Transit Time: Are cars the answer to better economic mobility?

Jul 22, 2021

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Study shows low-income residents with cars are more likely to find and keep jobs; Charlotte leaders prefer $13 billion transit plan

by Steve Harrison

Charlotte’s Transformational Mobility Network is a $13 billion plan to build rail transit, expand bus service and build new greenways, bike lanes and roads.

Supporters say it will reduce traffic congestion and reduce greenhouse gases.

The biggest talking point, however, has been that it will improve economic mobility for the county’s poorest residents by connecting them with jobs. Mecklenburg County was ranked 50th out of the 50 largest U.S. counties in terms of economic mobility.

On Charlotte Talks last week, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles was asked whether the best way to improve economic mobility is through transit — or whether helping people buy their own cars would be more effective.

“If lower socioeconomic people use transit and depend on it to get to work, would it be cheaper to buy them a car?” asked host Mike Collins.

Lyles responded: “You know, Mike, I’ve heard that, and that is just not … not … not …what kind of paternalism is that in there?”

And then show ended.

The mayor’s comments were unusual in that the city of Charlotte spends millions of dollars a year in an arguably paternalistic effort to help low-income residents afford a place to live. Is there any difference in helping people have their own cars?

Charlotte’s Leading On Opportunity Task Force report, which made suggestions on how to improve economic mobility in Charlotte, called in 2017 for the city and county to “create a more connected community to ensure all families have ready access to employment, shopping, service areas, schools, parks and other daily destinations.”

‘Having a car is a lifeline’

Some scholars say there is a clear best way to do that: Help people have their own cars.

The Urban Institute in Washington D.C. did a study in 2014 about the impact of housing-voucher recipients having their own cars compared with those who didn’t.

The study found:

Housing voucher recipients with cars tended to live and remain in higher-opportunity neighborhoods — places with lower poverty rates, higher social status, stronger housing markets and lower health risks. Cars are also associated with improved neighborhood satisfaction and better employment outcomes. Among Moving to Opportunity families, those with cars were twice as likely to find a job and four times as likely to remain employed.
The importance of automobiles arises not due to the inherent superiority of driving, but because public transit systems in most metropolitan areas are slow, inconvenient and lack sufficient metropolitan-wide coverage to rival the automobile.

Evelyn Blumenberg, a UCLA professor of urban planning, worked on that study. In an interview with Transit Time this week, she said the benefits of having a car are clear.

“There is a growing list of scholars from multiple fields that show for low-income households that having a car is a lifeline,” she said. “It allows them access to jobs, but also access to things that allow them to have jobs, especially for women. It allows them to drop off their kids so they can work. People say that they just couldn’t do it without a car.”

She said cities need to ask their poorest residents what they want to make their lives better.

“You can ask people, ‘Do you want more transit?’ and they say yes, because of course everyone wants that,” she said. “But they still don’t take it because it takes forever to get anywhere. They need to ask people: ‘What would be more helpful in your life? Do you want X or do you want Y?’ ”

Does the transit plan serve the city, or is it the other way around?

I spoke with the mayor’s spokesperson to get more clarification about her comment about helping people buy cars being paternalism.

Spokesman Jeremy Mills said the mayor was joking when she said “paternalism” and that she didn’t have time to fully explain before the show ended.

I then asked: Would the mayor support a plan to help low-income residents buy their own cars?

Mills said the mayor would not support that because it “would defeat the public transit plan.”

That answer raises an important question as the city moves closer to asking for a penny sales tax increase to fund it.

Is the transit plan being designed to serve the city, or is the city serving the transit plan? In other words, if the city finds a way to help low-income residents get to work that doesn’t involve a train or a bus, isn’t that a win?

I asked at-large council member Julie Eiselt about that idea.

“It doesn’t take cars off the road,” she said, alluding to environmental and congestion concerns. Eiselt wants Charlotte to become a more walkable city, and adding 10,000 to 20,000 cars wouldn’t achieve that, she said.

Blumenberg said those responses aren’t surprising.

“That’s common,” she said. “It’s always, ‘We can’t do that. We don’t want people to drive.’”

She added: “For a lot of people, it’s ‘I’m not interested in taking a train or a bus, but you ought to be.’”

Residents could also share cars

So how would a car subsidy program work?

About 9% of households in the United States don’t have a car. Blumenberg said the Charlotte metro area has a slightly higher percentage of car-less households, at 12%.

There are about 425,000 households in Mecklenburg County, leaving about 51,000 without a vehicle. Assuming some of those households have elderly residents who can’t drive, that would leave about 40,000 to 45,000 households in need of a vehicle.

Giving each of those households a $12,000 voucher to buy and maintain a car is a lot of money — $480 million. But if that’s spread over a decade, it becomes a much more manageable amount — $48 million a year.

(By comparison, the Silver Line is projected to cost $6.3 billion.)

Blumenberg said cities could experiment with having different residents share cars, saving millions of dollars. They could also see if people preferred using ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft to get around.

