1 QUANTIFYING THE EQUITY OF BIKESHARE ACCESS IN US CITIES 2 3 Authors: 4 5 Julia Ursaki 6 University of Vermont 7 Transportation Research Center 8 210 Colchester Ave 9 Burlington, VT 05401 10 Phone: (860) 992-2001 11 Email:
[email protected] 12 13 Lisa Aultman-Hall (corresponding author) 14 University of Vermont 15 Transportation Research Center 16 210 Colchester Ave 17 Burlington, VT 05401 18 Phone: (802) 656-1312 19 Email:
[email protected] 20 21 22 Word Count: (5053 + 7 figures and tables = 6803) 23 24 Submitted August 1, 2015 for review to the Transportation Research Board 2 Ursaki and Aultman-Hall 25 ABSTRACT 26 Bikesharing programs are an increasingly popular potential solution to many of the 27 transportation sustainability challenges that cities face. The environmental and economic aspects 28 of sustainability for bikesharing has been discussed extensively. While critical to overall success, 29 the social equity aspect of bikeshare sustainability has been considered but not quantitatively 30 assessed. This study finds that there is an inequitable distribution of bikeshare access among the 31 population groups in US cities. This spatial analysis compares social and economic 32 characteristics of US Census Bureau block groups based on the American Community Survey 33 for areas within and outside of bikeshare service areas in seven cities. The locations of bikeshare 34 stations were used to define the bikeshare service areas by creating a 500 meter buffer around 35 each station in ArcGIS. Using a Student’s t-test to compare the means of socioeconomic 36 characteristics inside and outside of the bikeshare service areas, significant differences in access 37 based on race and income variables were found in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and New 38 York City.