Although the accessibility and equity of public transit in American cities has been well studied, there is often a discrepancy between the findings of studies utilizing system-level data such as scheduled travel times (processes) and the actual experiences of transit users (outcomes). Studies of transit outcomes have shown various additional factors, including walkability, safety, and comfort, to greatly impact the degree to which one can access opportunities via transit. I therefore propose a new method for evaluating transit accessibility that integrates process-based methods with user outcomes in order to more accurately identify transit gaps and inequities. The implementation of this method is demonstrated in the context of the Chicago region by combining schedule data from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) with data on various subjective impedances related to walkability, perceived safety, total wait time, and the number of transfers taken on a trip in order to account for transit outcomes. By comparing the results of this metric with another metric that utilizes schedule data alone, I identify locations in which traditional, process-based methods may overestimate transit access by failing to account for subjective impedances. The gap between these metrics is also unequally distributed, with areas with higher Black populations and populations below the poverty line particularly affected, pointing to possible issues of equity and justice. This study therefore demonstrates how transit access measures can be adapted to be more reflective of human experience, while also pointing to issues of equity and justice that failing to do so could perpetuate.
Jada Potter (Sun,) studied this question.