Public Transportation

Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) project H-39, “Methodology for Determining the Economic Development Impacts of Transit Projects,” was aimed at developing a method for transit agencies to assess whether and under what circumstances transit investments have economic benefits that are in addition to land development stimulated by travel time savings. It addresses the productivity increases associated with agglomeration economies—economies of scale in density—that may be caused by transit improvements. The authors reviewed existing evaluation practices and academic research,...

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being widely tested and piloted to carry passengers and freight. However, the potential uses and impacts of AVs in communities are uncertain. There are claims that AVs may be able to improve road safety, make travel more convenient, lower shipping costs, and reduce the need for automobile parking. But there are also concerns that AVs may increase road congestion, reduce transit ridership, compete for curb space, and even increase urban sprawl. To better understanding how cities and regions are currently engaging with and planning for AVs, twenty interviews...

Although a significant fraction of public transit riders in the United States are immigrants, relatively little research explores whether immigrants have unique transit experiences. This paper analyzes intercept survey data from 1,247 transit riders in the San Francisco Bay Area to explore how mode choices and travel experiences differ for low-income immigrants compared to higher-income immigrants and US-born residents. We find that some public transit experiences are similar across all immigrant status and income groups, while in other ways low-income immigrants differ from their higher-...

Latin American immigrants will continue to make up a large share of transit ridership, bicycling and walking in the United States for the foreseeable future, but there is relatively little research about them. This mixed-methods study compares the travel patterns of low-income immigrants living in the San Francisco Bay Area with that of other groups and investigates the barriers and constraints faced by low-income immigrants when taking transit and bicycling. Much of the previous work on immigrant travel has relied on national surveys and qualitative analysis, which underrepresent...