The current COVID-19 pandemic has created unique transportation challenges for cities and states. This includes everything from maintaining transit with plummeting ridership to facing a needed economic recovery with major decreases in the taxes that pay for transportation maintenance and improvements. With the CARES Act passed and more stimulus and recovery funding being considered, the national experience with the ARRA funding from the last recession might hold lessons for how to jump-start the economy and job creation.
jobs
Accessibility analysis highlights transit deficiencies in New Orleans
The average transit user in New Orleans can access only a fraction of the opportunities that drivers can, according to a local advocacy group, and recent transit investments aren’t helping much. The group, Ride New Orleans, just released its annual State of Transit 2018 report, which includes an analysis of the number of jobs accessible by car and by transit within 30 minutes. They found that the average transit user can only reach 12 percent of the region’s jobs within 30 minutes, compared to 89 percent for drivers.
Extending opportunity & promoting equity through apprenticeship
Apprenticeships build skills, extend opportunity, and confront the coming wave of retirements. The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, with Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 265, created the Joint Workforce Investment to address just this within their transit workforce. The project has grown and created pathways for non-traditional workers, such as people of color and women, through several apprenticeship programs that are successfully building a transit workforce for the future that reflects the diverse community of Silicon Valley.
Will advances in autonomous technology degrade job quality in the trucking industry?
While advances in autonomous technology may net additional jobs in the trucking sector, without thoughtful public policy and a commitment to equitable private practices, they may end up being some of the worst the industry has to offer, and come at the expense of jobs at the higher-end of the pay spectrum, so says a new report by University of Pennsylvania researcher Steve Viscelli.
Among other barriers, low-wage workers face discrimination based on commute distance
Along with lack of access to transportation options in areas outside the urban core, low-wage workers also face another obstacle in finding work. Discrimination by commute distance is significant when applying for low-wage jobs, concludes a new study. Affluence and long commutes, however, may not affect decisions to call applicants back.
Among other barriers, low-wage workers face discrimination based on commute distance
Along with lack of access to transportation options in areas outside the urban core, low-wage workers also face another obstacle in finding work. Discrimination by commute distance is significant when applying for low-wage jobs, concludes a new study. Affluence and long commutes, however, may not affect decisions to call applicants back.
Equitable access to opportunity: The growing distance between people and jobs
Recent studies show that travel times and costs for all commuters are increasing, particularly in the past five years, and a recent Citi Premier commuter index documents average commuting costs. These costs are regressive in nature, creating a particular burden for lower-income commuters, who are much more likely to live farther from employment and have long commutes and travel times, regardless of mode. The inequitable impacts of this challenge manifests in lost opportunity for lower-income commuters.
Geographic preference in FHWA and FTA contracting—balancing competition with local hiring preferences
Transportation projects have the potential to stimulate local economies through workforce development, job access, and local economic development. FHWA and FTA are proposing new rules and launching a pilot program to potentially allow use of local hiring programs for these projects.
Accessibility moves out of the lab and into practice
Accessibility, long considered a more robust measure of transportation system success than simple mobility, is moving out of research and into practice, according to panelists on an SSTI webinar.
Report ranks metropolitan areas by transit accessibility
Researchers at the University of Minnesota released a new report ranking major metropolitan areas in terms of their accessibility to jobs by transit. The new Access Across America report complements the group’s 2013 release, which measured job accessibility by automobile, and builds upon their ongoing efforts to develop tools for assessing transportation performance in terms other than mobility and congestion.