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Opting Out of Transit: How Does Strong Local Autonomy Impact Allocation of Transit Service in a Multi-Jurisdictional Transit Agency? A Historical Case Study Analysis
Abstract
This study examines how the voluntary nature of local membership in transportation agencies can impact resource allocation, drawing on details from a major US transit agency in a state that lets cities opt in or out of transit agency membership. This study finds significant correlation between local opt-outs and transit service using national data. This study examines the impact opt-outs have on transit resource allocation and decision making over time, their effect on transit service over decades, and equity implications, using historical case study analysis from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system (DART). This study concludes that authorizing legislation allowing local jurisdictions to opt out of transit districts weakens planning capacity, creates a structure making it difficult to allocate scarce transit dollars based on transit need and social equity goals, instead favoring allocation based on satisfying each municipality.
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Regional transportation planning agencies seek to achieve multiple objectives simultaneously including consensus on key issues, compliance with relevant laws and regulations, and improvements in the congestion, air quality, and safety performance of the transportation system. Some performance areas lend themselves well to operationalization while others do not. One area that has received comparatively little study is the assessment of a plan’s impacts on environmental justice and social equity. Although research on regional planning usually emphasizes larger metropolitan areas and agencies, these issues are especially relevant in smaller regions where planners lack the capacity for innovation and careful analysis. Further, the transit services on which disadvantaged populations depend are often lacking or non-existent in less-populated regions. Understanding how planners in these locations undertake social equity-related analyses and providing suggestions for improvement is thus an important endeavor. While prior work has assessed whether, and to what extent, equity objectives are included in plans, there are few detailed investigations of the key analytical choices that shape equity outcomes. This paper fills this important research gap, providing such an analysis of existing practice in a largely rural region in California, the San Joaquin Valley, as well as recommendations for future analyses aimed at improving the consistency between equity analyses and the real-world impacts of transportation plans.
The goal of this study is to develop and apply a new method for assessing social equity impacts of distance-based public transit fares. Shifting to a distance-based fare structure can disproportionately favor or penalize different subgroups of a population based on variations in settlement patterns, travel needs, and most importantly, transit use. According to federal law, such disparities must be evaluated by the transit agency, but the area-based techniques identified by the Federal Transit Authority for assessing discrimination fail to account for disparities in distances travelled by transit users. This means that transit agencies currently lack guidelines for assessing the social equity impacts of replacing flat fare with distance-based fare structures. Our solution is to incorporate a joint ordinal/continuous model of trip generation and distance travelled into a GIS Decision Support System. The system enables a transit planner to visualize and compare distance travelled and transit-cost maps for different population profiles and fare structures. We apply the method to a case study in the Wasatch Front, Utah, where the Utah Transit Authority is exploring a switch to a distance-based fare structure. The analysis reveals that overall distance-based fares benefit low-income, elderly, and non-white populations. However, the effect is geographically uneven, and may be negative for members of these groups living on the urban fringe.
This study uses multiple measures of fragmentation and decentralization to assess the effects of these conditions on total local spending in 126 metropolitan regions and 538 counties in the same regions in 2002. The measures are derived from a recognized scheme that distinguishes among total, horizontal, and vertical dimensions of these conditions, and the models control for other causes of total local spending, including sprawl and interlocal spending. The study finds support for the claim that total spending by local governments is higher in regions and counties with more single purpose governments (vertical fragmentation), but also jurisdictions where a greater percentage of spending is done by counties (centralization). Findings also vary by unit of analysis and type of special purpose government, which suggests that the effects of governing structure are not as straightforward as theory suggests.
Belief that transportation investment and operations have caused environmental damage in poor and minority communities to benefit the more affluent has prompted planning agencies to craft policies aimed at promoting environmental justice. Yet, we have only scattered evidence about the distribution of the costs and benefits derived from transportation policy, investment, and planning. This article creates a framework based in distributive justice for categorizing the existing research into cost-based and benefit-based claims of injustice. The authors go on to synthesize the cost-based research, which measures the distribution of pollution and hazards from transportation. From this survey, myriad research opportunities emerge.
