The Distributive Politics of American Transit: A SpatialApproach

Clayton Nall, Assistant Professor, Department of Political ScienceJoint work with Prof. Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University

RAs: Jonas Kemp (Stanford), Jillian Jaeger (BU)

November 19, 2013

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Question

Longstanding literature on “spatial mismatch”: urban poor, usuallyminorities, isolated from suburban jobs (Kain 1968, Wilson 1990)

Daily mobility is essential to economic/social opportunity

Political scientists study distributive politics of transportation, butonly look at $, not mobility

How does the structure of transportation networks

increase/decrease effects of neighborhood racial and incomesegregation?increase/decrease the mobility advantages enjoyed by automobiledrivers

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Strategy: Analyze Transit and Highway Drive Times

We exploit two GIS data sources to answer these questions:

Google Transit Feed Specification [GTFS] dataGIS data on automobile travel times

Previous research: A counterintuitive set of communities have goodtransit coverage (Brookings, 2010), but transit users disadvantaged vscars

What is the value of the automobile “premium” (transit:auto traveltime ratio)?

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General [Google] Transit Feed Specification Data

The relational database underlying Google Transit search in GoogleMaps

A simple set of data tables with routes, stops, stop times, stoplocations

Analyze in ArcGIS Network Analyst and GTFS Network Tools toestimate travel times from poor neighborhoods to remainder ofmetropolitan area

Apply the same analysis using auto driving speeds on the streetnetwork

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Analyzing Transit and Road Data in ArcGIS

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Street Network with Estimated Travel Times

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Bring in Driving and Walk Times

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Focus on Mobility for One Area: SF’s Tenderloin District

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Analyzing Transit and Road Data in ArcGIS

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GTFS Analysis Software

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Analyzing Transit and Road Data in ArcGIS

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15-Min Service Area for Tenderloin District

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30-Min Service Area for Tenderloin District

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Constructing Comparable Service Areas for Automobiles

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15-Min and 30-Min Service Area for Car Travel

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The Point-to-Point Automobile Premium in Major Cities

MSA Start End Transit Car Transit:Car(mins) (mins) Ratio

SF-OAK W Oakland SF Fin Dist 28 17 1.6SF-OAK Tenderloin SFO 36 21 1.7

NYC Harlem Wall St 34 20 1.7NYC Bronx Midtown 51 22 2.3ATL Adamsville Emory U 80 27 3.0DAL Cedar Crest DFW Airport 108 31 3.5DAL Cedar Crest Downtown 56 14 4.0

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Ongoing Research Projects Based on the Data

Measure the advantages enjoyed by automobile drivers, by metro area(with Katie Einstein)

Assess how political organization of metro transit systems affectsmobility of the urban and suburban poor

For related projects: http://www.nallresearch.com

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