Thank you so much, Nick. Happy to be here today. So I.
My name is Suzy Birdzell. I work for a consulting firm in Boston, Massachusetts.
In the US called Dustin Tigard. And we focus on sustainable transportation planning.
And I am here today to talk about mapping towards equitable solutions in public transit planning
and how cartography and clear data analysis can be used to forward equity and in transit.
So the best trend is services are equitable, effective and productive.
And they really are best suited to meet varying needs of varying communities.
Often productivity and equity are seen as a Trade-Off.
But actually better serving transit critical populations by examining how the needs of those populations differ from the
needs of the general populations or those in power can increase the number of people who ride transit and its effectiveness.
Most major cities in the United States have transit systems that reflect the needs of people in power,
and they best serve white, wealthy men who work white collar jobs in dense downtowns.
The travel needs of women, people of colour, low income communities,
and those working low wage jobs or essential jobs must be examined directly to create
equitable transit systems rather than assuming that their needs reflect those in power.
So today I'll be talking about different ways to really. Examine those differences from that.
Different communities have from those in power, rather than just assuming that they have the same needs through both a geographic and temporal lens.
So one of the first strategies we have for looking at geographic equity is identifying
concentrations of transit dependent populations in an area and identifying there.
How reliant on transit they are.
There's a lot of people when looking at transit need who just will make a ton of maps, the different types of population.
One map of race, one map of low income, et cetera. But that doesn't reflect the fact that different groups take transit a lot more than others.
So if you look at this table here, it shows the rates.
This is Fort Worth, Texas. Of how much more or less likely different groups are to take transit.
Black residents in the city are, you know, over three times more likely than average to take it.
And those without a vehicle are overall 11 times more likely to take transit than the general population.
So if we. Wait. The entire population by all of these metrics, we get this map here,
which shows overall how much more likely different populations are different area.
Populations of different areas are to take transit.
So if you apply that rate directly to the population density and you can see in these little boxes here how much more these areas pop,
once you apply that weight,
it's clear that need is much higher in some of these areas based on who lives there than just looking at the density of people alone.
This is really important because density is one of the main ways that we assess transit demand is kind of the bread and butter and the groundwork.
But it's not enough. And you really need to understand the differences in those populations to understand where
transit demand is higher than others and make sure you're providing more service there.
So how could we use something, a measure like that, to directly compare it to how high quality transit access it is?
This is a map of the Boston area showing that same demand map that I've just showed with the socioeconomic characteristics,
Big Ten, compared to the number of jobs accessible by transit.
So this is a matrix map. Any of those red and kind of bright purple areas have high demand, but low access.
And it's not a surprise, although it is unfortunate that all of these areas are majority communities of colour and low income.
So this is a really easy way to use cartography and data analysis to focus on where your efforts should be most prioritised.
So something of a pandemic has really made clear is that trenda equity is not just about where, it's about when Koban 19,
has illuminated that a central workers and transit dependent riders do not exhibit
those sharp peaks that exist when white collar downtown workers are are riding transit.
So, yeah, this is pretty pandemic. We have those really high peaks, but this is during Cobbett at the same time.
And we see that that demand is really more spread out over the day. However, this reflects the needs of the most transit dependent populations.
But peak level services, almost always of higher quality and more frequent.
And when we really dive into that, it's not just that certain types of workers travel at different times,
but that pattern itself is really geographically cluster.
So this is a map of the Chicago area. And if any of you know anything about Chicago, the South and west sides are largely black.
And as well as Hispanic and the southwest, the southwest and the northwest sides.
And the north side is predominantly white, high income and very dense.
This map shows the likelihood of people leaving for work during the traditional like 9:00 a.m.
Keep in that white area. It's close to 100 percent.
Very, very, very high in these blue areas, which are mostly people of colour.
It's, you know, in a lot of places, less than 20 percent. However, when you look at how transit is provided to those areas.
This is the number of bus routes that come every 10 minutes or more often during the peak period.
And this is the number of bus trips that come to that same level during the midday.
Those, you know, all over transit quality drops much less frequently, most, but much less service.
But there's absolutely no correlation between when people are travelling and when transit services provided.
Look at that huge drop between service and the south side between peak and midday.
And when we really examine that, we see that where bus ridership is really falling off the most is in those areas where there's not
a correlation between when people are travelling and when bus service or transit services come in.
This also has a large gender implications. Women are much more likely to work part time.
So even if they did leave during that traditional and peak, probably that p.m. peak, is it appropriate for their travel needs?
And they're not getting the highest quality transit service. Women are also much more likely to trip change.
Meaning that on the way to work, they're much more likely to drop a child off at school or at day-care, much more likely to get groceries after work.
Much more likely to help take family members to the hospital.
And because of this midday service and frequent service, all day is much more important for women.
It's not just about commuting during a traditional commuting pattern, which is what a lot of the transit service is oriented around.
Another thing to examine is where transit access is highest and then compare it to transit need directly.
So this is a map showing the number of jobs that can be reached within a 45 minute transit ride.
Again, in that Chicago area.
And to backtrack on what I just said, being able to access jobs via transit is not just being able to access a place you can work.
It also means being able to access hospitals, restaurants, grocery stores anywhere where someone works.
So this is a really good way to think about economic integration overall.
So when we look at this,
it's that those red areas are where transit access is very high and it drops off extremely quickly outside of the rail network in Chicago.
So I use that blew out that big blue outline here to indicate where that access really draws up, falls off.
And I'll be talking using that again later. So using that same access map and then comparing it to where vehicle ownership is very low.
Similar to that map I showed earlier, this is a matrix map.
We can see that there are some areas where transit access is very low, but vehicle ownership is also very low.
