Examining the Commuting Patterns in the Maryland portion of the Washington, D.C. Metro Area
Liam Abbate
3/19/2020
Background: Transportation in the United States
How do you get around every day? It’s important because you likely need a way to get to work (only 2.8% of Americans walk to work), go grocery shopping, see friends and family, and whatever else you do in your life. If you’re like most Americans, you probably drive most places. On average, Americans pay 13% of their household income on transportation costs, yet the 20% of people earning the lowest amount money pay 29% of their income on transportation costs.
I would like to influence policy makers but also voters. As long as both voters and stakeholders view public transportation in the United States as welfare, rather than as a public good, the quality and availability of public transportation will remain poor.
Figure 1. The Distribution of Commuters by Mode of Transit
This is an important topic because transportation comprises a large section of carbon emissions and other air pollution in this country. Electric cars represent a solution to many of the environmental consequences of conventional gas-powered cars, yet electric cars have their own limitations (e.g. limited viability for long-distance trips). For this reason, I view electrified public transit as the ideal future of transportation in the United States.
Additionally, many Americans have long, stressful commutes. I think that traffic is a problem which single-occupancy-vehicles (SOVs) contribute to disproportionately. Currently, just under 90% of workers drive to work - this figure does include carpools. It is a more efficient allocation of fuel and of space to implement public transportation. Additionally, parking lots take up large portions of space in many American communities. Widespread public transportation could reduce the need for large parking lots, particularly if stations/stops can be spaced within walking distance of housing in high-density population areas.
Figure 2. A Comparison between Mean Commute Lengths for Different Forms of Transportation
Currently, much public funds are directed at roads (yet they are still in disrepair?). There is also a sizable quantity of funding being directed at buses, light rail, and other public transportation systems; yet, these systems are lacking in frequency and distribution. Politicians have incentives to build “something new”. Repairing or upgrading an existing network of transportation does not provide public officials with the same media attention that a ribbon-cutting ceremony does.
##Comparisons within and outside of the U.S.
Additionally, nearly every single developed country has a developed, accessible, and usable transit network. This is true of Europe, but also Canada, another country that has infrastructure and cities built in the last century to century and a half. I found this striking about Ireland, France, and Germany. In Europe, the EU aims to improve “a polycentric and more balanced system” with connections between short-distance and long distance trains and other forms of transportation.
However, the transit network in the United States has not always been so sparse and inadequate. In the early twentieth century, before the dominance of automobiles, public transit in the U.S. thrived. As cars became the main competition with trains and buses, these other services cut frequency to cut costs, but in doing so only discouraged ridership. Decreased ridership led to further cutting costs, and the cycle continued. Furthermore, as the suburbanization of America continued, many people moved to areas served by free ways but not by public transit. The result has been the massive decline of both trains and buses.
One study has examined how the fare system for BART disproportionately burdens low-income residents. This is because gentrification has led to the displacement of low-income populations into outlying areas, further from San Francisco and Oakland. Additionally, several studies show the effects of how public transportation is structured in New York City. New York City has a uniquely high proportion (among cities in the United States) of commuters who walk or bike. The city also has a large proportion of households who do not own a car. Yet, many low-income neighborhoods are served only by infrequent bus routes, rather than the well-known New York subway. However, the subway has many of its own issues: especially pervasive delays.
##Detailed Analysis of the D.C. suburbs in Maryland
In this analysis, I explore the commuting patterns of a portion of the Washington, D.C. area, particularly how access to public transportation relates or correlates to other factors in Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties, Maryland. I examine the relationship among commute times, public transportation access, and the traffic frequency of high-traffic roads. Of the 23 employment centers in Maryland (containing 40% of employment in the state) identified by Knaap et al., eight lie in the 5 counties I examine. Overall, as of 2015 nearly 35% of jobs in Maryland lie in the state’s DC suburbs.
The eight employment areas which lie in the area of focus exhibit vast disparity: Silver Spring and Bethesda (see Figure 3) - two inner-suburbs of D.C. in Montgomery which comprise two of the four densest of the 23 employment centers - have nearly 16% of their trips made with transit, while Frederick, Frederick County has less than 2% of its trips made using transit.
Courtesy of Knaap et al.
Public Policy Transportation Options in Maryland
Figure 4. Map of the Most Trafficked Points Along Major Roads in the Area of Study
Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas are thought to increase “nonauto mode share”, although TODs are thought to be more effective in the Baltimore area than in the D.C. area. This may be due to the more widely used Metro that exists in Washington, D.C. However, Prince George’s County Maryland has noticeably fewer TODs than its neighbor, Arlington, VA (Calton 515).
Figure 5. Map of the Percent of People from Each Census Tract Who Drive to Work ALone.
