What is it? ‘Lifeline transportation’ refers to a transportation network, transportation program, or service guidelines that are designed to help low-income people (or other persons who are heavily dependent on transit for mobility) to carry out essential daily activities. The concept of lifeline transportation has come about because, in many cases, existing transit service is not adequate for meeting the daily needs of heavily transit-dependent community residents.
 

For example, a community’s existing transit service may not be frequent enough at certain times of day or of the week (such as non-rush hour times when people who don’t have a ‘9 to 5’ work schedule need to travel) or the service may not have routes that go to important places that low-income households need to travel to (such as areas with many industrial or service jobs, schools, and health facilities). Lifeline transportation guidelines are designed to identify gaps in service and point towards solutions that will make transportation as convenient and reliable as possible for low-income families and others who depend on transit. The gaps can be bridged by either traditional fixed-route transit such as buses or a combination of traditional transit and other means like community shuttle buses, carpools, vanpools, car sharing, taxi-vouchers, and other programs.
 

LEARN MORE A Crash Course in Lifeline Transportation (pop up window)

The concept of ‘lifeline transportation service’ is similar to that of ‘lifeline utility service’ that has been offered in California for decades. Lifeline utility service is founded on the principle that services such as electricity, water, and gas are vital for daily existence and that low-income households should not be cut off from these services simply because they may not be able to pay. Lifeline transportation service recognizes that transportation is also a vital service for daily existence, especially for low-income families who often have fewer transportation options than those with greater means. For more information on the concept of lifeline transportation, see the sidebar entitled A Crash Course in Lifeline Transportation.

Why use it? Lifeline transit ensures better mobility for ‘transit-dependent’ people. (Transit-dependent refers to people who rely on transit for most or all of their transportation needs, either because they do not have a car or because they have only limited access to cars, such as one car shared by several family members). People from low income families often have only limited access to cars: according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ (BTS) latest National Household Travel Survey (2001), 26.5 % of households with income less than $20,000 do not own a car, but this rate declines to only 5% of households earning $20,000-$40,000 per year and to a only 1% for households with incomes of over $75,000 (click here for a short summary of other findings from the 2001 BTS Survey). As a result, many low-income families depend on transit for many of their essential daily needs, like going to work, school, the doctor’s office, or the grocery store. However, the existing transit network in many communities often does not serve disadvantaged neighborhoods well enough to fulfill the daily household travel needs of these families.
 

In addition to improving transit service for low-income households, using lifeline transit guidelines also provides benefits to the community at large. Consider the following benefits:
 

How does it work? This section focuses on how lifeline transportation policies and programs are being developed and implemented in the San Francisco Bay Area by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC, the regional transportation agency for the nine county San Francisco Bay Area). This limited focus is for two reasons: 1) MTC has recently initiated a Lifeline Transportation Program as part of its 2001 update to the Regional Transportation Plan (or RTP; click here for a definition of RTP), and 2) our research did not reveal any similar ‘lifeline transportation’ programs being developed and implemented in a comprehensive way at the regional level by any transit agencies or transportation authorities in any other parts of the US outside the Bay Area. (However, it should be noted that many transit agencies or transportation authorities throughout the US are in fact attempting to meet the travel needs of low-income families in other ways besides comprehensive, regional efforts like MTC’s Lifeline Transportation Program.

These individual and/or local policies and programs (which might be called something other than ‘lifeline transportation’– such as ‘basic access’) often have very similar goals as MTC’s Lifeline Transportation Program.)
 

Laying the foundation: the regional Lifeline Transportation (LTN) Report. A Lifeline Transportation Network (LTN) Report was produced by MTC in 2001 and was adopted as a blueprint element of the RTP. Based on this LTN Report, MTC committed to building an advocacy strategy for implementing ‘lifeline transportation’ improvements in the Bay Area.
 

