Publications
Total Results: 6
Refereed Journal Articles
2024
Driving A-loan: Automobile debt, neighborhood race, and the COVID-19 pandemic
Transport Policy, Volume 155Evelyn Blumenberg, Fariba Siddiq, Samuel Speroni, Jacob L. Wasserman
COVID-19 altered travel patterns in the U.S. Studies have analyzed the effect of the pandemic on travel mode, including working from home, but few have focused on automobile ownership—a relationship with potentially long-term consequences for accessibility, household budgets and debt, and policy efforts to meet climate goals.
Refereed Journal Articles
2024
License to Drive: The Effect of State Driver’s Licensing Laws on the Travel of Unauthorized Immigrants
Transportation Research Part A, Volume 187, September 2024Andrew Schouten, Evelyn Blumenberg
Since 1993, eighteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted laws allowing unauthorized immigrants to acquire driver’s licenses. California is one of these states, passing the Safe and Responsible Drive Act (AB 60) in 2013. In this paper, we examine the relationship between the adoption of state driver’s licensing laws for unauthorized immigrants and commute mode—the likelihood of commuting by private vehicle, solo driving, and public transit. We focus on unauthorized Latin American immigrants in California, but also test the robustness of our models both by using additional samples from other states and by employing alternate modeling approaches. We find that AB 60 had a small positive effect on driving rates among unauthorized Latin American immigrants in California, but little or no effect in states outside of California. Results also show a decline in the rate of commuting by public transit after AB 60’s implementation. This drop, however, was modest, and only accounted for a small portion of the larger transit ridership declines in California prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Refereed Journal Articles
2024
Putting Automobile Debt on the Map: Race and the Geography of Automobile Debt in California,” Tr
Transportation Research Part AEvelyn Blumenberg, Fariba Siddiq, Samuel Speroni, Jacob L. Wasserman
Most U.S. metropolitan areas developed alongside the automobile, producing neighborhoods of relatively low density. Consequently, access to opportunities in these neighborhoods is predicated on having an automobile, yet many households do not have the resources to purchase one outright, relying on automobile loans to spread out the purchase price. While automobile loans can enable automobile ownership, they also significantly increase the vehicle purchase price, particularly for non-white consumers subject to discriminatory lending practices.
In this study, we rely on data from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel from Experian to examine the determinants and geography of automobile debt and its consequences in California, testing whether various automobile debt measures disproportionately affect non-white neighborhoods.
We find that, controlling for other factors associated with automobile lending including income, Black and Latino/a neighborhoods have higher total automobile debt, debt burdens (debt relative to income), and automobile loan delinquency rates. In particular, Latino/a neighborhoods shoulder significant automobile debt, while borrowers in Black neighborhoods have the highest delinquency rates. Factors associated with lower total automobile debt and automobile debt burden include better credit ratings, higher residential densities, urban locations, and proximity to rail stations.
The findings underscore the importance of policies to offset the costs of automobile ownership and access. As part of this, policymakers should adopt and enforce fair lending rules to combat discriminatory and predatory practices and facilitate access to high-quality financial institutions and products in communities of color.
Refereed Journal Articles
2023
Vehicle Access and Falling Transit Ridership: Evidence from Southern California
TransportationMichael Manville, Brian D. Taylor, Evelyn Blumenberg, Andrew Schouten
We examine pre-COVID declines in transit ridership, using Southern California as a case study. We first illustrate Southern California’s unique position in the transit landscape: it is a large transit market that demographically resembles a small one. We then draw on administrative data, travel diaries, rider surveys, accessibility indices, and Census microdata for Southern California, and demonstrate a strong association between rising private vehicle access, particularly among the populations most likely to ride transit, and falling transit use. Because we cannot control quantitatively for the endogeneity between vehicle acquisition and transit use, our results are not causal. Nevertheless, the results strongly suggest that increasing private vehicle access helped depress transit ridership. Given Southern California’s similarity to most US transit markets, we conclude that vehicle access may have played a role in transit losses across the US since 2000.
Refereed Journal Articles
2021
Travel in the Digital Age: Vehicle Ownership and Technology-Facilitated Accessibility
Transport PolicyEvelyn Blumenberg, Julene Paul, Gregory Pierce
Despite their negative externalities, cars provide many benefits. Chief among these is the ability to travel to destinations within a reasonable time budget. Consequently, in the U.S. most households—even low-income households—own and use automobiles. But technological innovations may be altering this dynamic. New technology-facilitated services and activities may reduce the advantages of private vehicle ownership, potentially allowing households to live car-free or downsize their household vehicle fleets. In this study we use data from the 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Survey to investigate the relationship between these innovations and vehicle ownership. We find a positive relationship between the use of ridehail and carshare services and the likelihood of being a zero-vehicle household. The data also show a positive relationship between online shopping and working from home and the likelihood of having fewer household vehicles than adults. Combined, the findings suggest that new technology-facilitated activities may allow some households to eliminate or reduce their dependence on privately-owned vehicles. For other households, new technology-facilitated services may not directly affect their decisions about automobile ownership, but rather increase their access to opportunities while easing the financial burden of vehicle ownership. Agencies and organizations should explore opportunities to better connect households—particularly households with travel and financial constraints—to technology-facilitated services and activities that enable improved access.
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.