' access to automobiles.
Book Chapters
2017
Social Equity and Urban Transportation
The Geography of Urban TransportationEvelyn Blumenberg
Refereed Journal Articles
2017
Synergistic Neighborhood Relationships with Travel Behavior: An Analysis of Travel in 30,000 U.S. Neighborhoods
Journal of Transport and Land UseCarole Turley Voulgaris, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, Kelcie Ralph
A now substantial body of literature finds that land use and urban form have a statistically significant, albeit relatively modest, effect on travel behavior. Some scholars have suggested that various built-environment characteristics influence travel more in concert than when considered in isolation. Yet few previous studies have combined built-environment measures to create holistic descriptions of the over all character of neighborhoods, and fewer still have related these neigh borhoods to residents’ travel decisions. To address this gap in the lit erature, we develop a typology of seven distinct neighborhood types by applying factor analysis and then cluster analysis to a set of 20 variables describing built-environment characteristics for most census tracts in the United States. We then include these neighborhood types in a set of multivariate regression models to estimate the effect of neighborhood type on the travel behavior of neighborhood residents, controlling for an array of personal and household characteristics. We find relatively little variation in the number of daily trips among neighborhood types, but there is substantial neighborhood variation in both person miles of travel and mode choice. Travel by residents of one particular neighbor hood type is notably distinguished from all others by a very low num ber of miles traveled, little solo driving, and high transit use. However, this neighborhood type is found almost exclusively in just a few very large metropolitan areas, and its replicability is uncertain.
Refereed Journal Articles
2016
Millennials, Built Form, and Travel Insights from a Nationwide Typology of U.S. Neighborhoods
Journal of Transport GeographyKelcie Ralph, Carole Turley Voulgaris, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown
We examine the relationship between the built environment and the travel of Millennials in the United States. We develop a neighborhood typology to characterize the built environment and transportation networks in almost every U.S. census tract, allowing us to identify possible synergistic and/or threshold effects on travel. We measure travel behavior in two ways: (1) using a multi-faceted traveler typology created using latent class analysis, and (2) by measuring the vehicle miles of travel among people in each of these traveler types. This dual approach allows us to distinguish between the built environment changes needed to encourage travel by modes other than driving, and those needed to reduce vehicle miles traveled among drivers. Using a multinomial logistic regression, we find that travel patterns are relatively stable along much of the urban-rural continuum, everything else equal. Driving was substantially lower only in “Old Urban” neighborhoods, where densities, job access, and transit service are dramatically higher than in all other neighborhood types. This finding implies that dramatic changes in the built environment—doubling or even tripling development density or transit service—may do little to get young people out of their cars when initial densities or transit services are low, as they are in most of the U.S. Conversely, reducing vehicle miles traveled among drivers appears to require more modest built form changes, a finding that offers some room for optimism among those concerned with auto dependence.
Refereed Journal Articles
2016
Who Knows about Kids these Days? Analyzing the Determinants of Youth and Adult Mobility in the U.S. between 1990 and 2009
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and PracticeEvelyn Blumenberg, Kelcie Ralph, Michael Smart, Brian D. Taylor
The 2000s was a decade of transitions for teens and young adults. In comparison with previous generations of youth, those living in the developed world (i) faced the harshest economic climate in decades, (ii) lived with their parents longer and were more likely to return back home as young adults, (iii) used information and communication technologies (ICTs) extensively, and (iv) in the U.S., were subject to increasingly stringent graduated driver’s licensing (GDL) regulations. All were dramatic societal changes to be sure, but how did they affect youth travel behavior? Some argue dramatically and enduringly, but usually with fragmentary evidence. We examine data from the three most recent U.S. national travel surveys and find that, with one exception, after controlling for personal, household, locational, and travel factors, the effects of factors associated with various societal trends on person-kilometers traveled (PKT) are surprisingly muted. The exception is that decreased employment is associated with substantially lower PKT; however, this effect is 32% greater among older (ages 27–61) than younger (ages 20–26) adults, suggesting that economic factors, rather than changes in youth travel preferences, were at the root of declines in personal travel in the U.S. during the 2000s.
