The Spatial Dilemma of Sustainable Transportation and Just Affordable Housing

This project examines the spatial distribution of tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) units and Low-income Housing Tax Credit units to understand whether geographic patterns and trends are consistent with climate change and equity goals. The analysis compares the location of HCV and LIHTC units in 2012 and net changes from 2012 to 2019 with a number of transportation, environmental, and racial and economic equity metrics. The change in HCV units from 2012 to 2019 shows promising trends for reducing vehicle miles traveled and increasing walkability and transit accessibility. LIHTC unit locations are, at best, somewhat more sustainable than the state overall, with slightly lower-skewing vehicle miles traveled and better walkability, though low transit accessibility. What environmental gains there were, though, come at the cost of higher exposure to pollution. HCV and LIHTC units are also concentrated in disproportionately low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, with worse access to economic opportunity. The findings reveal an inherent structural dilemma in whether the HCV and LIHTC programs are able to simultaneously achieve climate and equity goals.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:18-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Sources of and Gaps in Data for Understanding Public Transit Ridership

This project presents and reviews the available sources of data on public transit riders and ridership, as a resource for those who manage or simply wish to understand U.S. transit. In conducting this review, the researchers consider the advantages and disadvantages of publicly available data on transit from a variety of public and private sources, as well the relatively scarcer and less available sources of data on other providers of shared mobility, like ride-hail services, that compete with and complement public transit and pieces missing from the transit analytics pie. Data gaps both align with existing inequities and enable them to continue, unmeasured, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made closing these gaps all the more important.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:20-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Tracks to California’s Transportation Future

This project for the California 100 initiative examines transportation in California: where we are today, how we got here, and where we might be headed. We begin with facts on travel and transportation systems in California today. We next explore the decades of public and private land development and transportation systems that have shaped the current state of play: today’s transportation problems stem, in significant part, from yesterday’s land use decisions. We then consider factors that have either recently come to the fore or are likely to emerge in the near future. We review possible context-specific reforms to reshape transportation in the state, in order to better manage vehicle travel and reduce chronic congestion, shift patterns of development to make them less car-dependent, and increase access for all. Finally, we summarize the findings from a diverse panel of transportation experts convened to explore the possibilities, pitfalls, and implications of four possible future transportation and land use scenarios for California.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:19-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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How People Move: Analyzing Travel of Vulnerable Populations in Los Angeles

The costs and benefits of the transportation system are distributed unequally, leading to people receiving less access to opportunities. This report sought to understand how this issue plays out within Los Angeles County by analyzing trends in transportation patterns across race/ethnicity, income, gender, age, ability, and geography.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:19-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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California Local Option Sales Taxes for Transportation during the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected transportation systems, including the ability of localities to pay for them. This project explores the effects of the pandemic and the associated economic turbulence on local option sales taxes (LOSTs), an increasingly common revenue source for transportation in California and across the U.S. During times of economic weakness, spending and therefore LOST revenues will lag—the pattern in California counties during the initial months of the pandemic. Fortunately for local transportation budgets, LOST revenues recovered after the initial economic shock of COVID-19, albeit at a lower level than they likely would have otherwise. LOST revenue trends during the pandemic were affected by national and regional economic conditions and government policy as well. This public health crisis illustrates both the pitfalls and resilience of LOSTs during economic downturns and recoveries.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:19-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Homelessness in Transit Environments

More than half a million individuals experience homelessness every night in the U.S. With the scale of the crisis often surpassing the capacities of existing safety nets — all the more so since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — many turn to transit vehicles, stops, and stations for shelter. Many also use transit to reach destinations such as workplaces, shelters, and community service centers. This project investigates the intersections of the pandemic, transit, and homelessness; the scale of homelessness on transit; and how transit agencies are responding to the problem. All told, centering the mobility and wellbeing of unhoused riders fits within transit’s social service role and is important to improving outcomes for them and for all riders.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:19-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Mobility, Accessibility and Disadvantaged Neighborhoods: Assessing Diversity in Transportation-Related Needs and Opportunities

To understand the nature and magnitude of commonalities and differences among neighborhoods in mobility and access to opportunities, the project will construct and analyze tract-level and transportation-mode-specific accessibility indicators to employment, quality elementary schools, and primary health care.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:19-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Professional Drivers: Automobile Debt and Financial Support during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This project synthesizes three primary data sources—credit data, unemployment claims data, and small business loan and grant data—to explore the financial conditions of those who drive for a living before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in California. Automobile debt was high among groups likely to contain professional drivers. The occupational categories in which many drivers fall had high absolute and relative levels of automobile debt compared to other workers. After the onset of the pandemic, unemployment rose dramatically in the transportation industry and in transportation occupations, peaking at rates higher than the national average. However, state unemployment claims data, among transportation employee claimants only, show less of a spike. Contractor drivers lived in areas with more Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims, a special program for self-employed workers like gig drivers. Finally, contractor drivers received unprecedented but uneven federal small business loans and grants. Drivers in many areas, however, did not receive much or any of these funds, though those areas that did tended to have more residents of color. Assessing the full effect of the pandemic on professional drivers’ debt and finances will require additional and better data, particularly workforce data from gig economy firms that contract with drivers.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:18-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Guardrails on Priced Lanes: Promoting Efficiency While Protecting Equity

The project’s ultimate goal is threefold. First, we will deliver a broad but accurate and relevant snapshot of vulnerable travelers in California. Second, we will use that information to carefully consider how different forms of congestion pricing might improve or degrade equity. Third and most important, we will use lessons from other safety net programs, and particularly those operating in the utility industry in California, to propose specific safeguards for poor and marginalized populations that can be built into congestion charging programs. We examine the fairness implications of congestion pricing and propose policy mechanisms to mitigate its potential unfair outcomes. Our project first empirically establishes the broad contours of travel by vulnerable populations in California’s major metropolitan areas. We then examine particular forms of congestion charging, and evaluate how they might affect equity. Finally and most importantly, we draw on models of the guardrails instituted by other public utilities to illustrate ways to have congestion pricing while still protecting low-income travelers.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:18-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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Needed Skills in the Transportation Workforce, in the Context of New and Emerging Technologies and Approaches

The United States' transportation workforce is currently at a skills deficit in key areas. New and innovative transportation technologies and approaches threaten to exacerbate this situation. Yet, transportation workers need more than skills to implement new technologies: they need the skills to critically determine which technologies are likely to support a thriving nation and under what conditions. Additionally, transportation workers need the skills to support non-technology-focused solutions to the nation's transportation challenges, including cultural, political, and social change.

By |2025-04-17T23:06:18-07:00April 17th, 2025|
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