Political fragmentation in metropolitan regionsmakesequitable and efficient delivery of public servicesdifficult. Regionalism, although promoted asmore equitable and rational, hasfound limited political support. Public choice theory argues, against regionalism, that political frag- mentation can promote competition and efficiency by creating markets for public services. The authors assess the efficacy of market solutions for metropolitan public service provision by com- paring privatization with intermunicipal cooperation and evaluating each on efficiency, equity, and democracy grounds. Using probit regression analysis of a national survey of local govern- ment service delivery from 1992 and 1997, the authorsfind that both alternativespromote effi- ciency, but equity and voice are more associated with intermunicipal cooperation than privatization.
Transportation improvements inevitably lead to an uneven distribution of user benefits, in space and by network type (private and public transport). This paper makes a moral argument for what would be a fair distribution of these benefits. The argument follows Walzer’s “Spheres of Justice” approach to define the benefits of transportation, access, as a sphere deserving a separate, non-market driven, distribution. That distribution, we propose, is one where the maximum gap between the lowest and highest accessibility, both by mode and in space, should be limited, while attempting to maximize average access. We then review transportation planning practice for a-priori distributional goals and find little explicit guidance in conventional and even justice-oriented transportation planning and analyses. We end with a discussion of the implications for practice.
While distributive aspects have been a topic of discussion in relation to cost-benefit analysis (CBA), little systematic thought has been given in the CBA literature to the focus of such an equity analysis in evaluating transport projects. The goal of the paper is to provide an overview of the various directions an equity analysis, carried out within the context of a social cost-benefit analysis, could take. The paper starts from the widely-shared definition of distributive justice: the morally proper distribution of goods and bads over members of society. Following this definition, carrying out an equity analysis requires that decisions are made about: (1) the benefits and costs that are distributed through a transport project; (2) the members of society between whom benefits and costs are distributed; and (3) the distributive principle that determines whether a particular distribution is fair. Much of the discussions about cost-benefit analysis and equity do not address these questions in any systematic way. The paper aims to provide a framework. Three sets of benefits and costs are identified as a possible focus of an equity analysis: (1) net benefits; (2) mobility-enhancing benefits; and (3) individual benefits and costs. For each set, a discussion follows regarding the way in which members of societies could be divided into meaningful groups, as well as the possible yardstick for judging whether a certain distribution is fair. While the paper acknowledges that the choice between the three sets is ultimately a political decision, it ends with a set of arguments that suggest that the equity analysis of transport projects should focus first and foremost on the mobility-enhancing benefits generated by such projects.
This paper provides guidance on incorporating equity impacts into transportation planning. It defines various types of equity, discusses ways of evaluating equity , and describes practical ways of incorporating equity objectives into decision-making. "Equity" refers to the fairness with which impacts (benefits and costs) are distributed. Transportation decisions often have significant equity impacts. Transport equity analysis can be difficult because there are several types of equity, numerous impacts to consider, various ways to categorize people for analysis, and many ways of measuring impacts. Equity analysis should usually consider a variety of perspectives and impacts.
