Identifying Gainers and Losers from Transit Service Change: A Method Applied to Sacramento

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for determining one part of an equity analysis of transit service change: who benefits from the change. The method defines census tract accessibility indices that measure how well residents can reach desired destinations by transit. By measuring transit door-to-door travel time before and after a major transit investment or service change, a planner may estimate the change in benefit accruing to each census tract. Changed benefits then may be compared to the income of each tract and the cost incidence borne by each tract. The method is illustrated by applying it to a controversial light rail system introduced in Sacramento, California, and a subsequent bus restructuring that included eliminating many express bus routes that linked distant neighborhoods with the central business district. Conventional equity analyses comparing travel time of suburb-to-CBD riders before and after the change, or comparing the income of rail and bus riders, likely would have concluded that the change made transit riders worse off, or benefitted primarily wealthier riders. This analysis, based on accessibility change experience by all transit riders, came to opposite conclusions.

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