Driven to Spend:
Pumping Dollars out of Our Households and Communities
New Page 1
Study Shows How Transit, More Transportation Choices Reduce Cost
Burdens on Families and Regions
– “Driven to Spend” report ranks metropolitan areas and calls upon Congress to
leverage the pending federal transportation bill to reduce costs to families –
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 14, 2005 – The Surface Transportation Policy Project
(STPP) and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) released a study
this morning, Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars out of Our Households and
Communities, which shows that families are paying a high price to meet their
transportation needs and families in areas with fewer transportation choices
carry
even greater burdens.
Driven to Spend updates prior transportation cost studies published by STPP and
CNT, but for the first time provides information on the effect of gas prices on
family budgets. The study ranks 28 metropolitan areas on their combined
transportation and housing costs and recommends specific actions that
governments – federal, state and local – can take to reduce the burden of
transportation costs for families by investing in more transportation options.
Key findings of Driven to Spend include:
Households in regions that have invested in public transportation reap
financial benefits from having affordable transportation options, even as
gasoline prices rise.
Low-income families are unduly impacted by higher transportation costs
since transportation expenditures claim a higher percentage of their family
budgets.
For the first time, the study analyzed the effects of gasoline price hikes
and ranked areas by the jump in household expenditures due gas prices.
From 2003-2004, Los Angeles area families paid $316 more per
household for gasoline, with families in the Kansas City metro area paying
$312 more for the second highest increase. The New York metro area
posted the smallest increase at $220 per household.
Families in the Houston (TX) metropolitan area have the highest overall
transportation expenditures at 20.9 percent, followed by the Cleveland (OH) and
Detroit (MI) metro areas at 20.5 percent, Tampa (FL) at 20.4 percent, and
Kansas City (MO) at 20.2 percent. The national average was 19.1 percent,
making 2003 the second highest year for transportation costs as a share of
family budget in the last twenty years. Transportation expenditures in 2002 set
a
record for the period at 19.2 percent.
The five areas where families expended the smallest share of their household
budgets for transportation services were the Baltimore (MD) metro area at 14
percent, Portland (OR) at 15.1 percent, New York (NY) and Washington, DC
areas at 15.4 percent and Philadelphia (PA) at 15.9 percent.
“Transportation costs are already too high and recent spikes in gas prices only
make the burden on families heavier. This is a wakeup call to Congress to use
the pending federal transportation bill to strengthen commitments to transit and
other travel options to help families save money,” said Anne E. Canby, president
of the Surface Transportation Policy Project.
“We have an opportunity to use the power of this nearly $300 billion federal
commitment to help families and local economies by providing more
transportation choices,” Canby added.
“The big squeeze is on, with wages down and housing and transportation costs
at record levels. Transportation is one area where we can do something to help
families and regions spend less, but it depends on transportation officials
making
wiser use of flexible federal dollars to provide less costly alternatives to
automobile travel,” said Scott Bernstein, president of the Center for
Neighborhood Technology, a co-author of the study.
The report in its entirety can be found at www.transact.org.
# # #
Media contacts:
Isabel Kaldenbach
Isabel@buckleykaldenbach.com
(703) 979-3076
Kevin McCarty
kmccarty@transact.org
(202) 974-5138
The Surface Transportation
Policy Project is a diverse, nationwide coalition
working to ensure safer communities and smarter
transportation choices that enhance the economy, improve
public health, promote social equity, and protect the
environment.
|
News
