From Analysis to Action: Tract-Level Prioritization of Transit Equity Investments in Austin, Texas

Andrey Fateev

Graduate Student, Master of Science in Analytics

Louisiana State University

Results:

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Abstract

In Austin, fixed-route transit coverage varies sharply across neighborhoods, often in ways that are difficult to reconcile with patterns of socioeconomic need. Some areas with high reliance on public transportation receive dense service, while others with similar characteristics remain weakly served or entirely unserved. This unevenness raises a basic question that current planning tools do not answer clearly: where, exactly, does transit provision fall short relative to social need?

This paper addresses that question at the census tract level using data from the American Community Survey and Capital Metro. Rather than treating equity as a general principle, the analysis compares observed transit stop coverage to an expectation derived from local conditions, including poverty, household vehicle availability, and labor force participation. The resulting comparison highlights where service provision diverges most strongly from what underlying conditions would suggest.

The results point to a small set of tracts where transportation disadvantage and limited transit access coincide, with these gaps clustering in specific parts of the city rather than appearing randomly. Building on this diagnosis, a simple prioritization exercise examines how adding a limited number of transit stops would change equity outcomes. Even under a constrained scenario of 50 additional stops, targeted placement substantially reduces the most severe gaps and affects more than 14,000 residents.

Taken together, the findings suggest that equity can be evaluated in concrete, location-specific terms and used directly to inform incremental investment decisions, rather than remaining a largely rhetorical goal in transit planning.

1. Introduction

Public transportation is often described as a key mechanism for expanding access to employment, education, healthcare, and other essential services in metropolitan areas. In practice, however, the benefits of transit infrastructure are not distributed evenly across urban space. As cities grow and transit networks expand incrementally, decisions about where service is added or reinforced can either reinforce existing disparities or help mitigate them.

In many planning contexts, equity is articulated as a guiding principle, yet it remains unclear how this principle is translated into neighborhood-scale investment decisions. Transit plans frequently emphasize system performance, ridership, or network efficiency, while equity considerations are addressed more qualitatively or retrospectively. As a result, areas with similar levels of transportation need may experience markedly different levels of transit service, even within the same metropolitan system.

Austin, Texas, provides a valuable setting for examining this tension between stated equity goals and observed investment outcomes. Over the past decade, the region has experienced rapid population growth, outward development, and increasing socioeconomic differentiation across neighborhoods. At the same time, Capital Metro has undertaken significant initiatives to expand and restructure transit service, including Project Connect and recent network redesign efforts. While these initiatives signal a commitment to improving mobility, they do not, on their own, clarify whether new or existing services align with patterns of social transportation need at the census-tract level.

This study examines transit equity in Austin by focusing explicitly on the relationship between observed transit supply and underlying socioeconomic conditions. Rather than asking where transit infrastructure exists, the analysis asks where transit provision falls short relative to what local conditions would suggest. Equity is therefore treated not as a descriptive label, but as a measurable deviation between expected and observed levels of service.

To operationalize this approach, the study develops a tract-level equity framework that combines commonly used indicators of transportation disadvantage, including poverty, household vehicle availability, and labor force participation. These indicators are used to construct an expectation of relative transit need, which is then compared to observed fixed-route transit stop coverage. The resulting equity gaps identify locations where misalignment between need and supply is most pronounced.

The contribution of this research is threefold. First, it provides a transparent method for assessing transit equity at the census-tract scale using readily available data. Second, it reframes equity as a gap between need and provision rather than a static neighborhood characteristic. Third, it demonstrates how identified equity gaps can be translated into prioritization metrics that support incremental investment decisions under realistic budget constraints.

By grounding the analysis in Austin, the study speaks directly to local planning debates while also offering a framework applicable to other metropolitan regions facing similar challenges. More broadly, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions in transportation planning about how equity can move from aspirational language to operational criteria that meaningfully shape where transit investments are made.

2. Literature Review

Research on transportation equity has consistently highlighted the uneven distribution of mobility resources across urban space. Early studies focused primarily on disparities in access to basic transportation options, particularly among low-income households and communities with limited access to private vehicles. This work established a clear link between socioeconomic disadvantage and reliance on public transportation, framing transit access as a critical component of broader social equity.

Subsequent scholarship expanded the concept of equity beyond simple measures of access to include questions of accessibility and opportunity. Rather than asking whether transit service is present, these studies examined whether transit enables meaningful access to employment, education, healthcare, and other essential activities. This shift emphasized that the spatial placement and quality of transit infrastructure can either mitigate or reinforce existing patterns of disadvantage.

A large empirical literature documents persistent mismatches between transit provision and socioeconomic need. Households with lower incomes, fewer vehicles, and greater reliance on public transportation are often located in areas with weaker transit coverage or lower service quality. These patterns are often linked to historical land use decisions and network design practices that prioritize efficiency, ridership potential, or legacy routes over equity-oriented considerations.

In response to these concerns, more recent research has sought to formalize equity assessment using quantitative indices and performance measures. Composite indicators that combine poverty, vehicle availability, employment characteristics, and demographic variables are commonly used to approximate transportation disadvantage at the neighborhood or regional scale. While these approaches provide valuable descriptive insights, they are often limited to identifying disparities rather than informing how resources should be allocated to address them.

A parallel strand of literature emphasizes the institutional and normative challenges of embedding equity into transportation planning practice. Although equity objectives are frequently articulated in policy documents and long-range plans, implementation mechanisms remain weak or ambiguous. As a result, equity considerations may be acknowledged during project evaluation without meaningfully influencing neighborhood-level investment decisions.

