Low Income Job Accessibility to Silver Line Extension (Sle) Job Center, Washington Dc Metro Area
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LOW INCOME JOB ACCESSIBILITY TO SILVER LINE EXTENSION (SLE) JOB CENTER, WASHINGTON DC METRO AREA BY SUNHYEONG SHIN CAPSTONE REPORT Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban Planning in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018 Urbana, Illinois Adviser: Dr. Jesus Barajas 1 CONTENTS 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Literature Review .................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1. Job access and unemployment ...................................................................................................... 4 2.2. Accessibility as an indicator of social equity ................................................................................ 5 2.3. Theories about job-housing-transport mode mismatch ................................................................. 6 2.4. Other Example Extensions ............................................................................................................ 6 3. Background ........................................................................................................................................... 7 3.1. Metrorail in Washington DC Metropolitan Area .......................................................................... 7 3.2. Phase 1 Silver Line Extension (SLE) ............................................................................................ 9 3.3. Job description in the SLE area................................................................................................... 12 4. Methods............................................................................................................................................... 16 4.1. Identifying disadvantaged area ................................................................................................... 16 5. Findings............................................................................................................................................... 18 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 25 7. Sources: ............................................................................................................................................... 26 Appendix 1. Mapping Area of Transit Demand Modeling by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) ........................................................................................................................ 29 Appendix 2. Sequence of Metrorail Openings ........................................................................................ 30 Appendix 3. Phase 1 Silver Line Ridership in May 2015 ....................................................................... 31 Appendix 4. Monthly Ridership of Metro Bus Routes Serving the Silver Line Stations in Comparison with the Total Metro Bus Ridership ........................................................................................................ 32 Appendix 5. Orange Line Ridership Comparison ................................................................................... 33 Appendix 6. Median Household Income, 2013 ACS 5 Year Estimate ................................................... 34 2 FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1 Washington DC Metro Area and Silver Line Extension (SLE) job center __________________ 4 Figure 2 Number of Jobs accessible by Walking and Metrorail in 45 Minutes during the AM Peak, 2013 (upper) base and 2017 (lower) projection. Source: MWCOG TDM Ver. 2.3.39 ____________________ 8 Figure 3 Regional Activity Centers by COG in 2013 (Modified to Study Region of this report) Source: MWCOG, 2013 ______________________________________________________________________ 9 Figure 4 Silver Line Corridor (Source: MWCOG Place+ Opportunity Report, Figure 3, p.36, 2014) __ 10 Figure 5 Defined Job Center Area of Phase 1 SLE in this analysis _____________________________ 10 Figure 6 Number of Riders Traveling Westward During AM Peak That Exited at the Five Silver Line Stations (Source: Virginia Transportation Research Council, 2017) ____________________________ 11 Figure 7 Disadvantaged Block Groups in the Region ________________________________________ 16 Figure 8 Metrorail accessible disadvantaged/ advantaged area ________________________________ 17 Figure 9 Residence of low income job workers at SLE in 2013 ________________________________ 22 Figure 10 Residence of low income job workers at SLE in 2015 _______________________________ 24 Table 1 Profile of Workers at SLE. (LODES WAC data, 2013 and 2015) _______________________ 13 Table 2 Job Profile of the region and SLE (LODES WAC data, 2013 and 2015) __________________ 14 Table 3 Number of jobs at SLE from 2002 to 2015 (LODES WAC data, 2002-2015) ______________ 15 Table 4 Workers who live at Metro-accessible area (LODES RAC data, 2013 and 2015) ___________ 19 Table 5 Jobs in SLE of workers from advantaged/disadvantaged neighborhoods (LODES OD data, 2013 and 2015) _________________________________________________________________________ 20 Table 6 Residence of workers at SLE in 2013 and 2015 (LODES OD data, 2013 and 2015) _________ 21 1. INTRODUCTION Washington D.C. metropolitan area is a region of highly educated jobs, high proportion of public sector jobs, and severe segregation by race and income. The Washington DC Metropolitan area has radially oriented Metrorail system which gives relatively advantageous access to central location of the city. My research question asks whether the Silver Line Extension (SLE) improved or reduced access to jobs for low-income workers in the region. To study job accessibility, I selected geographically specified job centers in my analysis, unlike previous studies which include jobs available in the whole region. I use Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) data which provides home location and work location of employment data, in Census Block Group level. I compare 3 the 2013 and 2015 LODES datasets to observe the longitudinal changes before and after the opening of SLE in 2014. The study ‘region’ is defined with six Counties (including Fairfax city): District of Columbia; Montgomery, MD; Prince George, MD; Fairfax County, VA; Fairfax City, VA; and Arlington, VA. The scope of study is where Metrorail serves (See Figure 1). Figure 1 Washington DC Metro Area and Silver Line Extension (SLE) job center 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Job access and unemployment Low-income, low skilled, racial minority workers are more likely to commute by transit because owning a car is unaffordable for them. As a result, job accessibility by transit is highly related to their employment outcomes; lack of reliable transportation is a significant obstacle for job seekers to find opportunities they 4 cannot reach by public transit or somewhere they are not familiar with (Blumenberg, 2017). Access to a car is also related to the intensity of job searching process. Having access to a car increases search intensity for both whites and non-whites, defined as “how many hours per day the unemployed worker spends in searching for a job.” Differences in search activities between whites and nonwhites are correlated with both job access as well as differences in car ownership (Patacchini & Zenou, 2005). In other words, workers who do not drive tend to search for their jobs based on the availability of public transit. 2.2. Accessibility as an indicator of social equity Historically, mobility-based indicators have been widely used in assessing the success of transportation projects and programs. A mobility improvement is defined as a reduction in the time-plus-money cost of travel per mile. Providing more capacity in highway system to reduce traffic congestion is a typical solution to improve mobility. On the other hand, an accessibility improvement is defined as a reduction in the time- plus-money cost of travel per destination. To be more specific, it is defined as a reduction in the time-plus- money cost of interaction per unit value of destination. Mobility is one means to accessibility (Shen, Levine, Grengs, & Shen, 2012). However, transportation planning based on mobility disproportionately benefits some population groups; namely, those with access to a vehicle. Auto-oriented urban space, disparities in car ownership, and racial segregation are often implicated as the root of high unemployment rates of racial minorities (Kain, 1968). The low car-ownership of low income group creates longer average commuting time for auto-less workers (Grengs, 2010; Kawabata, 2003). In the transportation planning realm, access to jobs, education, medical services, foods are basic needs of people, and the transportation investments often disproportionately benefit people who drive and burden people who have to use public transit because they do not own a vehicle (E Blumenberg, Ong, & (UCTC), 1997; Evelyn Blumenberg & Pierce, 2014; Kawabata, 2003). Fair and appropriate distribution of benefits and costs is referred as equity. The concept of equity is identified to incorporate fairness in transportation planning. “Horizontal equity” is concerned with the fairness of cost and benefit allocation between individuals and groups who are considered comparable in