700,000 carless Americans do not have access to transit

32,630 in the Houston region

Jay Blazek Crossley, Aug 24, 11.

700,000 Americans do not have access to a car or public transit near their home, according to a new study from Brookings, and profiled in Streetsblog DC. Over 7 million Americans live in zero-vehicle households, but most of those live in cities with transit access.

The report highlights the Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta regions as having more than their fair share of such households. 122,517 households in the Houston region - 6% of the region - are zero-vehicle households and 32,630 of these do not have access to transit near their home. In the City of Houston, all of which is in the Metro service area, 98% of those without personal vehicles live near a transit stop, whereas in the rest of the Houston region, only 27% of those without personal vehicles do, according to the profile of the Houston region (pdf).

Lack of access to a personal vehicle or transit leaves families with poor access to jobs, according to Brookings:

In the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, 7.5 million households do not have access to a private automobile. A majority of these zero-vehicle households live in cities and earn lower incomes. Conversely, households with vehicles tend to live in suburbs and earn middle or higher incomes. The unique locational and income characteristics of zero-vehicle households reinforce their need for strong transit service.

Over 90 percent of zero-vehicle households in large metropolitan areas live in neighborhoods with access to transit service of some kind. This greatly exceeds the 68 percent coverage rate for households with a vehicle, suggesting transit service aligns with households who rely on it most. However, some 700,000 zero-vehicle households in the 100 largest metro areas lack access to transit.

The typical metropolitan household without a vehicle can reach over 40 percent of metro-wide jobs via transit within 90 minutes, exceeding the 29 percent transit access share for households with a vehicle. The tendency of zero-vehicle households to live in cities contributes to their above-average access to jobs via transit. Unfortunately, limited job access via transit in most metropolitan areas leaves many jobs out of reach for zero-vehicle households.