Indicator: Access to transportation Breadcrumb Home Indicators Access To Transportation Definition Individuals have access to low-cost and timely transportation to commute to school or work. Recommended Metric(s) Average commute time to work, school, or collegeTransportation costs according to the Low Transportation Cost Index from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Type(s) of Data Needed Survey data; administrative data Why it matters Unequal access to transportation contributes to racial and socioeconomic disparities in employment and earnings;1 also, neighborhoods where residents have longer commute times have lower levels of upward economic mobility.2 Workers of color are more likely to lack a vehicle and commute by public transit, and they are overrepresented among workers with one-way commutes of 60 minutes or more.3 For example, White workers are twice as likely as Asian and Latino workers to have a car at home, and three times more likely than Black workers. Unequal access to transportation also affects students. Nationwide, Black students spend more time traveling to school, on average, compared to other racial and ethnic groups, and are more likely to use public transportation to get to school: 40 percent of Black students take public transportation to school, compared to 32 percent of White students and 23 percent of Latino students.4 At the postsecondary level, transportation costs represent about 17 percent of the costs of attending college and have been linked to disparities in college completion.5 What to know about measurement We recommend measuring average commute time and transportation costs, as both reflect individuals’ access to transportation in a locality. The American Community Survey (ACS) asks the number of minutes it usually takes a person to get from home to work and reports these data annually by region.6 A similar survey question could be adapted locally by schools and colleges. Data on local costs are available through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low Transportation Cost Index, which estimates the average transportation cost for a three-person, single-parent family earning 50 percent of the median income for renters in a region. Institutions that provide subsidized public transportation passes (which includes some K–12 districts and postsecondary institutions) should also track the share of eligible students receiving these benefits. Source frameworks This indicator appeared in four source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our proposed measures align with the Urban Institute’s recommendation in the Boosting Upward Mobility framework to measure the Low Transportation Cost Index, as well as recommendations from StriveTogether to measure average commute time to work or school. References 6Burd, C., Burrows, M., & McKenzie, B. (2021). Travel time to work in the United States: 2019. American Community Survey Report. U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-47.pdf 1Gautier, P., & Zenou, Y. (2010). Car ownership and the labor market of ethnic minorities. Journal of Urban Economics, 67(3), 392–403. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1298257 2Chetty, R., & Hendren, N. (2018). The impacts of neighborhoods on intergenerational mobility II: County-level estimates. Quarterly Journal of Economic, 133(3), 1163–1228. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/3/1163/4850659 3Austin, A. (2017). To move is to thrive: Public transit and economic opportunity for people of color. Demos. https://www.demos.org/research/move-thrive-public-transit-and-economic-opportunity-people-color4Fast, I. (2020). Unequal traveling: How school district and family characteristics shape the duration of students’ commute to school. Travel Behaviour and Society, 20, 165–173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2020.03.008 5Elengold, K. S., Dorrance, J., Martinez, Foxen, P., & Mihas, P. (2021). Dreams interrupted: A mixed-methods research project exploring Latino college completion. UnidosUS, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED615020