by Aaron Reiss
[D]ollar vans and other unofficial shuttles make up a thriving shadow transportation system that operates where subways and buses don’t—mostly in peripheral, low-income neighborhoods that contain large immigrant communities and lack robust public transit.
During Hurricane Sandy, when thousands in this area were left stranded, dollar vans continued to run. Anthony Campbell, a driver, told me, “The M.T.A. buses withdrew their service because they said the downed trees weren’t safe for the buses. You know, we were smaller, so we were able to travel to and from.”
February 2016
(NYC Press Release / Vania Andre)
by Lisa Margonelli
October 2011
by Andrea Bernstein
Jul 2010
by Stephen Miller Jan 2015
New Yorkers who live close to the center of town are mostly affluent and have great transit options connecting them to a wealth of job opportunities. On the edges of town, people are not quite as well-off, and most can get to work by driving their own cars. In between are the least affluent neighborhoods, where New Yorkers rely on transit but the number of jobs accessible by train or bus is much smaller than in the city core.
by Matthew Santoni
by Mikayla Bouchard
May 2015
In a large, continuing study of upward mobility based at Harvard, commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder.
The relationship between transportation and social mobility is stronger than that between mobility and several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentagjn of two-parent families in a community, said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the researchers on the study.
by Mikayla Bouchard
Immigrants comprise a large and growing segment of the population, and are twice as likely as native-born workers to commute by public transit. In California, for example, immigrants comprise just over a quarter of the population (27 percent), but more than half of all transit commuters.
The nation’s crumbling infrastructure makes it hard for those living in poverty to access jobs, quality groceries, and good schools.
SCHOLARLY ARTICLES / STUDIES
by NYU Rudin Center: Sarah M. Kaufman, Mitchell L. Moss, Jorge Hernandez and Justin Tyndall
Limited transit access is linked to higher unemployment. Neighborhoods with some, but insufficient transit access – those in the middle third – faced higher rates of unemployment than those in the top or bottom third.
by Robert D. Bullard
by Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, Harvard University
Hudson County
BOOK
Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads, shipping delays on clogged railways, and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer, an entrepreneur, an online shopper, a job-seeker, or a community leader. If people can't move, if goods are delayed, and if information networks can't connect, then economic opportunity deteriorates and social inequity grows.
VIDEOS
OTHER