The Washington region ranks among the best in metropolitan areas that connect households without cars to public transit, but it still could be more efficient in connecting suburban residents to jobs, a new report says. Of the more than 2 million households in the greater Washington area, 9.5 percent don’t have a car, according to a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution. Of those 194,000 households, 96 percent have access to transit and nearly two of every three live in the city.
But getting somewhere is a different story — 62 percent of the region’s suburban households without cars, including Southern Maryland and part of West Virginia, are more than a 90-minute commute from their jobs. That share in the inner core, which includes Arlington and Alexandria, is 38 percent.
| Region’s transit access ranks among top in country | ||||
| Low- | Houses | Job | ||
| Houses | income | w/o | access | |
| Rank/Metro area | w/o cars | share | coverage | rank |
| 1. Honolulu | 30,793 | 69.1% | 230 | 1 |
| 2. Los Angeles | 358,705 | 68.2% | 3,248 | 52 |
| 3. New York | 2.1m | 49.6% | 27,957 | 17 |
| 4. San Jose | 31,853 | 52.9% | 573 | 4 |
| 5. San Francisco | 195,997 | 58.2% | 3,759 | 15 |
| … | ||||
| 11. Washington | 193,558 | 68.8% | 6,927 | 12 |
| Source: Brookings Institution | ||||
It’s a disparity that should alert transit planners and suburban developers that they need to work together, said report author Adie Tomer.
“We need to create denser development patterns,” Tomer said. “Frankly we do that better in Washington than in most places in the country … [but] in Prince George’s County for example, they can create more dense housing centers that’s going to help these households congregate in one place and get better access.”
The region has several efforts in the works, such as a mixed-use development planned at New Carrollton and the Tysons Corner Metro extension, that are designed to minimize cars on the road and locate more housing and jobs at Metro stops. But residents without cars don’t necessarily benefit from those projects, Tomer said.
In the Washington area, income rather than location is the divider — more than two-thirds of households without cars are low-income. Coupled with longer commutes from the suburbs, D.C.’s sprawl can make upward mobility disproportionately harder for lower-income households.
“D.C. ranks pretty solidly on job access but the first thing you can say is, is that good enough?” Tomer said. “The longer you’re sitting in a car or bus … you’re not doing something economically productive.”
That problem can be exacerbated for even those suburban households with transit access.
“The question is, how good is that service? It’s not fun if you miss that bus,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “That has a significant impact on lower-income households in the suburbs … because transit isn’t as widespread and frequent as it needs to be.”