Americans are increasingly mobile and ever more reliant on automobiles for meeting their travel needs; this trend developed primarily as a result of transportation policies adopted after World War II that emphasized highway development over public transportation. These and other transportation policies have had inequitable impacts on minority and low-income populations and often restricted their ability to access social and economic opportunities, including job opportunities, education, health care services, and locations such as grocery stores. Transportation policies limit access to opportunities through direct effects, such as inequitable costs, and indirect effects, such as residential segregation. Some indirect effects are caused in part by the combined effects of transportation policies and land use practices. Areas where transportation policies have inequitable impacts are identified. In addition, existing research in the area is briefly examined, and highlighted is the critical need for more research and data collection related to the impact of transportation policies on minority and low-income communities
Urban sprawl has evolved into an exceptionally complex public policy problem in the United States over the course of recent decades. One factor that has made it particularly difficult to deal with is its relationship to the fragmented structure of the American system of land use governance. Acting on behalf of their residents, local governments enact land use regulations to secure lifestyle preferences for low density, suburban living environments while at the same time ensuring a high quality of public service provision. This article examines the effect of this process on metropolitan spatial structure through a series of econometric models designed to test the following hypothesis: that fragmentation promotes sprawl by increasing the proportion of growth that occurs at the unincorporated urban fringe. The estimation results reveal substantive evidence that municipal fragmentation and several related factors - including special districts, infrastructure investments, and white flight processes - have a significant and enduring effect on the growth of outlying areas. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2003
One of the principle criticisms of urban sprawl is that it undermines the cost-effective provision of public services. In this paper the authors examine whether or not this is true through an exploratory analysis of the influence that alternative development patterns have on twelve measures of public expenditure: total direct, capital facilities, roadways, other transportation, sewerage, trash collection, housing and community development, police protection, fire protection, parks, education, and libraries. The objectives of the analysis are threefold. First, the authors, through a background discussion, provide a brief overview of previous research on the relationship between urban development patterns and the cost of public services. Second, through empirical analysis, they examine how the character of urban development affects per capita public outlays in a cross-section of 283 metropolitan counties during the 1982 - 92 time period. A separate equation is estimated for each measure of expenditure, providing substantive evidence on how density, the spatial extent of urbanized land area, property value, and political fragmentation affect the cost of services. Finally, the authors use the results of the empirical analysis to develop a set of policy recommendations and directions for future research.
The distribution of transportation benefits is mediated through planning professionals and elected officials, who frame the goals of these investments and can prioritize the importance of fairness in decision-making. Despite increasing evidence of the importance of transportation equity, there are broad questions about how equity principles factor into planning processes. This work provides an empirical analysis of the role of transit equity in planning for BRT investments in three Canadian metropolitan areas. Our findings show that transit equity rarely figured into the design and planning of BRT systems and there is a lack of clarity in both defining equity and determining how it should be integrated in planning processes. Most definitions of transit equity focused on the equal distribution of resources for all groups, rather than consideration of transit-dependent riders. Equity outcomes were also in conflict with other goals, as BRT systems were viewed largely as a tool for encouraging development and focused on attracting car drivers to transit. This paper argues that there needs to be a better understanding of the values and priorities of those involved in professional and political decision-making processes if transit equity goals are to be realized.
The water crisis that has embroiled Flint, Michigan, since 2014 is often explained via the proximate causes of government oversight and punitive emergency management. While these were critical elements in the decision to switch the city's water source, many other forces helped precipitate the crisis. One such force has been an enduring support for Charles Tiebout's model of interlocal competition, through which a region is presumed stronger when fragmented, independent municipalities compete for residents and investment. However, the Tiebout model fails to account for spillover effects, particularly regarding questions of social and regional equity. In this sense, the fragmentation of the Flint metropolitan region - supported through a variety of housing and land use policies over many decades - created the conditions through which suburbs were absolved of responsibility for Flint's decades-long economic crisis. Because of the Tiebout model's inability to address imbalances in population shifts arising from disparities in municipal services, Flint's more affluent suburbs continued to prosper, while Flint grew poorer and experienced infrastructure decline. Underlying this pattern of inequality has been a long history of racial segregation and massive deindustrialization, which concentrated the region's black population in the economically depressed central city. The Flint Water Crisis is thus a classic example of an environmental injustice, as policies were set in motion, which led to the creation of a politically separate and majority-black municipality with concentrated poverty, while nearby municipalities - most of them overwhelmingly white - accepted little responsibility for the legacy costs created by the region's starkly uneven patterns of metropolitan development.
The survey was distributed to all MPOs and DOTs. Results cover a broad range of topics, including the state of practice, governance structures, planning approaches, general obstacles to megaregion planning and decision making, and finance. Megaregion-scale projects and cross-jurisdiction initiatives, whether contained within previously identified megaregions or extended beyond these geographic designations, received similar ratings of effectiveness. The Cascadia megaregion reported the highest percentage of organizations with cross-jurisdiction initiatives; the Midwest reported the highest absolute number. Planning and decision making within the megaregion were characterized by numerous actors interacting through largely informal or ad hoc processes with contested leadership. That partner roles were unclear likely increased uncertainty and transaction costs. Responses indicated that inadequate funding was one of the largest obstacles to megaregion planning. Funding was stagnant for DOTs and especially for MPOs. Practitioners did not appear to be optimistic about innovative funding methods that would fill gaps in megaregion transportation planning. Finally, governance networks were densest within states, but large MPOs, DOTs, and federal agencies may play a bridging role among states. Future research may focus on decreasing transaction costs, overcoming funding obstacles, and promoting dense interstate governance networks.
