Improving transit access measures in affordable housing funding criteria

Abstract

Abstract The location of affordable housing in the United States is greatly influenced by how it is funded, and current funding criteria do not typically use comprehensive transit accessibility metrics. To show the benefits of using a comprehensive accessibility metric to locate affordable housing, this paper compares one such metric, the Transit Opportunity Index, to a simpler measure of transit access currently used by a housing agency. In this case study, the comprehensive metric showed qualitative improvements over the simpler transit access measure. It is recommended that affordable housing agencies use more comprehensive transit access metrics to evaluate the transit accessibility of affordable housing sites. These comprehensive access metrics should be incorporated directly into funding criteria, preferably as part of an objective scoring system that prioritizes accessibility.