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No access to transportation limits job prospects, economic opportunities

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By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer 9:56 PM Sunday, August 21, 2011

Many people cannot imagine life without an automobile, but more than 7.5 percent of Dayton metropolitan area households do not own a vehicle, and some of those residents also do not have easy access to public transit, according to a new report.

The concern is that a lack of available transit often limits job prospects and economic opportunities, researchers said.

Of the 340,650 households in the Dayton metro area, about 25,785 do not own an automobile, according to a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Of those, about 4,000 households, or 16 percent, do not live in neighborhoods with good access to transit, according to the report.

Some people choose not to own vehicles because they do not need them, while others have none because they cannot afford the cost of ownership.

About 70 percent of households in the Dayton area without vehicles earn below 80 percent of the area median income, said Adie Tomer, senior research analyst with the Metropolitan Policy Program and author of the report.

“If transit doesn’t work for you to get you to the job you like or a new job that you might get offered, most folks will just take their car,” Tomer said. “This group doesn’t have that option in theory. ... If these folks can’t get on transit, then we are limiting their opportunities in general.”

Catching the bus

For the majority of residents without cars, they can walk a few blocks and catch a bus.

In the metro area of Dayton, about 99.8 percent of zero-vehicle households are in neighborhoods located within three-quarters of a mile of an Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority bus stop, according to the report.

But in the suburbs, only about 71.1 percent of neighborhoods are similarly located near bus stops.

Dayton ranked 54th on the report’s list of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas for its transit coverage of zero-vehicle households. Toledo, with only 33 percent coverage in the suburbs, ranked 59th. Columbus, with 41.9 percent coverage in the suburbs, ranked 70th. Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, ranked 95th with only 38.4 percent suburban coverage.

Marcia Rock, 67, who lives on Kinsey Road in Englewood, said she stopped driving in 2002 because of medical issues.

Rock does not own a car, and she lives 0.85 miles away from the closest RTA bus stop, which is too far for her to walk. Project Mobility, an RTA service that provides van transport to people with disabilities, does not serve people who are located three-fourths of mile outside any of fixed route.

“A man lives one street over from me, and I see Project Mobility pick him up, but I guess he was grandfathered in,” she said.

Rock said she relies on family members and friends to take her shopping to doctor’s office, but they usually are very busy and she does not get out much.

“I beg for rides,” she said. “It would be nice to go out and do Christmas shopping, but I have to do everything online.”

Tomer said RTA does a good job of covering neighborhoods within Dayton’s metro area, but the coverage in the suburbs could be improved.

“About 53 percent of all zero-vehicle households now live in the suburbs, and since they are so predominantly low-income, that suggests to us the RTA maybe needs to think about what its route service is like in the suburbs,” Tomer said. “The city’s zero-vehicle households all have an opportunity to get on transit, it’s in the suburbs where some of them are proverbially left out in the cold.”

Of the zero-vehicle households in the Dayton metro area, about 35 percent use transit to get to work, Tomer said. The rest of the households borrow vehicles, carpool, walk or bike to work or work from home, he said.

RTA’s limited options

Frank Ecklar, RTA’s director of planning and marketing, said it is difficult to provide transit coverage to some of the people in the suburbs because they live in rural, sparsely populated areas.

Some people move to remote areas when they have a car, but then when they lose their vehicle because of age, health or economic conditions, they essentially are stranded, he said.

“We provide an extensive amount of coverage,” he said. “And we got a pretty good rating nationally as far as transit access to jobs, and part of that relates to extensive coverage to the outlying areas where a lot of these jobs exist.”

Dayton ranked 29th among the top metropolitan areas for access to jobs within 90 minutes via transit, according to the new report. Dayton ranked higher in this than any other metropolitan area in the state.

Ecklar said even though there are budget restraints, RTA always is evaluating population growth in the region to determine if an extension of services is in order.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Akron

Total households with no vehicles: 19:255

Zero-vehicle households with no transit: 2:134

Transit coverage rate: 88.9%

Coverage ranking compared to top 100 MSAs: 35

Cincinnati-Middletown

Total households with no vehicles: 72:187

Zero-vehicle households with no transit: 15:374

Transit coverage rate: 78.7%

Coverage ranking compared to top 100 MSAs: 66

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