New Report: Atlanta Has Worst Transit Coverage for ‘Zero-Vehicle Households’

[marmar]

from the Infrastructurist:



New Report: Atlanta Has Worst Transit Coverage for ‘Zero-Vehicle Households’


Last week Brookings released an analysis (pdf) of car ownership and transit access in the 100 largest metro areas in the United States. Some of the report’s findings were encouraging: of the 7.5 million households without access to a private vehicle, over 90 percent live in neighborhoods serviced by public transportation. This figure suggests that, broadly speaking, “transit service aligns with households who rely on it most,” writes Brookings, which is exactly what it’s supposed to do.

At the same time, more than 700,000 of the “zero-vehicle households” in the metro regions analyzed by Brookings don’t have any access to transit at all. The worst offender among major metro areas is the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta region, where nearly 38,000 households have neither a car nor good transit access. All told, Atlanta’s “zero-vehicle household” transit coverage rate is 68.5 percent — well below the other major cities that rounded out the top five: Dallas (71 percent), Houston (73), Phoenix (81) and St. Louis (82).



The findings should serve as a “wake-up call” to metro areas like Atlanta with major coverage gaps in their transit systems, says Brookings. That or a bucket of cold water. As Yonah Freemark recently pointed out, transit carries less than 4 percent of work trips in the Atlanta metro region today — down from nearly 17 percent in 1960. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/08/22/new-report-atlanta-has-worst-transit-coverage-for-zero-vehicle-households/