The Brookings Institution has put out a study on mass transit in the U.S. that gives a picture of how well they’re doing in San Diego. Their critique of SD is pretty much the same as it is for the rest of the U.S.
Mass transit connects a lot of neighborhoods but not many work places. The study’s fundamental finding: While nearly 70 percent of metropolitan residents live in neighborhoods with access to transit service, only about 30 percent of metro jobs are accessible through these mass transit systems.
The study looked at the 100 largest urban areas in the U.S. In the San Diego area, 83 percent of local residents have access to transit but only 29 percent of the jobs are transit accessible. If you think the SF bay area does a lot better than us, the Brookings study says they do only a little bit better.
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, as it’s called, provides transit to 92 percent of residents. Still, only 35 percent of jobs are transit accessible.
The moral of the story is either don’t try to take the bus to work or build better transit.