The LTN Report identifies a series of routes throughout the nine counties that are considered vital for meeting the transportation needs of low-income communities (and designates these as ‘lifeline routes’). The report found 43% of all transit routes in the region can be considered as lifeline routes. The methodology used for identifying the lifeline routes is as follows:
 

Subsequent analysis of the by MTC and regional transit operators estimated that filling all the ‘lifeline gaps’ throughout the region that were identified in the LTN Report would cost $109 million per year, if all gaps were filled with fixed-route transit (i.e. traditional bus and rail service). It should be noted that this cost is only a rough estimate, since some lifeline gaps may be more appropriately addressed by other solutions (such as community shuttles or car sharing programs) that are less expensive than traditional fixed route transit. However, the cost estimate does make it clear that filling the regional lifeline gaps will require a significant financial commitment. (For example, $109 million per year is more than 12% of the annual operating budgets for all of the Bay Area’s bus operators combined.) Despite the significant lifeline gaps in the regional transportation system identified in the LTN Report, MTC has only allocated $2 million per year (or about 1.8% of the total estimated need) for the only program currently in existence to fill the identified lifeline gaps (the Low-Income Flexible Transportation (LIFT) program).
 

(You can read the full LTN Report (with map of lifeline routes) on MTC’s website, or jump to the ‘Toolkit Links’ section to read the Executive Summary of the report as a PDF file. To request a free paper copy from MTC, jump to the ‘Who You Gonna Call Section?’ below.)
 

Taking the next step: local Community-Based Transportation Planning (CBTP). In response to recommendations put forward in the LTN Report and a separate report adopted as part of the RTP 2001 Update called the Equity Analysis and Environmental Justice Report (jump to the ‘Toolkit Links’ section to read a copy of the report as a PDF file), MTC began a Community-Based Transportation Planning (CBTP) program in October 2002. This program is the first step towards implementing the findings of the LTN Report. The purpose of CBTP program is to identify and confirm transportation gaps in low-income communities through community outreach and propose detailed solutions for closing those gaps, including identifying ways to funds these solutions.
 

The CBTP guidelines propose to support ‘lifeline transportation’ planning efforts in 25 Bay Area communities identified as most impoverished in the Equity Analysis and Environmental Justice Report. These areas are listed below by county:

A trial run for lifeline transportation: CBTP-funded planning in 5 communities. MTC designated each counties’ Congestion Management Agency (CMA; click here for a definition of CMAs) to take the lead in conducting a comprehensive CBTP-funded planning process and, based on the findings of that planning process, to develop a local ‘lifeline transportation’ plan containing recommendations for transportation projects and policies that will benefit low-income residents of that community. MTC provided funding for this planning and issued a set of guidelines instructing the CMAs on how to conduct the CBTP-funded planning process and develop the plans. The guidelines are summarized below:

(You can also read the complete CBTP guidelines online, or jump to the ‘Toolkit Links’ section to read a PDF copy of the guidelines included in this Toolkit).

CBTP-funded planning processes have already been launched in five communities:

This planning and the resulting ‘lifeline transportation’ plan with local recommendations are expected to be completed in early 2004 (to get more information on the CBTP-funded planning in these five communities, jump to the ‘Who You Gonna Call?’ section).
 

The CMAs will employ a collaborative planning process involving the residents, business proprietors, transit agencies, human service agencies, neighborhood and non-profit organizations, and other stakeholders. In fact, MTC’s guidelines for CBTP-funded planning process specifically direct the CMA’s to collaborate with community-based organizations (CBOs) on outreach for the plans and states that CBOs will receive funding to conduct these outreach tasks.
 

At the end of each planning process, the CMA will produce a final plan that clearly sets out how to implement the needed ‘lifeline transportation’ improvements in each of the communities, including cost estimates, viable funding options, and stakeholders who are committed to implementing the plan. These findings and recommendations are then intended to be forwarded to several local and county government agencies for inclusion in their future transportation plans. They may also be incorporated into MTC’s 2004-05 update to the RTP for the Bay Area (entitled Transportation 2030), county sales tax expenditure plans, and/or into the Short Range Transit Plans (SRTPs, click here for a definition of SRTPs) of individual transit operators. Getting the recommended policies and projects contained in the CBTP-funded plans officially adopted as part of city, county, and regional planning and funding process is critical to make sure that the promises to local residents that come out of the CBTP-funded planning process are actually realized.