Local government boundaries play an important role in the governance of metropolitan areas by defining local electorates and tax bases and the scope of local regulatory powers and service responsibilities. Yet, the close association of local powers with local boundaries generates spillovers, fiscal disparities, and interlocal conflicts. Real local autonomy is constrained but the local government system fails to provide a means for addressing regional problems. Public choice theorists and political decentralizationists oppose regional governments because of the threat to local autonomy that would result from removing powers from local hands. Richard Briffault's solution to the metropolitan governance problem is a "mixed strategy" that would both reduce the significance of existing local boundaries and create elected regionally bounded governments to address matters of regional significance. In his regime, small local governments would remain units for local decisionmaking. But regional political institutions, with regional land use and fiscal powers, would provide an opportunity for regionwide deliberation, popular participation in decisions of regional significance, and the framing and implementation of policies addressed to the needs of the region as a whole.
This article discusses the common-pool problems that arise when multiple territorially overlapping governments share the authority to provide services and levy taxes in a common geographic area. Contrary to the traditional Tiebout model in which increasing the number of competing governments improves efficiency, I argue that increasing the number of overlapping governments results in “overfishing” from the shared tax base. I test the model empirically using data from U.S. counties and find a strong positive relationship between the number of overlapping jurisdictions and the size of the local public sector. Substantively, the “overlap effect” amounts to roughly 10% of local revenue.
An equitable transit system can cater to the needs of captive riders and maximize transit service coverage. Historically transit equity has not considered in planning or has been an afterthought in the process; leading to the underutilization of transit and encouraging travelers to be auto dependent. In this paper, the authors propose a methodology to estimate transit equity using a number of attributes such as frequency, speed, capacity, and built environment in a multi-modal transit network. We propose a methodology to measure transit equity from a graph theoretical approach for all levels of transit service coverage integrating routes, schedules, socio-economic, demographic and spatial activity patterns.
The objective of using equity is to quantify and evaluate transit service in terms of prioritizing transit locations for funding; conforming with federal regulations; providing service delivery strategies, especially for areas with large multi-jurisdictional, multi-modal transit networks; providing an indicator of multi-level transit capacity for planning purposes and assessing the effectiveness and efficiency for node/stop prioritization while choosing transit as a mode of travel. The methodology uses a stylized connectivity measure with a Gini index for equity estimation at different levels such as stop, line, zone and area. An example problem is presented to demonstrate the proposed methodology. The approach is then applied to the Washington–Baltimore region in the United States. The results show the existing transit service coverage at different locations. The proposed approach can be utilized as a tool for transit service planning.
Transportation touches almost every aspect of our lives and plays a pivotal role in shaping human interactions, economic mobility, and sustainability. Transportation provides access to opportunity and serves as a key component in addressing poverty, unemployment, and equal opportunity goals. This article examines the inequity that exists in the United States when it comes to transit, as the benefits from transportation advancements and investments are not distributed equally among communities, making transportation equity an issue of civil rights and social justice. This article frames transportation issues as a continuation of the civil rights movement and the wrestling with differential treatment that goes back to Plessy v. Ferguson and later Brown v. Board of Education and Rosa Parks. Communities today are disadvantaged when it comes to investments, enhancements and access to transportation resources, detailed in the article in various examples of disparate transportation spending. Measures taken to erase transportation inequities, including government response and fallout from the environmental justice movement attempt to eliminate unequal enforcement of the nation’s transportation systems and policies and combat burgeoning issues such as suburban sprawl and the shift of many jobs to the suburbs where public transportation is inadequate. Transportation continues to be divided along racial lines, but it is a key ingredient in building economically viable and sustainable communities and with the policy recommendations detailed in the article’s conclusion, these inequities can be addressed.
