Get Me to the Job on Time
Ed Schwartz, President
Institute for the Study of Civic Values
Coordinator: Jobs and Opportunity to Improve Neighborhoods (JOIN)
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Council Hearing
Monday, May 10^th, 1999

I am here to offer comments on the "Regional Job Access and Reverse Commute Transportation Plan" presented by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission for our consideration.

My own personal interest in reverse commuting extends back to the mid-1980's, when, as Chairman of the Transportation Committee of the Philadelphia City Council, I urged both SEPTA and the City to make this a major priority. Even then, I saw reverse commuting as a 'win-win' strategy for our region–providing jobs for Philadelphia's inner city residents with suburban employers that were already experiencing labor shortages. Unfortunately, the recession of the late 1980's–coupled with the City's fiscal crisis–put all these initiatives on hold. But it was just a matter of time when the current economic layout of our region would force us all to revisit this question again. Moreover, welfare reform has turned what should have been an ongoing priority for us into a matter of considerable urgency.

As the DVRPC report makes clear, however, inter-county–even inter-state–commuting is already a way of life for thousands of people in the Delaware Valley. I would point out that as of the 1990 census, 250,000 people lived in the suburbs and worked in the City; while 125,000 people lived in the City and worked in the suburbs–even then. So building a public transit reverse commuting is not new–in the sense of something that has never been done. Our entire network of publicly financed roads and highways has become a reverse commuting system for the automobile owners of the Delaware Valley. What we are discussing now is a way of providing to people who do not own cars the same sort of economic opportunity that people with cars have demanded–and gotten–for years.

 Beyond all the useful data in the DVRPC report that attests to the need for these initiatives, let me offer one recent statistic–coupled with a report from a Regional Job Center–to attest to the urgency that we now face. The statistic comes from the latest BLS analysis of regional job growth in the past year. In 1998, we learned, the region gained 39,000 new jobs. Good news. But only 2,000 of these jobs were in the City of Philadelphia. Apart from the sobering indicator of how far our economic development efforts need to go to rebuild the City, the statistic should drive home to us–so to speak–that there is a difference between creating jobs in Philadelphia and making sure that every Philadelphia resident is working. Clearly, if we strengthen transit access from the City to job centers throughout the region, we help Philadelphia residents get back to work–or work for the first time–even if it's not in the City. Again–this is what suburban residents have demanded for years as a precondition of living where they live. Fast access to every job in the Delaware Valley has become a precondition for living in the City as well.

 A report from the West Philadelphia Regional Job Center at a neighborhood welfare-to-work roundtable the Institute sponsored reinforces the point. The Center manager reported that they were placing people in jobs at a rate of 100/month. I asked what percentage of the placements were outside the City. The answer was 40%. Moreover, the Director volunteered, recipients were not only willing to work in the suburbs, they were eager to gain access to cashier jobs in Chester County paying $10/hour. Presumably, EDS is now itself involved in planning of better transportation between their Center and these jobs.

 Against this backdrop, the work of DVRPC in this area–along with SEPTA, New Jersey Transit, local governments, and a wide range of job developers and child care providers–deserves our strong support. The data provided in this report is extraordinarily useful in helping us see the need. New routes like the Horsham Breeze–along with the various projects either in place or in planning–show us that this has become a priority. It's a pity that not a single candidate in the current Mayor's race has highlighted all this is as an economic priority–because it clearly is now..and will be for the foreseeable future.

 Moreover, even though various regional transit agencies are working hard to offer some sort of response to the problem, the DVRPC report makes it pretty clear–though unintentionally, I suspect–that we have yet to find an adequate solution. The basic question here is whether we can build transit systems that help riders reach jobs in a reasonable time–and at reasonable cost. The report's answer seems to be that we can build new systems, we can help riders pay the fares through a variety of subsidy arrangements, but helping reverse commuters get to work in a reasonable time is a goal that continues to elude us.

 You have to look hard to find these statistics, but they're there. On page 53, the report notes that the mean travel time for a Philadelphia resident in 1990 was 27.4 minutes. Let me add that only small percentage of Philadelphia riders needed more than an hour to get to work at that time. Compare this average with the report's discussion of the Horsham Breeze:

 For single parents who must take care of their children in the morning, this must be an extraordinary burden, but the Breeze has still grown from150 riders a day to 1,000 daily trips despite the length of time it takes. The DVRPC report–in another passage–offers a chilling possible reason in its discussion of commute time: "It is reasonable to assume to most persons entering the workforce will find Tier One trips (under 30 minutes) to be acceptable; Tier Two (30 to 60 minutes) and Tier Three trips will require higher levels of motivation. It is possible, but by no means certain, that work requirements and time limits on welfare eligibility may provide that motivation."

 In other words, since we're forcing welfare recipients to choose between work and starvation, they will be "motivated" spend one hours/45 minutes getting to work. I'd love to hear a representative from the Department for Transportation system go to a legislative hearing and defend lapses in our highway system on that basis. It just wouldn't happen.

The related cause for concern in the report is the implicit cost/benefit system that it appears to be using. It is obvious that a way to cut travel time is to help people use vans for a large portion of the route. But DVRPC analyzes the cost of new van services in a way that makes them seem ludicrous and unacceptable. "A review of seven JOBLINKS van and ridesharing projects providing transportation services for low-income persons estimated costs of service ranging from $10.19 to $46.33 per passenger ride." But–the report notes–"These figures included non-transportation expenses such as grant start up and administration costs."

These figures give us no basis for comparing the actual travel costs of using vans with passenger ride figures for buses and trains.. The conclusion is that "proposals for new service that include balanced cost-sharing (including employer contributions) and provision for service continuation after the conclusion of the demonstration period are favored over those which assume long-range grant funding"–meaning that a new system must already have secured its future if it's going to be considered at all.  And when we examine which proposals reverse commuting proposals ended up on the "recommended list" for this year, only the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition project survived–while projects identified with Impact Services, Greater Philadelphia Settlement, and other non-profits were set aside.

What is missing here is an equation that relates cost with time. An automobile rider can get from Philadelphia to suburban job locations in less than an hour–often less than 45 minutes. One would assume that travel time for a van would be equivalent. So if cutting commuter time is a goal, making van services work should be a high priority–even if they cost more. If we will pay huge sums to build shipyards and stadiums with only modest job benefits for the people of the City, we ought to be able to pay a bit more for the direct job benefits that reverse commuting van pools would provide.

 Indeed, I think all of us need to approach reverse commuting with one central goal: to reduce commuter time between the City and major job centers like Great Valley to a maximum of 45 minutes.

However we measure the cost of a proposal, it should be related to this objective.

 Nonetheless, despite my concern about the specific framework used to analyze reverse commuting projects, I do want to express my appreciation for the serious attention that DVRPC and the transit systems are making to meet this need and for the many new initiatives that are already underway. You deserve great credit for tacking this problem and for devising the solutions that you have. We look forward to working with you to insure that every resident of our City gains affordable access to the best jobs in the region in reasonable time. I can think of single set of improvements that will offer greater–or faster–tangible benefits to the people of Philadelphia than this.