Transportation Costs, Inequities, and Trade-Offs

Abstract

Transportation costs are frequently identified as having socially inequitable effects, especially for low-income households who have limited financial resources. The concerns are that low-income persons spend a disproportionately larger proportion of their total income on transportation due to the fixed costs associated with financing automobile purchase. Furthermore, low income persons unable to purchase an automobile often reside in locations that are not well connected by public transit to employment concentrations. This study examines neighborhood housing and transportation choices available to working households in 28 metropolitan regions in the U.S. The study is unique because it analyzes household characteristics at the census travel level. We first describe the trends in transportation costs by household income levels. We then argue that based on microeconomic theory predicting trade-offs between housing and transportation costs (H+T) as households choose residential locations, transportation cost burdens should not be considered separate from housing costs. In addition, we perform a cluster analysis to show that low income households are significantly burdened by the combination of housing and transportation costs and that these households and their neighborhoods potentially experience other social and economic burdens because of it.

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