A New Approach to Understanding the Impact of Automobile Ownership on Transportation Equity

Abstract

Transportation affordability, the ability of a household to comfortably bear necessary transportation expenses, is a pressing challenge to the development of sustainable and equitable places. Transportation planners have historically identified transit user groups as choice riders, those with access to other modes or the ability to purchase access, and captive riders, transit-dependent populations who must use transit regardless of service quality. However, this characterization is incomplete, disregarding built-environment pressures that compel a much larger population of households to own and use vehicles regardless of their ability to afford the very high price of vehicle ownership. We propose a new theoretical construct, illuminated using the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey Public Use Microdata—the transportation choice/captivity matrix—which examines transportation user groups via vehicle ownership and income variables.