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Transport Divide

Also Known As Transport Disadvantage · Mobility Divide
Social and Equity Concepts

Transport divide, also called transport exclusion, transport disadvantage, transport deprivation or mobility divide, refers to unequal access to transportation and the disadvantages that follow from it. In the United States, the bottom fifth of earners by income spend about 34 percent of their annual income on transportation, and one Los Angeles area study found that owning a car increased a person's odds of employment by 9 percent; people with a working vehicle also report being more satisfied with their neighborhood than people without one. Researchers studying the divide in Boston documented concrete barriers it creates for people without reliable transportation, including parents unable to afford bus fare or walk long distances to the nearest stop with young children in poor weather. In the United States specifically, 70 percent of entry level jobs are located in the suburbs while only 32 percent of those jobs sit within a quarter mile of public transit, so a household without a car can struggle to reach the jobs actually available to it. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Core Concern
Unequal, often income-driven access to transportation and its downstream effects on employment, housing and social participation; those unable to afford a car have no alternative but public transport, so cuts to transit service and funding fall hardest on the riders who already have the fewest options. 1
FAQs

What is the transport divide?

Unequal access to transportation and the disadvantages, especially for low income households, that follow from it.

The transport divide, also called transport exclusion, transport disadvantage or mobility divide, is unequal access to transportation and the disadvantages that follow from it. In the United States, the bottom fifth of earners by income spend about 34 percent of their annual income on transportation, and 70 percent of entry level jobs sit in the suburbs while only 32 percent of those jobs are within a quarter mile of public transit, so households without a car can struggle to reach the jobs actually available to them.
Connections

Exemplified By

A geographically bounded instance of the broader transport-divide pattern of unequal access

Long-Form Articles

Sources
1. Transport Economics (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)Social effects on poverty
Quote, Social effects on poverty
Those who cannot afford cars inevitably suffer the worst, because they have no choice but to rely on public transport
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Transport Divide (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia (Wikimedia Foundation)
  • Lead
    Transport divide (also known as transport exclusion, transport disadvantage, transport deprivation, transportation divide, and mobility divide) refers to unequal access to transportation.
  • In Category: Concepts
  • In Group: Transport Equity Concepts, Lead sentence
    Transport divide (also known as transport exclusion, transport disadvantage, transport deprivation, transportation divide, and mobility divide) refers to unequal access to transportation.
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