Abstract

Modeling Transit and Job Access in Metropolitan America
Track: Transportation
Authors: Thomas Israelsen, Elizabeth Kneebone, Adie Tomer

Against the backdrop of rising gas prices, growing suburban poverty, continued sprawl and uneven transit availability in cities and suburbs, the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution has completed a first-of-its-kind analysis that shows how transit systems link workers to jobs in metropolitan America. The analysis covers 371 transit agencies in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, and provides information that can inform critical policy and investment decisions at a time of scarce public and private resources.

At the heart of the analysis is a simulation of transit travel times between residential areas and places of work. ArcGIS with the Traffic Analyst extension was the backbone of this complex travel time analysis. They enabled detailed and realistic simulation of zone-to-zone transit travel times based on real GTFS timetables and ensured the ability to model even the largest of the nation's metro areas, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.