Projects

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Los Angeles County has spent tens of billions of dollars to build over 100 miles of rail transit, but today per capita transit ridership is 40 percent lower than before rail construction began. One reason for this startling failure is that LA remains overwhelmingly laid out for the automobile: it is a low-density, parking-heavy landscape where the built environment is not conducive to transit use. Our analysis will compare costs, project timelines, and community benefits of by-right and nearby discretionary projects. We will estimate reductions in project costs and time to market resulting from by-right approvals and compare benefits by assessing differences in affordable units provided by developers. This analysis will be used to project impacts to housing affordability and availability near transit, with estimated mobility impacts that could result, including changes to transit usage and vehicle-miles traveled.

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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.

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