United States Department of Transportation
i
Overcoming Local Barriers to Regional Transportation: Understanding Transit System Fragmentation from an Institutionalist Framework
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2018-11-04
[PDF-4.00 MB]
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Edition:9/1/2017-8/31/2018
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Abstract:Metropolitan transportation systems (MTSs) span a fragmented political and administrative geography. The 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) - Census-defined areas of social and economic unity that one would reasonably expect a truly metropolitan system to serve - have more than 400 transit operating agencies (National Transit Database, 2014), and more than 5,000 general-purpose local governments (U.S. Census of Governments, 2012). MTSs face two persistent problems: (1) local governments that opt out of fiscal or functional participation, and (2) a lack of administrative coordination among transit agencies. Both of these can lead to service gaps that impair the connectivity, coverage, and accessibility necessary to make employment, education, health care, and other amenities available to all residents, regardless of where they live in the region. The authors develop a novel theoretical framework, grounded in new institutionalism, that conceptualizes decisions about regional transportation as products of both rules (formal institutions, state laws, and bylaws) and norms (informal institutions and professional relations). This research develops a metropolitan Transit Governance Index (TGI) for the largest 200 metropolitan regions with two or more transit agencies in operation. This work will allow the testing of propositions about the relationship between the institutional attributes of an MTS and three measures of MTS equity (connectivity, coverage, and accessibility). It provides a foundation for richer advocacy of policy reforms capable of changing those rules and norms that impede MTS equity.
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