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Summary Social media provide transit agencies with an unparalleled opportunity to connect with their customers. These connections may take many forms, but they all can help agencies personalize what can otherwise appear like a faceless bureaucracy. “Social media,” also called social networking or Web 2.0, refers to a group of web-based applications that encourage users to interact with one another. Examples include blogs, social and professional networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, micro-blogging site Twitter, media-sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr, and location-based sites such as Foursquare. Transit agencies have begun to adopt these networking tools, and their reasons for doing so typically fall into five broad categories. Timely updates—Social media enable agencies to share real-time service information and advisories with their riders. Public information—Many transit organizations use social media to provide the public with information about services,…

Executive Summary Recent increases in fuel prices, combined with the deep downturn in the economy, have raised concerns among policymakers and advocates about the burdens of transportation costs on the poor. Moreover, low-income travelers have been at the center of recent debates over the fairness of proposed transportation finance instruments such as congestion pricing and gas-tax increases. Despite these concerns, relatively little is known about how low-income households manage their transportation costs while also preserving their desired level and quality of mobility. This study begins to fill that gap by exploring the challenges low-income residents face in covering their transportation costs. STUDY METHODS The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with 73 low-income adults living in or near the City of San José, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The sample was diverse by many criteria, but overrepresented individuals who had extremely low incomes. (Some were…

The Hampton Roads Regional Transit Vision Plan (HRRTVP or the “Vision Plan”) looks into the future – 2025 and beyond – to visualize what may be possible for the region’s transit services. It provides a concept for a regional rapid transit network that connects major employment and population centers in Hampton Roads. It envisions thoughtful and coordinated land use planning combined with specific transit modes that improve mobility options for the public. The purpose of HRRTVP is to provide a long-term framework for transit development, not a definite set of approved projects. As the region selects projects for further study, planners, elected officials, and the public will collaborate to define the specific requirements, alignments and transit modes in accordance with local land use planning, alternatives analysis, environmental considerations and available funding.

This study seeks to understand the relative efficacy of two classes of policies intended to increase the ridership and productivity of transit ridership in Florida. 

Overview of the FTA’s New Starts project development process and the legal issues associated with it

This study examines the impact of street network connectivity on transit patronage. The aim is to better understand how connectivity affects the decision to use public transportation after we control for population density and the effect of walking distance from the transit station. Data on population densities, transit service features, and annual average daily station boardings are drawn from Chicago (CTA), Dallas (DART), and Atlanta (MARTA). Results suggest that metric reach, which measures the street length that is accessible within a walking range, has significant impact on ridership levels jointly with population density and two attributes of transit service features. In particular, the estimates indicate that metric reach is a stronger predictor of transit use than station area population densities.

The proposed research addresses the impacts of urban form on transit ridership, in general, and the relationship between public transportation and walking, in particular. Urban form is defined in terms of three core dimensions: densities, land use patterns, and street networks. Existing literature suggests that population, employment and development densities (Holtzclaw 1994; Quade and Douglas Inc. 1996b; Cervero 1996); number of non-residential destinations and the mix of land uses (Cervero 2002; Kockelman 1997); density of street networks (Moudon et al. 2006; Handy 1996); and attitudinal factors (Kitamura et al. 1997; Krizek 2000) support walking and contribute to transit ridership.

This paper explores how the quality of the pedestrian environment around transit stops relates with transit ridership. The primary hypothesis tested is that transit tripmaking is higher in urban environments that are more conducive to non-motorized travel, given that bus transit systems are most frequently accessed via walking or biking. A secondary goal is to contribute to an improved understanding of the measurement of the built environment in geographic information systems (GIS). A composite measure of walkability—incorporating land use mix, density and street patterns—was developed for all transit stops in San Diego’s Metropolitan Transit Systems service area and used as a measure of the built environment. Findings indicate a small but significant, positive relationship between the walkability of the built environment and transit ridership.