Mobility for America's Small Urban and Rural Communities

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The need for better mobility and access in small urban and rural communities is placing new emphasis on the availability of public transportation services, which have become essential both to sustain and guide the growth in flourishing areas, and to revitalize areas that continue to struggle.

Regardless of their current economic fortunes, small urban and rural communities often lag behind in adequate public transportation. Nearly two-thirds of all residents in these communities have few if any transportation options:

• 41 percent have no access to transit

• Another 25 percent live in areas with below-average transit services (1)

This is an extraordinary hardship for the millions of car-less households and nondrivers who reside in non-metropolitan America. The lack of transit options puts low-income families, especially, at a tremendous disadvantage economically. Middleincome Americans spend less than 22 percent of their annual incomes on private transportation; however, Americans in the lowest 20 percent income bracket, many of whom live in rural settings, spend about 42 percent of their total annual incomes on transportation. (2)

Today, there is a renaissance underway in public transportation that extends well beyond our major metropolitan areas. In small urban and rural communities nationwide, there is a growing recognition of the broad-ranging benefits of public transportation:

• Greater freedom and independence to live and work in a variety of settings

• More choice in how we travel and how we use valuable time and money

• Greater access to varied daily destinations

• Enhanced opportunity for individuals, families, businesses and industry

While great strides have been made in the last decade to provide more tranportation choices, more support is needed in small urban and rural communities. Capturing these benefits in the years ahead will require continued innovation, significant increases in transit investment and broad support from political and community leaders.

The Changing Face of Rural America

Small urban and rural America is now home to 56 million residents in 2,303 non-metropolitan counties, as well as 35 million more residents living in rural settings on the fringes of metropolitan areas. (3)

In the 1990s, millions of Americans moved to non-metropolitan areas, lured by the quality of life and the creation of new jobs relocated from urban centers. This shift has contributed to a ten-percent population increase in small urban and rural communities, nearly three-quarters of which are still growing. (4)

Growing Environmental, Traffic Concerns

While small urban and rural communities may provide an improved lifestyle, many are beginning to face dilemmas common to major metropolitan regions, including declining air quality and increasing roadway congestion.

Traffic congestion in small urban and rural areas is increasing 11 percent per year—twice the rate in urban areas. (5) The overall number of Americans living in areas with substandard air quality will increase seven percent by 2009, spreading the air-quality burden increasingly across small urban and rural as well as urban areas.

Figure 1
Non-metropolitan Population Change

Three-quarters of America’s non-metro counties continue to grow.
CTAA, Full Steam Ahead for Reauthorization

The looming threat of congestion and declining air quality is often most dramatic in small urban and rural areas that serve as gateways to the nation’s most attractive natural resources—our national parks, forests and preserves. Where these areas are threatened, public transit is increasingly being called on to enhance access while reducing environmental damage.

Support for Innovative Transit Programs Should be Expanded

As a result of their new challenges, small urban and rural areas have become wellsprings of innovation in public transportation—despite recurrent funding constraints and longstanding programmatic restrictions. In several areas, innovative and effective transit programs have been launched, but greater investment will be needed to broaden their application to more small urban and rural communities.

Through the Federal Job Access and Reverse Commute Program authorized under TEA 21, nearly 400 new, innovative services have been introduced in every state in the nation, benefiting the population in small urban and rural communities. CTAA, Job Access and Reverse Commute, www.ctaa.org/ntrc/atj/jarc/BriefHistory.asp

For example, in the Savannah, GA region, Chatham Area Transit is reconstituting itself as a "mobility enterprise" that coordinates services across a multi-county, bistate area. Reversing long-standing fragmentation in service delivery, the restructuring was the result of a reexamination of the agency’s mission and role in the face of growth and development challenges and a widening geographic scope of travel. (6)

Other innovative programs providing access for seniors, human services, jobs, education and other needs include:

Lifeline for Seniors

• The Central Arkansas Development Council works with south central Arkansas communities to provide transportation services to the impoverished Lower Arkansas Region. The coalition serves 10 counties using fixed-route and demand-responsive services and pays for transit services for its elderly customers with grants and foundation funds. (7)

• In Harris County, TX, taxi operators assist seniors by providing Medicaid transportation, ADA paratransit, and other contract services for transit agencies. A countywide user-side subsidy program utilizing taxis is under development. (8)

Access to Healthcare

• In the Mitchell, SD area (pop. 14,558), local communities created public transportation alternatives that expanded access for medical treatment and reduced healthcare costs by reducing in-patient medical treatment and the costs of 911 responses and the use of Emergency Medical Services. (9)

• Partnering in the delivery of small urban and rural transit services has been a focus of attention in North Carolina since 1977, when the first state-level, interagency coordinating council was formed. Today, coordination of human service and general public transportation services through jointly developed plans is a prerequisite for state funding, and coordinated services are available across each of North Carolina’s 100 counties. (10)

Enabling Opportunities in Jobs and Education

• In Alabama, small urban and rural communities use state and county vehicles, including school buses, to provide access to jobs or other services. The buses, which already stop in residential areas, connect recipients with a central location from which they can access training, employment and transportation options at other sites. (11)

Figure 2
Growth of Transit Ridership in Small Urban and Rural Areas

The nationwide resurgence in public transit includes continued growth in ridership on today’s small urban and rural services—up by 32% since 1990. Through TEA 21, transit is making a difference in America’s heartland.

