How do low-income commuters get to work in US and Mexican cities? A comparative empirical assessment

Abstract

This paper applies multinomial logit models to examine how metropolitan urban form, housing type and socioeconomic factors covary with individuals’ commute mode choice for 1.2 million low-income workers in the USA and Mexico. Comparing the commute patterns of low-income households across the USA–Mexico border sheds light on the consistency of estimated relationships across global contexts and the likely transferability of transportation and land use policies from the Global North to the Global South. We find many common relationships on each side of the border, despite substantial socioeconomic and urban differences. For example, wealthier and better-educated low-income workers in low-density metropolitan areas with substantial road supply are more likely to drive to work and less likely to use active modes. We also find some considerable differences between the magnitude and even direction of associations between predictor variables and commuter mode choice. In terms of public policy, efforts to reduce driving or promote compact development are more likely to reduce driving and more likely to be pro-poor in Mexico than in the USA. In Mexico, just 13% of low-income workers commute by car and dense urban form is relatively strongly associated with increases in transit, non-motorised modes and working at home. High rates of driving and auto-oriented urban form make policies to reduce driving particularly likely to be regressive in most US metropolitan areas.