A Political Economy of Access

David M. Levinson

A Political Econom

y of Access

Levinson King

Network Design Lab

David M. Levinson is Professor of Transport in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney. He has previously taught in engineering and planning at the University of Minnesota, and worked as a transport modeler in the public sector. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Transport and Land Use and of Transport Findings.

David A. King teaches and researches the codependence of transport and land use planning along with transport finance and economics in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. King completed his doctorate�at the University of California Los Angeles�and a master's in urban and regional planning at the Humphrey School of the University of Minnesota.

David A. King

Infrastructure, Networks, Cities, and Institutions

21Transport Poverty

Figure 21.1: Nobody Walks!Source: Photo by D. Levinson.

When we talk about access as a value that should guide transportpolicy, we need to address access for whom, not just access to whereby what mode. In the auto-dependent US, the mode that offers themost access in most places currently is the car. Yet cars are expensive,and many people struggle with basic access (and mobility) simplybecause they can’t afford it. Transport is the second largest spendingcategory for US households, behind only housing. This is the caseeven as transport is heavily subsidized, regardless of mode.1 As 1 It is likely that transport is so heavily

subsidized because it is such a largeshare of household spending.

discussed in Subsidy,2 the general approach is to spread whatever2 §4.help is offered thinly across infrastructure capital investment. This

does little to help those with the least.

358 a political economy of access

If we view access as a necessary utility, such as energy, then wecan supply access to ensure that people aren’t left out of the economy.We argue subsidy should be paid directly to travelers. But that is notthe world in which we live, nor is there a credible expectation that wewill start doing so anytime soon. The reality is that American citiesare largely built around the automobile, which means that to accesseconomic opportunity you have to drive. If we accept the US citiesare automobile-dependent, and we do, then it follows that peoplewithout autos are disadvantaged, as they do not have the thing onwhich cities are dependent.

One way to think about people at a transport disadvantage isthrough the lens of transport poverty. The fewer options that peoplehave for getting around, the more vulnerable they are to situationswhere they can’t do the things they need to survive and thrive.Transport poverty may result in social isolation, loss of economicopportunity, or exposure to negative externalities from transport.

For many, the problematic situation of transport poverty shouldbe addressed through investment in alternative modes of gettingaround and better cities: walking, biking, and mass transit servingdenser residential neighborhoods. Density is good, and we largelyagree with these ideas, our preferences for density or our concernsabout the environment should not come at the expense of peoplesuffering from transport poverty. Society doesn’t prevent peopleheating fuel in the depths of winter just because burning it pollutesthe air. Staying warm is more important than being a perfectenvironmental steward. We should apply the same standard totransport.

Transport poverty hits families in multiple ways. First, there isthe monetary cost of travel, in particular the cost of owning andoperating an automobile. Second, there are the time costs involvedto travel if a car is unavailable. We often hear tales of a benevolentboss or group of co-workers who pitch in to buy a car for someonewho walks for hours to reach their job.3 These are not stories that3 For instance, Walter Carr was given a

car after he walked 12 miles for his firstday of work as a mover. His boss foundout because he was picked up by thepolice at 4:00 am, presumably becausewalking alone at that hour is viewed assuspect behavior (Garrand 2018).

should make us cheer the generous co-workers, but are stories thatshould alarm us as to just how vulnerable too many people are whenit comes to transport.

The time and money costs combine to promote social andeconomic exclusion among many, particularly people without cars.A story from the Seattle Times illustrates these points.4 Simon4 (Tu 2015).

Nakhale is an immigrant from Kenya whose family relied on bustransit for their first few years in the United States. His buscommute was a four-hour round trip. Eventually he and his familyrealized this routine was unsustainable and they bought a car. The

transport poverty 359

car not only shortened their commutes, but allowed Nakhale to geta second job.5 Too often, cases like Nakhale reflect the relationship 5 Whether people should have to work

multiple jobs to get by is a separatequestion.

between long commutes and low wages. Even with low wages,people will buy cars as soon as they can afford them just to accessmore opportunity.

Studies of low-income households show that families go in andout of car ownership frequently. One study that uses the PanelSurvey of Income Dynamics shows that while 13% of UShouseholds are car free any given year, only 5% of households areconsistently car free.6 This suggests that the value of a car is greater 6 (Klein and Smart 2017).

than the expense, even for low income families.7 Over the past few 7 Each year the American PublicTransport Association (APTA) puts outa ’fact sheet’ that claims switching fromdriving to public transit will save ahousehold $10,000 on average. Theypromote this as look at how muchmoney is being wasted by people whochoose to drive rather than take the busor train. An alternate interpretation,if their analysis were accurate at all, isthat a typical family is willing to spend$10,000 yearly to have the access a carbrings.

decades, a lack of a car has become increasingly associated withpoverty.8 The income gap between households with a car and those

8 (King et al. 2019).

without is greater than households with a college degree and thosewithout, or households who own their home rather than rent. InAmerica, to be carless most likely means poverty.9

9 An exception to this is Manhattan.Voulgaris et al. (2017) estimate thatonly 5% of the population reside inwhat we would consider “old urban”neighborhoods which are easy to live inwithout a car.

Banks and automakers have taken note of the importance of autoaccess. As cars have become more expensive, but also more reliable,auto loans for eight years are now commonplace. A Canadian studyshows how high levels of auto dependence correlates with highlevels of household indebtedness for car-related expenses.10

10 (Walks 2018).

Sub-prime loans and predatory lending are also pervasive for lowincome households simply trying to buy a car so they can be part ofthe economy. People on the edge of car ownership are vulnerable tomany things, and should be protected.

By reorienting our transport thinking to accessibility rather thanmobility, we reward transport choices that take advantage ofproximity of activities and diminish the status of higher speedtravel, which favors the auto. This will naturally make familiesmore resilient with regard to transport, but also will minimize thenecessity of automobile ownership, which should be a policy targetahead of minimizing automobile ownership in absolute terms.11 11 As we have argued elsewhere in the

book, drivers should pay the full socialcosts of driving. If this happens, thenwe are indifferent to how much drivingoccurs.

Transport poverty presents many challenges for the politicaleconomy of access. The primary challenge, obviously, is how toensure that everyone has the access they need to the places theyneed to go. But supplying access to everyone is at least astraightforward goal. The real challenges are trying to achieve itwhere there are resource constraints, which depends on how policyis made. Money spent on access for some is money that cannot bespent on access for others. Some (most) people are more concernedabout their ability to hold a job than their carbon footprint. Weknow that during recessions environmental concern declines.12 12 (Kahn and Kotchen 2010).

Similar attitudes will be held by workers struggling to get by. This

360 a political economy of access

creates tension between preferred solutions for transport povertyand solutions to problems that automobility causes.

People have different priorities that affect interventions they willsupport. For instance, for some people carbon emissions and climatechange are the biggest problems associated with transport, and theyfeel that all policies should focus on reducing emissions. But howto reconcile this preference with improving equitable access? TheUS is car dependent. People who do not have cars are then, bydefinition, disadvantaged. To improve their advantage we shouldexpand auto access, which can come in many forms, but doing sowill harm environmental policy, cause more congestion and otherexternalities, and may take away some transit riders when transitcan scarcely afford to lose any. So, we need to balance the needsof some people today with the desires of some people in the future.This is not easy.