ACCESS TO public transportation
People have a right to access affordable, high-quality public transportation. Below you can find data sources to help determine your access level.
People should not have to own a car to meet their transportation needs. It should be possible to meet all transportation needs via a combination of public transportation (transit), biking, and walking. Public transit should provide service between cities as well as within cities and suburban areas. A person should be able to safely bike between any two places within cities and suburbs. Safe walking options should be plentiful in all locations.
Public transit includes any form of transportation open to the public that charges set fares and runs on fixed routes. This includes trains, buses, subways, trams, and carpool services.
Click here to determine your level of access to safe bike options.
Click here to determine your level of access to safe walk options.
Use the EPA Smart Location Database to begin to investigate your area’s access to transit by looking at the distance to transit stops.
EPA Smart Location Instructions: Open Tool > Find the world legend on the left toolbar. There are 3 icons above it. Click the middle one. Under Contents, click Smart Location Database > Uncheck the box next to Street Intersection Density. Click the box next to Distance to transit (meters). Click the map and drag to your desired location, or type your address or city in the search bar above the map.
Return to the 3 icons, now above the word Contents. Click the one on the right. You can now see the map legend, which shows you the number of meters most people in each area (census tract) have to walk to get to the nearest transit stop.
In cities and suburbs, in order to have adequate access people should live within 400 meters of a transit stop for slow transit (bus) or 1000 meters for rapid transit (subway, rail, rapid bus system).
If you don’t live in an area covered by the EPA Smart Location Database, you can start by looking for a digital map of your transit system’s transit stops provided by your local or regional transit provider. If you know the name of the transit provider, you should be able to search it on Google to find the website. If you cannot find maps of the transit routes and stops, contact the transit provider to request one.
Once you know the locations of transit stops, you can use Google Maps to measure distance to them from various locations. While it is possible to measure direct, straight-line distance between 2 places on Google Maps by right-clicking with your mouse, for this purpose walking distance is more useful.
Instructions: Go to google.com/maps > In the search bar near the top-left of the screen, type the address of the transit stop. If you do not know the address, use a nearby address > Click the blue button labeled directions > type the starting point address into the top search bar that appears. Above the search bar, you will see icons for driving, walking, and biking distance. Click the walking icon. You will then see both the walking distance and amount of time it takes to walk to the stop.
Public Transportation Quality
There are several variables to look at to get a sense of transit system quality, including system coverage, span of service, frequency of service, average speed, on-time performance, and breakdowns.
SYSTEM COVERAGE: How much of the city or area is covered by the transit system? Are there routes to each area? Are some neighborhoods better served than others? Your local transit provider’s website should have a map of routes.
SPAN OF SERVICE: How many hours of the day is transit service operating? A short span of service restricts people from using it, as they will not take a trip on transit if they are not sure they will be able to return. You can use the National Transit Database to look up span of service.
National Transit Database Instructions: Open Tool > At the bottom, click select a column to filter > click City > type your city in the search bar > press enter > Just underneath the chart, there is a series of dots. Click and drag that down to make the chart larger if needed. Find the row for your transit system in the chart. At the bottom of the chart, there is a scroll bar. The bar itself is at the left. Click and drag it to the right to scroll to the right of the chart > scroll until you see the Time Service Begins column. The Time Service Ends column should be next to it. This is listed in 24-hour time.
FREQUENCY OF SERVICE: How often does the transit visit each stop? Low frequency of service results in long wait times and significantly reduces ridership. High frequency can give riders the freedom and flexibility that is present with personal cars. Transit schedules should be available on your transit provider’s website.
AVERAGE SPEED: The average speed of the transit system. Compared to driving, how fast would ideal transit need to go in order to be a viable option? There is a tradeoff between speed and increased service/number of stops. While more stops may increase access, it may also slow down the system. The National Transit Database provides average speed information.
Instructions: Same as for span of service, but find the Average Revenue Speed column. You may also want to look at Average Trip Length.
ON-TIME PERFORMANCE: How often does the transit arrive at the stop on-time? Reliability is important, as unreliable or late transit increases wait times and deters people from using it, limiting its effectiveness. Unfortunately, there is no national on-time performance database. Some local transit agencies do make these data publicly available. We recommend searching your transit provider’s website for on-time performance or reliability data. If they do not have it, you can try requesting it from them. There is no set standard for defining what is on time versus late. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation agency was the first large provider in the U.S. to release reliability data, defining “on-time” as being between 1 minute ahead of schedule and 4 minutes behind. After 4 minutes, the transit is considered late.
BREAKDOWNS: The National Transit Database has number of yearly breakdowns for some participating agencies. If your transit provider is not included, we recommend requesting these data from them.
National Transit Database Instructions: Open Tool > Type breakdowns in the search bar > Click Apply > Click the result for the most recent year > Click Agency Total Breakdowns > Find the column for Miles Between Total Mechanical Failures. There are other relevant columns, such as Total Mechanical Failures, but miles between gives a better idea of how often breakdowns occur.
To summarize, the system must be convenient for people, otherwise they will not use it if they have other options.