Nearly all transportation policy debates concern money, and nearly all transportation finance debates concern equity. To some, this second assertion may seem puzzling, even counterintuitive. But the way public officials think of equity in transportation finance is far different from that of most social scientists or transportation planners. Equity gets defined differently by different interests at different times. This article examines transportation pricing and finance equity from a variety of perspectives to clarify what can be a fuzzy and confusing issue. The authors distinguish transportation finance and pricing equity from other forms of transportation equity and then discuss several competing theories of equity long debated by social philosophers. These theories serve as a basis for understanding the complex and often inconsistent notions of fairness that the public and elected officials have regarding the distribution of public resources and particularly transportation investments. Given these competing theories of equity, the authors argue that most conflicts over transportation pricing and finance are rooted in philosophical differences over justice and equity and differing notions of the appropriate units of analysis—individuals, groups, or jurisdictions—for evaluating equity. Accordingly, the authors offer an analytical framework to help planners and policy makers untangle these two issues. This framework transcends the philosophical characterizations of equity to allow for a more practical consideration of transportation finance and pricing fairness. They conclude with a discussion of the lessons offered by some recent debates in transportation pricing and finance for decision makers searching for a fair price for transportation.
This article describes the misuse of land-use and ridership forecasts by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). DART made extensive use of clearly unrealistic land-use forecasts and optimistic ridership forecasts in its unsuccessful efforts to obtain voter approval for a 91-mile rail transit system. When alternative analyses indicated that the proposed $2.6 billion rail system would carry only slightly more riders than an unimproved bus system, DART tried to conceal the information. Subsequently, when a citizen's group obtained the release of these unfavorable findings, DART attempted to mislead voters about their significance and released cost-effectiveness analyses based on earlier, and clearly incorrect, ridership forecasts. -Author
Public policy decisions are increasingly made by regional governance efforts that involve diverse decision makers from multiple government units within a geographic region. These decision-making bodies face competing pressures to represent regional and local interests. We study how decision makers balance preferences for regionalism and localism within metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), the policymaking entities that are responsible for implementing U.S. federal surface transportation policy at the regional level. Our model of regional governance relates variation in regional policy outcomes to the incentives of MPO decision makers and the institutional environments in which they interact. Analyzing data from a sample of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, we find that MPOs dominated by elected officials produce more locally focused policies, holding other factors constant, while MPOs dominated by nonelected public managers produce more regionally oriented policies. Contextual factors, as well as the regional governance institutions themselves, further shape the balance between regionalism and localism.
Abstract For all its rhetorical appeal, the meaning of local autonomy remains opaque. Local autonomy is desired by the left and the right, yet is compromised by many laws administered by higher tiers of the state. In this paper I propose a theory of autonomy, premised upon two principles of power derived from Bentham: immunity and initiative. The former refers here to the power of localities to function free from the oversight authority of higher tiers of the state. The latter principle refers to the power of localities to legislate and regulate the behavior of residents. I describe a fourfold taxonomy of autonomy and draw implications regarding the assumptions of current theories of local government power. Finally, an example from Illinois illustrates the theory.
Much of the research on the distribution of federal assistance focuses on the activities of members of Congress. Yet it has been long understood that seeking and receiving federal aid programs by state and local governments is a costly activity. What is not understood nor carefully studied is how local jurisdictions attempt to “work” the federal aid system to obtain increased federal funding. To investigate this question, we draw upon theories of collective action among governmental jurisdictions within metropolitan areas to explain both the quantity and quality of participation in the federal aid system. We focus on four questions: (1) To what extent is governmental fragmentation and interjurisdictional collaboration among governmental jurisdictions within metropolitan areas positively related to the ability of local actors to secure new federal grant awards? (2) To what extent do congressional delegations that represent voters within metropolitan areas influence the flow of grant awards to those areas? (3) To what extent are the efforts of congressional delegations to secure new grants conditional on partisan factors, both nationally and at the local level? (4) Do the effects of cooperative grant seeking endeavors vary across different types of grant programs? The single most important finding is that interlocal cooperation and governmental structure within metropolitan areas matter significantly in the distribution of federal assistance.