So all of those areas are these bright red.
And again, that's in majority black communities.
And, you know, there's areas up in the north side where vehicle ownership is low as well.
But they are really good transit access. That's not a mobility issue.
When we look at these areas where people have no cars and no transit, it's not surprising that unemployment is very high in these areas.
That's indicated by these yellow outlines. So that's another really important way to prioritise where we should put investments,
because this is incredibly impacting people's ability to find work and also access any type of service.
However, we need to continue to examine the fact that.
Poor transit access to reach areas where white.
Wealthy men need to go is not necessarily helpful for other communities.
So this map is displaying large travel clothes with low transit use and all the
purple areas are those where the minority population is higher than 50 percent.
None of these flows follow the rail network.
And even when people of colour do live right along rail network, they're much more likely to be taking the bus than their white counterparts.
What this means is that just it's extending or making rail service that goes into downtown Chicago better for us
in communities of colour isn't necessarily increasing their access because it's not going where they need to go.
All of these flows are best served by bus service. And when we look at the bus service that serves those areas, many of them are very low quality.
There's not very many of them. And. The midday service, how frequently that's happening.
Is under. Mostly under 15 percent.
So, you know, even if there is bus service serving these areas and these are very dense urban areas,
the likelihood that they're coming frequently during the midday,
again, which is going to benefit women, people of colour, low wage workers, the most that that quality that need.
It's not meeting the needs of those people who really are more transit dependent than their white, wealthy male counterparts.
Another way to continue to make sure that we're.
Focussing on interrogating the idea that just.
Expanding transit transit service that benefits white wealthy men is to overlap where transit demand is very high.
So all of these areas that are coloured in have very high transit demand for service.
You know, 10 minutes or more frequently compared to how often people there are actually using transit.
So the blue is very high transit use.
Yellow is. More average for this area.
And then red is low. So coming back to that blue outline I said before of high transit access everywhere
that's red inside that high access is an area that's majority Hispanic residents.
And so why might that be? When we look at the number of people of different racial and ethnic groups that work in downtown Chicago,
where all the transit services oriented to Hispanic residents are by far the least likely to work in downtown Chicago.
So even though they have high access, theoretically they're not.
That that network does not respond to their needs.
So they're not taking transit, even though Hispanic residents tend to be lower income and really benefit from transit.
So what does all of this mean? How how can we take this forward?
Understand what? How to plan best for different communities?
What we know for sure is that planning for the average will always leave people out.
Equable planning doesn't mean looking for the same solutions for everyone.
It's about target. Target solutions based on difference.
Because usually when we think about the dominant need that's based on people in power and other communities needs really different from that.
And by analysing and telling stories with data and cartography,
maps can help target solutions directly and make, you know, very compelling arguments for city officials.
You know, people who are just going to glance at something, be able to understand where to prioritise until really clear stories.
Thanks so much for the time today. Thank you, Susie.
That was absolutely fantastic. We've got quite a few questions and not enough time really to go through them all.
So first one, is this an American phenomenon or do things tend to play out, say, in other cities across the world?
I don't know Transat as well in other countries, but I do know that historically.
In the U.K., for sure. Any sort of like rail line that is centred around a rail network that brings people into downtown is mostly with,
you know, commuting men in mind and was built around that.
But, yeah, I can't I'm not I'm not going to speak to one of them under shirt.
But I'm that's a reasonable comment, something.
But this civil suit is coming to this is really powerful work.
Has it impacted decisions that future investments. Yeah.
And I think something that really inspired my talk today was the Black Lives Matter movement, which obviously has been going on for many years,
but was very in the spotlight last summer, made, you know, transit agencies usually say they focus on equity,
but I think it's put a really big push to focus on what equity actually means and how a lot of
places in the United States re-examine their racist histories and think about how redlining,
which was, you know, intentionally displacing people of colour and lowering the values of the land that they lived
on and not prioritising transportation investments in those communities needs to be righted.
So a lot of at the beginning I said, you know, equity and productivity,
like getting people on the bus are they're seen as separate, but really they go hand-in-hand.
So there's a lot of really good push right now to use equity to make things better.
But I will say that, you know, there's still tons of transit investment in the United States that does promote gentrification and displacing people.
So it's you know, it's not as easy as like transit is good.
You know, there's there's a lot going into it that we have to examine. OK.
And building on from that, Susie, and trying to merge a couple of questions together,
putting public transport where needed according to the data you have.
Could that reinforce or dissolve the inequalities in different groups?
And can you encourage certain behaviour, sir, for example, reducing car use amongst the wealthy mobile population?
Yeah, I think. There for.
For anybody to use transit. It needs to be high quality and allow you to get where you need to go.
And I know you know, especially there's a an example in the Boston region where there's a low income unit,
low income community right north of downtown that has really poor transit access.
Even though they're really geographically close to a lot of jobs and car ownership is actually a lot higher there than you might expect.
But that's because people there have no other choice if they want to be able to have jobs, to have any sort of mobility.
So especially targeting those areas where, you know, allowing people to put their money towards something else that is in transportation,
which often can be up to 30 percent of what people spend their money on this trip in transportation can allow for, you know.
Money is to be used for many other things that could advance those populations, you know, education, just food, general things.
So I think it is a huge, like poverty alleviation measure to provide good transit, especially to those who need it most.
And yes, we certainly also are not. We also focus on making transit quality good for everybody.
We're not like excluding wealthy populations.
But essentially, my argument is that in major cities in the US, transit is already created best for wealthy people.
So our investment focus should be on low income communities, people of colour and women.
And that's a really comprehensive answer. Thanks ever so much. So, see, that's a really illuminating presentation.