Anne Brown

A Taste for Transit? Analyzing Public Transit Use Trends among Youth

A Taste for Transit? Analyzing Public Transit Use Trends among Youth Anne E. Brown, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Brian D. Taylor UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Kelcie Ralph Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University Carole Turley Voulgaris UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Abstract 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. Keywords: Millennials, transit use, travel behavior Introduction Over the past decade, there has been much talk about a decline in auto travel among youth. Per-capita driving in the U.S. has dipped, with higher than average declines among teens and young adults (or Millennials, those born between 1980 and 2004), prompting some observers to conclude that youth are “ditching” cars for a more multimodal lifestyle that includes a greater reliance on public transit among other non-auto modes (Ball 2014; Blumenberg et al. 2012; Davis, Dutzik, and Baxandall 2012; Malcolm 2014; McDonald 2015). For example, a recent report published by the TransitCenter (2014) concludes, “The Millennial generation seems to be defying its sheltered, suburban upbringing by delaying the acquisition of a driver’s license and choosing transit. Meanwhile, Baby Boomers, who grew up using transit and Journal of Public Transportation, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2016 49

Travel and the Built Environment: Insights Using Activity Densities, the Sprawl Index, and Neighborhood Types

There are many ways to evaluate the built environment, including measures of observable individual characteristics (such as activity density), continuous composite measures (such as the sprawl index), and categorically measured variables (such as neighborhood types). However, a systematic comparison of how well each of these three measurement types captures the influence of the built environment on travel behavior has not yet been undertaken. This lack presents a quandary for both researchers and practitioners who seek to quantify and describe the effects of the built environment on travel behavior. This paper assesses whether continuous, composite, or categorical measures provide more information and better-fitting models compared with measures of observable individual characteristics across four travel behaviors: vehicle miles traveled, walk trips, transit trips, and trip length. For each travel variable, four multivariate regression models were estimated with various measures of the built environment: activity density, sprawl index, neighborhood type, and combined sprawl index and neighborhood type. Both the sprawl index and the neighborhood-type models outperformed the activity density model. Moreover, a combined model with both the sprawl index and neighborhood types provided the best fit for all four travel behavior variables. These results suggest that both continuous and categorical composite variables provide unique and complementary information about how the built environment influences travel behavior. These findings underscore the importance of researchers’ decisions on how to represent the built environment quantitatively in models, because measurement decisions influence the understanding of how the built environment affects travel behavior.

Rubber Tires for Residents: Bus Rapid Transit and Changing Neighborhoods in Los Angeles, California

Bus rapid transit (BRT), mass transit that provides rail-like service on rubber tires, is gaining popularity in the United States as a lower-cost alternative to rail. Despite its growing popularity and previous research that links rail transit-oriented development to gentrification, the effects of domestic BRT on surrounding neighborhoods remains largely unexplored. This paper fills that gap by exploring neighborhood change around the Los Angeles, California, Orange Line, the most heavily patronized BRT line in the United States between 2000 and 2013. This study found that neighborhoods within a ½-mi radius of Orange Line stations changed more than those located 2 and 5 mi from stations. While neighborhood racial–ethnic compositions remained relatively static, rising median home values, rents, and increasing educational attainment of residents suggest economic transitions and gentrification within Orange Line–adjacent communities. In addition, neighborhoods with lower median rents, lower median household incomes, and higher proportions of renter-occupied housing in 2000 were more likely to exhibit higher degrees of change by 2013 than were other areas. Together, these findings suggest that economic preconditions rather than racial–ethnic makeup are better predictors of neighborhood change and markers of neighborhoods’ potential to gentrify. In addition, these findings demonstrate that transit-oriented gentrification is not modally linked; rather, domestic BRT, like rail, has the potential to change neighborhoods and may do so even without coordinated government investment. Therefore, policy makers must protect and provide affordable housing stock around BRT lines to safeguard incumbent residents from being displaced because of rising housing costs associated with gentrification.