Figure 6. Map of Percent of People from Each Census Tract Who Take Public Transit to Work.
Maryland is at a critical time in its transportation development, as between 2016 and 2030 the state is expected to experience a population increase of one million. Since 1992, Maryland has followed a progressive land-use policy laid out by the Economic Growth, Resource Protection and Planning Act. This Act, along with other policies, are intended to prevent further sprawling of suburban communities within the state. Maryland also enacted a sustainable development initiative in 2011, called PlanMaryland. This plan has three primary objectives: to concentrate future development and redevelopment in communities where there is already existing infrastructure; to preserve environmentally sensitive and rural lands from degradation and development; and finally, to maintain a desirable quality of life for residents of the state that is sustainable. This plan aims to encourage local and regional governments to take the initiative in order to make these objectives a reality. For example, the Metro Red Line in Maryland has benefited from policy modifications which prompted dense development in proximity to the Red Line. Partly as a result of an already extensive highway network, Maryland is expanding its transit system, as is its neighbor - northern Virginia. New light rails are being planned for the suburbs of both Baltimore and Washington.
Figure 7. A map of how Far Census Tracts are From the Nearest Transit Line, overlaid with the Transit Lines Themselves
Figure 8. A map of Mean Commute Length (in minutes) overlaid with the Transit Lines
The Washington Metropolitan Council of Government Region Forward Plan also has planned to have polycentrism prioritized in its purview, likely because of the HUD(U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)’s sustainable communities grant program. Yet, polycentrism can also increase vehicle miles traveled, likely caused by the increased housing costs near the employment clusters. Another transit strategy that is an option for Maryland is what is known as direct ridership models (DRMs), which compute the estimated ridership for a transit system using multiple regression analyses of urban development, features of the transit system, and the demographics of the riders. This is a relatively low-cost prediction method because the only data required is for areas falling within a buffer of the transit station, called catchment areas (Liu et al.).
Figure 9. A Map of the Mean Commute Times for People Who Drive to Work Alone.
Figure 10. A Map of the Mean Commute Times for People Who Take Public Transit to Work.
Conclusions & Key Takeaways
Figure 8 suggests that people who lived further from the City do tend to have longer commutes. However, from Figure 7 + 8 I see no possible relationship between commute length and access to public transportation. Most of the five counties have access to some kind of public transportation, though not necessarily within walking distance. Northern Frederick County and Southern Charles County, two of the areas farthest from the city, have no major non-automobile links with D.C., according to the lists of routes I found.
The traffic in D.C. is clearly horrendous - see Figure 4 - as anyone who has ever traveled through the region can attest to. Yet, the public transportation system could be improved upon greatly with the hope that, if mass transit is made more appealing and convenient, fewer people will drive into D.C. The plans that Maryland and other state and local agencies have adopted are promising, but only if they are put into action. This report also did not measure the frequency of the public transit routes, but I suspect their frequency is infrequent.
One limitation of my report is that I did not differentiate between electric vehicles and vehicles with internal combustion engines. However, Farkas, et al. found that in 2016 only about 500 electric vehicles were registered in the state of Maryland. 77% of the respondents to their survey about electric vehicles (all respondents own electric vehicles) indicated that they do not reside near a rail station.
Much of the analysis I have conducted could be done for other cities in the country. New York City’s New York’s extensive and decaying transit systems and infrastructure have been the subject of multiple studies and much discussion, such as this article. But while New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Boston have sporadic and inconsistent public transit, they have systems that exist, other large cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston, and Dallas have minimal public transit available. To a large extent, it comes back to the problem that most Americans consider that public transportation in the United States is welfare, rather than thinking of it as a common service.
Works Cited
Badger, Emily, and Quoctrung Bui. “The Mystery of Missing Bus Riders.” New York Times, 13 Mar 2020. nyti.ms/39ONXOT
Carlton, Ian. “Transit Planners’ Transit-Oriented Development-Related Practices and Theories.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, vol. 39, no. 4, 2019, pp. 508-519. doi.org/10.1177/0739456X19878867
Farkas, Andrew Z, et al. *Environmental Attributes of Electric Vehicle Ownership and Commuting Behavior in Maryland: Public Policy and Equity Considerations*, 2019.
Knapp, Elijah, et al. “Polycentrism as a sustainable development strategy: empirical analysis from the state of Maryland.” Journal of Urbanism, 2015, doi: 10.1080/17549175.2015.1029509
Stromberg, Joseph. “Highways Gutted American Cities. So Why Did They Build Them?” Vox, 11 May 2016.
Zamir, Kiana Roshan, et al. “Effects of Transit-Oriented Development on Trip Generation, Distribution and Mode Share in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland.” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, no. 2413, 2014, pp. 45–53. doi: 10.3141/2413-05