Project number: MT-16-08

Funding Source: US DOT

Contract number: DTRT13-G-UTC57

Funding amount: $100,000

Performance period: 1/1/17 to 6/30/18

Link to full seminar video: https://youtu.be/i4oe9uuk3Rk

Project description

This paper investigates job access in Los Angeles County via public transportation. We develop a measure of accessibility based on travel time, via transit, to jobs. We use open source General Transit Feed System (GTFS) data to model the transit network and interface with a variety of computing tools including JavaScript, ArcPy for ArcGIS and statistical packages to measure the number of jobs accessible from these tracts within a 60-minute commute time. The result is a method that leverages GTFS data to allow us to simulate job access with different transit investments. We measure transit job access from these tracts for three scenarios. Each scenario compares transit job access with completed or proposed additions to the Los Angeles Metro network relative to the status quo. We illustrate that job access measures can go beyond the common "static" measures of access over existing networks and be used to evaluate different transit investment scenarios. Our results suggest that the opening of the Expo Phase II light rail line increased job access in tracts that contain a higher percentage of opportunity youth populations and the opening of the proposed Crenshaw Extension promises to increase transit job access even further.

Research seminar highlights video