Arguing over Transportation Sales Taxes: An Analysis of Equity Debates in Transportation Ballot Measures:

What’s a fair way to pay for urban transportation? Local option sales taxes (LOSTs) for transportation are an increasingly common mechanism for locally financing transportation in the context of declining federal and state funding. LOSTs are typically regressive, raising equity concerns. But their fairness also depends on who benefits from them, based on which projects are funded, where projects are located, and when investments occur. We examine how perceptions of these four dimensions of equity (income, geographic, temporal, and modal) are represented and debated in the ballot arguments for 38 LOST elections in California. We find that measure supporters use subtle language to imply that proposed expenditure plans achieve equity on all dimensions, promising “something for everyone.” Measure opponents, by contrast, typically attack specific perceived inequities in proposed expenditure plans. We find that tradeoffs among types of equity debated in ballot arguments frame winners and losers across multiple equity dimensions.

Lessons Learned from 40 Years of Local Option Transportation Sales Taxes in California

Jurisdictions across the United States have increasingly turned to local option sales taxes, or LOSTs, to fund transportation projects and programs. California is an enthusiastic adopter of these measures; since 1976, residents in over half of the state’s 58 counties have voted on 76 LOST measures. As of 2017, 24 counties, home to 88% of the state’s population, have LOST measures in place. Many counties have enacted multiple measures, with passage rates especially high among renewal and follow-on measures. This research is the first comprehensive analysis of LOST measures; drawing on measure expenditure plans to determine the range and frequency of transportation projects and services funded. This detailed review of expenditure plans across dozens of urban, suburban, and rural California counties offers insight on these measures and the projects and programs they fund. Overall, this study finds that LOSTs are heterogeneous, often including something for nearly every interest group. Almost all of the measures studied dedicate funding to a mix of transportation modes, including highways, public transit, local road maintenance, and active transportation. Expenditures on particular modes vary, reflecting transportation geography across counties. On average, 60% of LOST expenditures in California fund road projects and over 30% are allocated to public transit. Measures often dedicate a substantially larger share of revenue to transit relative to transit’s mode share. Finally, LOSTs typically appeal to diverse local interests by returning a portion of revenues to local jurisdictions to address local priority projects.

Bridging the Gap between Mobility Haves and Have-Nots

Grace is a single mom with two kids living in Koreatown in Los Angeles. High housing costs have put car ownership out of reach for Grace, so she regularly suffers through a long, complicated morning and afternoon travel grind. Each weekday, she rises at 5:30 a.m. to dress and feed her children and walk them four blocks to her cousin Lydia’s apartment; Lydia then walks Grace’s daughter to daycare and her son to elementary school while Grace makes a seventy-five-minute, two-bus trek from Koreatown to her job as a teacher’s aide in Westchester. The trip home in the afternoon is just as lengthy and complex, and Grace struggles to get dinner on the table for her children by 7:00 p.m. each evening.

Assessing the California Fuel Tax Swap of 2010

In 2010, California replaced its state sales tax on gasoline with an annually adjusted per gallon excise tax designed to produce as much revenue each year as the sales tax did previously. This gas tax swap was intended to (a) relieve the state’s general fund during a period of fiscal emergency by circumventing the narrowly defined transportation purposes for which gasoline sales tax revenues could be legally spent and (b) protect the existing revenue streams for transportation purposes. Experience to date reveals that this experiment has not met its objectives because of unanticipated volatility in the revenue stream resulting from dramatic fuel price fluctuations. Although the new revenues are protected from diversion to nontransportation uses, the unpredictability of such revenue presents many challenges for state transportation planning and programming. Other states considering similar shifts to price-based transportation taxes to address the continuing decline in purchasing power from fixed-rate fuel excise taxes may draw valuable lessons from the California experience.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Media Messaging and Traveler Responses to “Carmageddon” in Los Angeles:

One of the most heavily traveled freeways in the United States closed for construction over weekends in 2011 and 2012. Some public officials publicized the closures by appealing to civic pride whereas others threatened nightmarish delays they dubbed “Carmageddon.” In 2011, contrary to many media predictions, traffic flowed freely at volumes far below normal levels. Our analysis finds that travelers did not switch routes, modes, or trip timing, but instead forewent thousands of trips. Travel behavior changes were far more modest and mixed during the second closure in 2012. Although the lack of traffic problems surprised many public officials, we find traveler responses to both events congruent with past research. Traveler responses to the first event were more dramatic but short-lived, while more modest but durable responses to the second event suggest that travelers learned from, and were perhaps jaded by, the histrionics surrounding the first closure.