Houston ranks poorly on transit access to jobs

72nd out of top 100 metros

Jay Blazek Crossley, May 16, 11.

The Houston region ranks poorly in terms of the number of jobs Houstonians can access via transit, according to a new study from Brooking, as noted by CultureMap.

The study looks at how transit systems are designed as well as how our metropolitan areas have grown, compiling all into the “largest database ever collected in the history of Brookings,” which allows a series of mapping tools allowing users to examine the jobs access via transit of any giving location. Planning local transportation and land use together is key to economic growth, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told an audience at Brookings, according to Streetsblog DC, in a conversation with Bruce Katz of Brookings and US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, as described by New Urban News:

“The cost of putting housing and jobs in the wrong place, relative to transportation, is huge. Not just in environmental costs, not just out of people’s pocketbooks in terms of what they’re spending on their commutes. But economic growth costs over the long term.”

Brookings looked at 371 public transit providers in the top 100 metropolitan regions in the nation, finding the following trends:

- Nearly 70 percent of large metropolitan residents live in neighborhoods with access to transit service of some kind.
- In neighborhoods covered by transit, morning rush hour service occurs about once every 10 minutes for the typical metropolitan commuter.
- The typical metropolitan resident can reach about 30 percent of jobs in their metropolitan area via transit in 90 minutes.
- About one-quarter of jobs in low- and middle-skill industries are accessible via transit within 90 minutes for the typical metropolitan commuter, compared to one-third of jobs in high-skill industries.
- Fifteen of the 20 metro areas that rank highest on a combined score of transit coverage and job access are in the West.

Brookings concludes that local and national policy makers could take the following priorities to create better job access via transit:

These trends have three broad implications for leaders at the local, regional, state, and national levels. Transportation leaders should make access to jobs an explicit priority in their spending and service decisions, especially given the budget pressures they face. Metro leaders should coordinate strategies regarding land use, economic development, and housing with transit decisions in order to ensure that transit reaches more people and more jobs efficiently. And federal officials should collect and disseminate standardized transit data to enable public, private, and non-profit actors to make more informed decisions and ultimately maximize the benefits of transit for labor markets.

Metro Board Member Christof Spieler explained that Houston is on a path precisely to correct this issue in a better way than peer cities like Dallas/Fort Worth, as quoted in CultureMap:

“The three lines under construction and the other two that are well into their design phases are going to make some significant changes on the city. You’re going to have all of the major activity centers in the core. The major destinations, the major universities and a lot of neighborhoods will suddenly be within walking distance of light rail, which means that there are a lot more people who are able to leave the car at home on an average day. The core of the city is going to be connected in a way that it’s never been connected before.
...
I think that we’re building one of the smartest light rail systems in the country,” says Spieler. “It’s very different from what places like Dallas are doing, which is really trying to connect out to the suburbs. We’re building a system that serves the parts of the city that have the highest levels of activity and highest densities of population and employment.”

Brookings Full Report: Missed Opportunity: Transit and Jobs in Metropolitan America (pdf)
Brookings Houston specific report (pdf)