Talking about finance, geography, urban, ........just made me enthusiastic enough to do some research and dedicate this week's topic into Geographic Equity Role in Public Transportation policy.

   The geography of urban transportation in U.S. cities is deeply formed by the geography of urban transportation finance. And ‘financing/funding’ the urban transportation (from where taxes are collected and to where they are distributed) is managed by politicians, neither urban planners nor transportation experts. To focus on how this funding decisions are made, it should be necessary to draw a distinction between different distribution concepts; Individual, Group and Geographic.

    There are also hard debates over these equity concepts and the logic of distribution methods. In one hand, Finance scholars and activists are more interested on individual equity and group equity. They argue that funds have to be distributed with the respect of the number of ridership and patrons. In other hand, ‘Elected Officials’ are concerned most with geographic equity. Taylor argues that the reason for geography equity is that ‘representation in the United State is organized geographically into a hierarchy of jurisdictions’. Consequently, geographic equity allocates public transit funding in equal among jurisdictions, regardless how it is consumed or what the urbanized level of state is. For example, the ridership of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (N.Y.MTA.) is 900 times more than this number in Chapel Hill, NC but the latter city enjoyed federal transit subsidies for 400 percent more than New York for each trip!

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Why Geographic Equity Has a Role on Public Transportation Policy?

A- Hierarchy of jurisdiction that is geographical

Representation in congress and the majority of state legislatures matched the geographical distribution of voters rather than urban transit client.

B - Policy makers misunderstanding

   Boxer (1998) argues that when announcing federal funding of new transportation project to constitute, congress members cite the economic benefits such projects will bring to the affected district. He believes elected officials, were interested on capturing the federal funds for transit projects for the economic revitalization and job creation in depressed areas. Hence, transit funding by federal was pushed through geographic equity that seemed more ‘Popular’ rather than other distribution systems. Moreover, Taylors highlights the congress members reflect in summer 1998 to TEA-21 legislation and argues that they hailed TEA-21 as an engine for continued economic growth by job generating.

C - Public concern with worsening environment quality (started at 1970s),

Vanguard strategy and anti auto activists (Dunn, 1998)

D - The effect of transit investment on public

   Taylor believes that transportation public works (notably, rail system) are usually popular with voters and the people whom they elect. Because of this reason, policy makers (and who need voters) are interested on geography equity. Mark Garrett believes the combination of federal funds for transit and dedicated local and state funding programs often produce politically powerful action for transit, even in situations where it fails to satisfy either the usual social equity or economic efficiency rationales.

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1-      Hanson and Giuliano, chapter 11

2-      American public Transportation Association, 2003b

3-      Reconsidering social equity in public transit, Garrett, Taylor

4-      Fiscal Equity in Urban Mass Transit Systems: A Geographic AnalysisHodge

                5-      TRANSPORTATION NEEDS AND EQUITY

                6 -      Evaluating Transportation Equity, Guidance For Incorporating Distributional Impacts in 

                       Transportation Planning, Todd Litman                                                                

                7-      Addressing Urban Transportation Equity in the United States

                8-      Journal article by Robert D. Bullard; Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. 31, 2004

      9 -      Integrating geographic information systems into transit ridership forecast models

            10-  A Coverage Model for Improving Public Transit System Accessibility and Expanding Access