Using GIS to Map Commute Time Over 30 Minutes

By Anonymous

Above is a map of the three counties (Bastrop, Travis, Williamson) that are served by Capital Metro (Austin, TX). I was curious about spatial patterns that may exist between the commute time of workers over the age of 16 and the location of transit stops. I focused on commute times greater than 30 minutes, assuming that an ideal commute would be under 30 minutes. Transit stops in this example include all modes of public transit currently offered by Capital Metro (bus, brt, light rail). Data was pulled from the 2014-2018 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates via Social Explorer. Shape files for census tracts where pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau website and shape files for Capital Metro transit stops were pulled from their official website.

Transit stops are densely located around/in the central business district. The share of commute time greater than 30 minutes in this area is consistently below 30%. This indicates that an overwhelming majority of commute times in this area are less than 30 minutes. The eastern portion of the map has the most tracts where the share of commute time over 30 minutes is greater than 60%. It's difficult to make any firm conclusions, but there are several assumptions that I would like to follow up on. First, the higher share of commute times over 30 minutes east of the core could indicate two things: 1) maybe most jobs are located in the core of the region: and 2) if that is true, then perhaps the lack of service provided by Capital Metro further east results in the higher share of individuals whose work commute is over 30 minutes. Of course, it is likely that most commuters are highly auto dependent in these areas when compared to the core. However, the one census tract located in northern Bastrop county that has a few transit stops sees a decrease in the share of commute times over 30 minutes. This might indicate a willingness of individuals to use public transit if available.


 

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 20, 2020 at 3:00 PM

    Andrew,

    Thank you for sharing this map. It's an interesting starting point for the study of commute times and their link to transit stops. I'm curious, as you mention, about the location of jobs and a general willingness of use of transit. That said, I'm curious whether you have any insight on the transit stops located on the left side of the map, along the edge of the >60% line. I'd be interested to know more, contextually, about how that fits into the picture.

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  2. robhemphillNovember 29, 2020 at 3:05 PM

    Andrew, thanks for making and sharing this. One immediate question I had is for a way to normalize against population density. Not being too familiar with the area, I assume that Capital Metro serves the places with the population density that supports transit. And therefore, it seems like a substantial portion of the population has relatively lower commute lengths. But I don't know and would be curious to know more.

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  3. AnonymousDecember 3, 2020 at 6:46 PM

    Andrew thank you very much for making the map!

    The Bastrop county census tract near Elgin township which showed commute times within the 31-45 range particularly stood out to me as an interesting interaction of commute time and location. This is because it was one of the farther out tracts of the 3 counties and based on the geographic size of the tract assume the tract is more dense than some of the other nearby tracts. I would be interested to see a transportation survey regarding the transit ridership percentage of the tract. I think with that data one would be able to understand if the relationship of commute time is function of the transit availability or if it’s a function of the interstate 290 roadway entering the city center combined with the relatively lesser dense census tracts in between the Elgin township census tract.

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