Refereed Journal Articles
2016
Why Low-Income Women in the U.S. Still Need Automobiles
Town Planning ReviewEvelyn Blumenberg
Over time, automobile ownership in the US has increased. Yet low-income households remain less likely to have access to automobiles than higher-income households. Today, given the continued dispersion of US metropolitan areas and the growing number of jobs, as well as low-income families living in the suburbs, the evidence suggests that low-income women who do not have access to automobiles are increasingly disadvantaged. To engender greater economic and social sustainability, the evidence suggests that low-income women would benefit from policies to increase their access to automobiles.
Refereed Journal Articles
2016
The Drive to Work: The Relationship between Transportation Access, Housing Assistance and Employment among Participants in the Welfare to Work Voucher
Journal of Planning Education and ResearchEvelyn Blumenberg, Gregory Pierce
Transportation enables low-income individuals to find and travel to employment. This article analyzes the relationship between access to automobiles and public transit and employment outcomes of low-income households. We use longitudinal survey data from participants in the Welfare to Work Voucher Program, which was conducted in five US metropolitan areas between 1999 and 2005. Multinomial logistic regression shows that baseline access to automobiles has a strong positive relationship to follow-up employment but public transit access and receipt of housing assistance do not. Our findings suggest that enhancing car access will notably improve employment outcomes among very-low-income adults, but other assistance will have, at best, marginal effects.
Policy Briefs
2016
What if Cities Combined Car-Based Solutions with Transit to Improve Access to Opportunity?
Rolf Pendall, Evelyn Blumenberg, Casey Dawkins
Refereed Journal Articles
2016
A Taste for Transit? Analyzing Public Transit Use Trends Among Youth
Journal of Public TransportationAnne Brown, Evelyn Blumenberg, Brian D. Taylor, Carole Turley Voulgaris, Kelcie Ralph
In the past decade, there has been much talk about a decline in driving among youth. This study examined whether this decline is associated with an increased reliance on public transit. To address this issue, 2001 and 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data were used to analyze the relationship between age and transit use. Findings indicate that although young adults are more likely to ride transit than older adults, transit use among youth can be explained largely by (1) life cycle factors common among young people but unlikely to persist as they age, (2) higher levels of transit use among non-whites, who are disproportionately young, and (3) locational factors such as living in densely-developed neighborhoods that may or may not continue as young people age. Therefore, whereas transit habits established early in life may persist as young adults age, the data examined here suggest that such an outcome is far from assured.
Reports
2015
Typecasting Neighborhoods and Travelers: Analyzing the Geography of Travel Behavior among Teens and Young Adults in the U.S.
Evelyn Blumenberg, Anne Brown, Kelcie Ralph, Brian D. Taylor, Carole Turley Voulgaris
This report presents a high-level analysis of the effects of location on personal travel and trends associated with place of residence and the travel behavior of younger populations (ages 20-34). Seven distinct neighborhood typologies were created using data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Smart Location Database and the Decennial U.S. Census. Neighborhoods were classified in terms of the built environment and surrounding transportation system, using variables that provided information about jobs, housing and employment densities, intersection densities, transit supply, and types of developments. In addition, four distinct traveler types were developed using data from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) based on selected variables, including: miles of travel, daily trips, car ownership, mode use, and licensure. Neighborhood types and traveler types were then linked to explore travel characteristics associated with place of residence. Findings suggest that location plays a role in personal travel decisions. Where people live, work, recreate, and how they travel are intimately related to the built environment. Youth are more likely to live in urban areas, compared to previous generations. Younger populations (ages 20-34) are more likely than other age groups to live in the central city; however, this often changes as they age and have children. Most young adults still live and move into suburban areas. Nationwide, just over half of all youth (53 percent) live in suburban neighborhoods. Despite the thought that younger populations are becoming more urban, current trends show that a significant number of youth are more commonly taking up residence in suburban neighborhoods, particularly in new developments. A large percentage of youth are carless and have shown a decline in trip making, most likely a result of their economic condition