Abstract
This research seeks to explain patterns of capital investment and operating expenses for urban transit systems in the United States. We isolate supply factors including urban scales, urban spatial form and financial capacity. Individual and group transit demands are accounted for by social and demographic characteristics including education level, immigrant populations, poverty levels, senior population and race. The results demonstrate that transit investments are super-linear to population, directly contradicting predictions of Bettencourt’s popular urban scale theory. Transit expenses are explained primarily by urban scales, urban spatial form and financial capacity, but demand forces such as poverty, car usage and political ideology have strong effects as well.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 280-296 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Urban Studies |
Volume | 58 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by NSF SRN: Integrated Urban Infrastructure Solutions for Environmentally Sustainable, Healthy and Livable Cities, Award Number: 1444745.
Keywords
- financial capacity
- political market
- spatial form
- transit expenses
- urban transit