This article examines whether greater fragmentation in local government improves efficiency. Tiebout (1956) “exiting” is the general theoretical underpinning for the belief that fragmentation should improve efficiency. The article argues that previous evidence for the greater efficiency of fragmented government is weak because the complex nature of many local government systems is not consistent with the institutional structures supposed in the models and does not allow for simple testing. Using evidence from England where institutional structures more closely resemble those in the Tiebout model, efficiency is analyzed both at the jurisdictional and metropolitan level in a straightforward manner. No evidence for the supposed positive effects of fragmentation is found. Voice mechanisms may explain why fiscal mobility does not lead to efficiency in the fragmented system of metropolitan England.
This paper presents a framework for examining the ways in which technical aspects of the regional transportation planning process are changing in response to a broadening of goals and strategies, driven in part by an increased emphasis on public involvement. As an illustration of this framework, the long-range plans of four Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the US are analyzed with respect to goals, performance measures, and use of forecasts. These examples suggest that changes in the technical aspects of the process are lagging changes in planning goals. As a result, plans may implicitly emphasize congestion relief even if they put forth a much broader range of goals. This paper provides a basis for further analysis of the current evolution of transportation planning in the US.
Transportation scholars are challenging traditional formulations of the spatial mismatch hypothesis because previous studies have disregarded the considerable difference between travel modes. This case study of the Detroit metropolitan region uses 2000 census data and a gravity-based model of transportation accessibility to test differences in access to jobs among places and people, and provides support for recent calls for reconceptualizing spatial mismatch. It shows that even though Detroit experiences the greatest distance between African Americans and jobs of any region in the country, most central city neighborhoods offer an advantage in accessibility to jobs compared to most other places in the metropolitan region – as long as a resident has a car. Policies aimed at helping carless people gain access to automobiles may be an effective means of improving the employment outcomes of inner-city residents.
Over the course of this century, public transit systems in the U.S. have lost most of the market share of metropolitan travel to private vehicles. The two principal markets that remain for public transit systems are downtown commuters and transit dependents - people who are too young, too old, too poor, or physically unable to drive. Despite the fact that transit dependents are the steadiest customers for most public transit systems, transit policy has tended to focus on recapturing lost markets through expanded suburban bus, express bus and fixed rail systems. Such efforts have collectively proven expensive and only marginally effective. At the same time, comparatively less attention and few resources tend to be devoted to improving well-patronized transit service in low-income, central-city areas serving a high proportion of transit dependents. This paper explores this issue through an examination of both the evolving demographics of public transit ridership, and the reasons for shifts in transit policies toward attracting automobile users onto buses and trains. We conclude that the growing dissonance between the quality of service provided to inner-city residents who depend on local buses and the level of public resources being spent to attract new transit riders is both economically inefficient and socially inequitable. In light of this, we propose that transportation planners concerned with social justice (and economic efficiency) should re-examine current public transit policies and plans.
Dallas suburbs’ vote could derail $2.45 billion transit system
- D Ewing
Would you ride the DART light rail system as agency envisioned it in 1983? The Dallas Morning News
- B Formby
DART considers letting more cities aboard at lower cost. The Dallas News
- M A Lindenberger
Can DART be saved? D-Magazine. Author
- K Bauman
- B Bancroft
Forward Dallas! Comprehensive Plan
- Dallas City Of
Is government consolidation the answer?
- B S Jimenez
- R Hendrick
HB 657, 65th regular session
- Texas Legislature
Overcoming local barriers to regional transportation: Understanding transit system fragmentation from an institutionalist framework (CTEDD 017-08)
- D Weinreich
- T Skuzinski
- S Hamidi
Megaregion planning: State of practice in metropolitan planning organizations and state departments of transportation
- C Ross
- P Hylton
- D Lee
Transit sales and use tax
- Texas Comptroller
SB 642, 63rd regular session
- Texas Legislature
SB 1079, 66th regular session
- Texas Legislature