Low-income workers face multiple barriers to advancement according to a study by Reconnecting America with Urban Habitat and support from the Great Communities Collaborative.

A new report by the University of Minnesota examining the perspectives of developers and business leaders on achieving transit-oriented jobs-housing balance along the Twin Cities transit network has been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

A 2012 report detailing the Bay Area Rapid Transit District's bicyle plan and a report measuring jobs created by pedestrian and bicycle access projects have been added to the Resource Center best practices database.

Editor's Note: This week's excerpt from Are We There Yet? explores why communities need to pay attention to the ongoing reorganization of job markets in order to provide people of all skill levels with the transportation choices they need to access opportunity. This is what will make regions more competitive nationally and globally.
Visit the Are We There Yet? home [N]ot everybody works for Google or has the option of using transit. Even though transit ridership has been at record highs — transit use has increased 38 percent since 1995 — transit agencies across the country are facing unprecedented fiscal crises in this recession, and they are laying off workers, cutting back service and raising fares at the worst possible time. The transit riders who are being left stranded tend to be older, African-American or Latino. “As employers and commuters everywhere know only too well, public transportation is an essential…

Visit the Are We There Yet? home Some places just don’t have the density of jobs and residents and intensity of activity that justifies an investment in rail transit. Many of these communities are investing in bus and shuttle service as well as in programs that make it easier and more pleasant to carpool, walk and bike to jobs in an urban or suburban downtown, and to get healthier while doing it. Des Moines, for example, which has a population 400,000, has been investing nearly $2 million a year to make the downtown more walkable and create a network of bike lanes and trails. Google — which offers job perks that are the envy of Silicon Valley, including chef-prepared food at all hours — is trying to make commutes as painless as possible by ferrying its pampered workers on shuttles that run on biodiesel, with leather seats, wi-fi, and even room for dogs. The Google shuttle carries a quarter of the company’s…

Visit the Are We There Yet? home Research by CTOD in 2008 found that people who commute by transit tend to work in the professional, technical or financial services sectors, or in insurance, government, or quasi-public agencies such as utilities — because these are jobs that are typically clustered together. Other industries that generate considerable ridership are hotels and some types of clothing stores. Not coincidentally this mix of businesses closely resembles what is typically found in transit-rich downtowns. It’s not quite so easy for lower- and middle-skilled workers to commute by transit, however, either because they work at all hours — while transit service is most frequent during regular business hours — or because they work in manufacturing, warehousing or big box retail, which can’t be built at the densities and concentrations that are required to make it financially feasible to build transit to…

Visit the Are We There Yet? home Job sprawl has been especially bad news for low-skilled underemployed or unemployed workers because it creates a “spatial mismatch” between where they live and where jobs are located. A number of studies have found that while minority and lower-skilled workers still tend to live in core urban neighborhoods in disproportionately high numbers, lower-skilled jobs are often located in outlying suburban areas that tend to be more white. A 1997 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development study found, for example, that 87 percent of lower-skilled service jobs were being created in suburban areas. “People sprawl has long been known for its effect on the environment, infrastructure, tax base, quality of life and more,” Brookings Institution analyst Elizabeth Kneebone writes in a 2009 report on job decentralization. “Now we must recognize what ‘job sprawl’ means for the…

Five research papers covering a broad range of topics have been added to the Resource Center best practices database. The reports include: