The connection between public transit and employment - The cases of Portland and Atlanta

Much attention is being paid to the role of public transit in employment-re lated mobility for urban residents, yet there is very little evidence of th e degree to which one affects the other. Little research has focused on how labor participation is affected by increases in urban workers' access to p ublic transportation. Research on the spatial mismatch hypothesis has dealt with the relationship between labor participation and the spatial separati on of workers' residences From suitable jobs; however, most analyses concen trate on commuting time or distance as a function of auto use. Few studies have considered the impacts of public transportation on labor participation . This article describes a study analyzing the locations and employment cha racteristics of workers with varying levels of access to public transit. Us ing census data and a variety of spatial measures generated by a geographic information system (GIS), a two-stage lease squares regression was used to estimate the relationship of access to public transit with labor participa tion levels for Portland, Oregon, and Atlanta, Georgia. The results suggest that access to public transit is a significant factor in determining avera ge rates of labor participation within these two cities.