Transit supporters say the transit plan is an inter-connected system and that removing one group of potential riders would make the entire system less effective.

But City Council has so far declined to consider whether a transit plan would do much to meet its goals of reducing greenhouse gases and congestion and improving economic mobility.

Consider: In 2014, the Charlotte Area Transit System carried 29.4 million passenger trips. By 2019, ridership had fallen 18% — despite the city opening the $1.1 billion Lynx Blue Line extension.

One theory as to why ridership fell so much: The strong economy helped more people buy cars.

Blumemberg said the argument that transit will relieve congestion hasn’t been supported by the facts — either in places like Charlotte or in her town of Los Angeles.

She said that a program to help people have cars can actually be environmentally friendly, so long as they are the right cars, and if it’s coupled with a program to replace older cars that pollute more.

“The way out politically is that it’s about retiring these gross polluting vehicles,” she said. “Low-income households have older, more polluting vehicles. How can we retire those and then get more fuel-efficient vehicles?”

Transportation — primarily cars — accounts for 29% of U.S. greenhouse gases.

Meanwhile, Blumenberg said cities can continue to implement strategies that discourage overall driving: Traffic-calming programs. Toll lanes. Fewer parking requirements for businesses.

But she said society’s poorest residents should be able to benefit from the same mobility choices everyone else has.

“Even qualitative studies show that when you ask low-income households how they are managing their lives, they say they just couldn’t function without a car,” Blumenberg said.

Steve Harrison is a reporter with WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR news source. Reach him at sharrison@wfae.com. A version of this article first appeared in his Inside Politics newsletter.

Public weighs in on how Silver Line stations should develop

At a public workshop last week at Romare Bearden Park uptown, residents were asked to place green dots on a map for locations they valued and red dots where improvements need to be made. (Photo by Ely Portillo)

The Silver Line light rail might be two decades away from completion, but CATS is still soliciting ideas for how the stations and areas around them should develop. Planning officials spent last week holding a series of public workshops along the planned route asking people what they think about the station areas.

Participants dropped beads in cups to signify what’s most important to them — choosing between ideas like new affordable housing, bike connections and additional parking — and used stickers to mark important points they want to see connected to stations. Planners also talked about added amenities like the Silver Line Rail Trail, a 29-mile biking and walking path along the train tracks. The plan is to (hopefully) build it all at once, at the same time as the Silver Line, instead of piecemeal and over decades, as on the Blue Line.

CATS is still studying the Silver Line station areas and will spend the next few years refining station designs, how to connect the stations to nearby neighborhoods and businesses, and how to encourage transit-oriented development along the line. The first phase of the Silver Line could start construction in 2030, if CATS can secure funding. —Ely Portillo

In brief…

Get ready to pay fares for the Gold Line streetcar: CATS is planning to open the newly extended CityLynx Gold Line streetcar to riders by the end of August, running four miles through Plaza Midwood, Elizabeth, uptown and west Charlotte. Running every 20 minutes, the streetcar will start charging passengers to ride in August, according to a new fare proposal. The cost will be the same as other local buses and the Blue Line light rail: $2.20 one-way for adults, $1.10 one-way for senior citizens, disabled riders and K-12 students. The previous Gold Line was free; it's unclear how charging a fare will affect ridership. CATS is expecting 365,495 annual Gold Line riders, a 71% decrease from earlier projections, due to Covid-19. There’s a virtual public hearing scheduled at the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) for Aug. 25. (CATS)
Forum on the Gold Line: The Charlotte Post is holding an online community forum next week called “Riding the Rail to Revival or Ruin?” focusing on the effects of the CityLynx Gold Line on historically Black neighborhoods in northwest Charlotte. It features Museum of the New South historian Willie Griffin and neighborhood leaders and activists. It’s July 29 from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Details here.
Sustain Charlotte urges faster transit build-out: One of Charlotte's major environmental advocacy groups is urging the city to move faster on its plans to build a transit network. The latest version of CATS’ plan pushes back the opening dates for major projects like the Silver Line and Blue Line extension to the late 2030s or early 2040s. “Longer timelines for the rail projects — doubling the projected schedule for some — will significantly increase overall costs and limit our ability to achieve many goals of the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, as the future rail corridors fill up with incompatible development in the interim,” Sustain Charlotte leaders wrote in a recent blog post. (Sustain Charlotte)
Traffic cones we can all support: The Charlotte Knights will ditch their usual uniforms on Aug. 20 and suit up in new jerseys that make the players look like traffic cones. WCNC reports that it’s “a way to express thanks to the workers who have helped build the new buildings that seem to pop up every day. The team acknowledges traffic cones often irk some drivers with delays and detours, but they say the cones are a reminder of Charlottes fast-paced growth.” They’re also handing out free safety gloves that night to the first 1,000 fans. (WCNC)

Photos courtesy of the Charlotte Knights

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