American Public Transportation Association, 2002 Public Transportation Fact Book

• Implementing a job-access transit program, Winchester, VA (pop. 23,585) and the Winchester/Frederick County Economic Development Commission expanded access to thousands of manufacturing jobs in the area that are tailored to the specific work shifts of area employers. (12)

In addition to these wide-ranging benefits, expanded and enhanced public transportation provides essential connections between small urban and rural communities and the entire regional and national transportation network of intercity buses, regional and national rail service and the nation’s air passenger system.

Figure 3
Non-metropolitan Demographic Change

The 1930s is the only other decade besides the 1990s that experienced small urban and rural population increases in all population categories.

CTAA, Full Steam Ahead for Reauthorizationn

Figure 4
Small Urban and Rural Investment Requirements

AASHTO and APTA have estimated rural and small urban transit investment needs at approximately $1 billion per year over the next six-year reauthorization period.

CTAA, American Public Transportation Association, Transit Program Historic Funding Levels

Increasing Transit Investment Will Pay Off

The transit innovations emerging in small urban and rural America represent new models for providing expanded and more cost-effective mobility. If service expansion and continued innovation are to be broadened and sustained, however, major increases in long-term funding are essential..

In the months ahead, local, state and national elected officials will have a unique opportunity to expand the reach and quality of public transportation across small urban and rural America through reauthorization of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century—TEA 21. The needs—as well as the payoffs—are compelling for America’s heartland communities and residents.

For more information on how to communicate the extraordinary value of transit in small urban and rural America, contact your:

• Local transit and human service agencies

• State Departments of Transportation

• State transit associations

• The American Public Transportation Association

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services acknowledges the importance of public transportation for job access in small urban and rural areas. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation of the Administration for Families (ACF), Transportation in Rural Communities: Strategies for Serving Welfare Participants and Low-Income Individuals

Works Cited

1. Community Transportation Association (CTAA) Research Center— National Statistics, www.ctaa.org/ntrc/is_rural.asp

2. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, Transportation Statistics Annual Report, 2000, www.bts.gov

3. The Rural Rebound: Recent Nonmetropolitan Demographic Trends in the United States, www.luc.edu/depts/sociology/johnson/p99webn.html

4. The Rural Rebound

5. CTAA, Full Steam Ahead for Reauthorization, www.ctaa.org/data/reauthorization_ strategy.pdf

6. TCRP Project J-8B, New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation Organizations, case study material

7. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation of the Administration for Families (ACF), Transportation in Rural Communities: Strategies for Serving Welfare Participants and Low-Income Individuals, Rural Welfare Issue Brief, Rural Welfare to Work Strategies Initiative, www.macroint.com/publications/transpo2.pdf

8. Multisystems Consulting, Transit Trends, The Newsletter of Multisystems Consulting, 2002

9. Transportation in Rural Communities: Strategies for Serving Welfare Participants and Low-Income Individuals

10. North Carolina Department of Transportation, Public Transit Division Transit program documentation

11. Transportation in Rural Communities: Strategies for Serving Welfare Participants and Low-Income Individuals

12. Transit Trends

Other Sources

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and American Public Transportation Association, Money at Work: TEA-21 in Action, October, 2001

American Public Transportation Association, Transportation Partnership for Tomorrow, Public Transportation—Wherever Life Takes You information kit

APTA Transit News, "APTA Honors Innovative Welfare to Work Programs," Jan. 31, 2002, www.apta.com/news/releases/wtowawards.html

American Public Transportation Association, 2002 Fact Book, 53rd edition, February 2003

Community Transportation Association (CTAA) Federal Flashes, "President Bush Proposes Record Spending for FY2003," Feb. 6, 2002, www.ctaa.org/fednews/flashes/20020206.html

CTA Magazine, "Loudon County Transportation Keeps Pace," July/August 2002, www.ctaa.org/ct/julyaug00

FTA Livable Communities Initiative, Building Livable Communities with Transit, www.fta.dot.gov/office/planning/lc/livable.pdf

National Cooperative Highway Research Program/TRB/National Research Council, Community and Social Benefits of Transportation Investment, NCHRP Project 8-36, Task 22, "Demonstrating Positive Impacts of Transportation Investment"

The Surface Transportation Policy Project (1991-2001), Ten Years of Progress: Building Better Communities Through Transportation, November 16, 2001, p. 26, "Treasure Valley Community Partnership," www.transact.org/tenyears/fullreport.htm

Time, "The Great Escape," December 8, 1997

Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century—TEA-21, Moving Americans into the 21st Century, www.fhwa.dot.gov/tea21/h2400iii.htm

Welfare Information Network: Vol. 2, No. 10, June 1998, www.welfareinfo.org/transitneed.htm

1990 Census of Population data, calculated by ERS, "Comparison of rural/urban and metro/non-metro residency patterns," www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/rurality/WhatisRural/

Research:
Cambridge Systematics Inc.

Editing, design and production:
Reichman Frankle Inc.

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