This study builds on existing scholarship by shifting the focus from identification to prioritization. Instead of treating equity as a static neighborhood characteristic, the framework conceptualizes equity as a deviation between observed transit provision and an expectation based on underlying socioeconomic conditions. By framing equity in terms of measurable gaps, the approach responds to growing calls for decision-oriented equity frameworks that support transparent and defensible investment choices under constrained resources.

3. Data and Study Area

The analysis is carried out at the census tract level, which serves as the primary spatial unit throughout the study. Census tracts are commonly used in U.S. transportation planning to represent neighborhood-scale conditions and offer a practical balance between geographic detail and data reliability. All socioeconomic indicators and transit supply measures are either aggregated to or spatially matched with census tract boundaries.

The study area consists of census tracts within the Austin metropolitan region that fall inside the Capital Metro service area. Tracts without residential population are excluded. After applying these criteria, the analytical sample includes only residential census tracts with complete coverage across both socioeconomic and transit-related variables.

Socioeconomic data are drawn from the American Community Survey (ACS) five-year estimates. The analysis focuses on indicators frequently associated with transportation disadvantage and transit dependency, including poverty rates, household vehicle availability, labor force participation, median household income, and total population. Five-year estimates are used to reduce sampling noise and improve the stability of tract-level measures.

Transit supply information is obtained from Capital Metro operational data, including General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) files and associated spatial datasets. Fixed-route transit stops are identified from GTFS stop records and spatially joined to census tracts. Each stop is counted once, regardless of route assignments or service frequency, to maintain a consistent, transparent measure of baseline transit access.

All datasets are harmonized using standardized census tract identifiers (GEOIDs) and aligned to a standard spatial reference system. Data preparation includes removing non-residential tracts, checking for missing values, and validating spatial joins. Additional details on data sources and preprocessing steps are provided in the appendices.

4. Methods

The methods used in this study are intended to assess how closely existing transit provision aligns with socioeconomic transportation needs and to identify where the two differ most. Rather than optimizing service placement, the analytical framework focuses on diagnosing alignment and translating observed mismatches into a format that informs incremental investment decisions.

The analysis proceeds in three related steps. The first step assesses whether observed transit supply is systematically related to commonly cited indicators of transit dependency. To do so, an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is estimated with the number of fixed-route transit stops per census tract as the dependent variable. Explanatory variables include poverty rates, household vehicle availability, labor force participation, and median household income. The regression is used for diagnostic purposes only, providing insight into whether transit provision responds consistently to underlying socioeconomic conditions rather than serving as a predictive or optimization model.

In the second step, an equity index is constructed to approximate relative transit need at the census-tract level. The index combines standardized measures of poverty, vehicle access constraints, and labor force participation into a single composite score representing transportation disadvantage. This score is interpreted as an expectation of where transit provision would be higher if allocation were closely aligned with social need. Observed provision is measured separately using the count of fixed-route transit stops within each tract.

Equity gaps are then calculated as the difference between expected and observed transit provision. Positive values indicate tracts where transit service falls below equity-aligned expectations, while negative values indicate comparatively higher levels of service. Framing equity in this way treats it as a measurable deviation rather than a categorical neighborhood attribute.

In the final step, equity gaps are translated into a prioritization metric by estimating the equity return associated with marginal investments. Equity return is defined as the reduction in an equity gap resulting from the addition of a single transit stop to a given tract. This measure allows census tracts to be ranked under fixed or incremental budget constraints and provides a basis for evaluating targeted policy scenarios.

5. Descriptive Results

This section presents a descriptive examination of how transit supply and socioeconomic disadvantage are distributed across the Austin study area. The objective is not to test a formal equity model at this stage, but to document broad spatial patterns and identify areas where transit provision appears misaligned with commonly used indicators of transportation need.

Figure 1 shows the distribution of fixed route transit stops across census tracts with varying poverty levels. Transit stops are concentrated in the city's central areas. In contrast, several tracts with relatively high poverty rates outside the urban core have few or no fixed-route stops. At the aggregate level, transit coverage does not consistently align with patterns of socioeconomic disadvantage.

To further examine the relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and transit provision, Figure 2 compares transit stop density and poverty rates at the census tract level. The relationship is highly dispersed. Tracts with similar poverty levels often exhibit very different levels of transit access. Some high-poverty tracts receive relatively dense transit service, while others are weakly served. This variation suggests that poverty alone does not fully explain the distribution of transit stops across the study area.

Figure 3 presents a similar comparison using household vehicle availability. Lower vehicle ownership is typically associated with greater reliance on public transportation. However, the observed pattern again shows limited correspondence between vehicle constraints and transit stop density. Tracts with high shares of zero-vehicle households do not consistently receive higher levels of fixed-route transit service.

Taken together, these descriptive patterns indicate that existing transit infrastructure does not systematically align with key indicators of transportation disadvantage. The uneven correspondence observed across poverty and vehicle availability measures motivates a more structured evaluation of equity that moves beyond individual socioeconomic variables and focuses on where transit supply deviates from need-based expectations.

6. Results

6.1 Overview of Empirical Findings

This section summarizes the main empirical findings of the analysis and links the descriptive patterns observed earlier to the equity framework introduced in the methods section. Across the Austin metropolitan area, transit provision does not consistently align with commonly used indicators of socioeconomic transportation need.

At a broad spatial scale, fixed-route transit infrastructure remains concentrated in the city's central areas. In contrast, several census tracts characterized by higher levels of transportation disadvantage receive limited service or no fixed-route transit. These patterns are not isolated cases but reflect a broader mismatch between where transit service exists and where underlying conditions suggest it may be most needed.

Building on the descriptive results, the analysis applies the equity framework to move beyond visual comparison and quantify these mismatches at the census-tract level. Equity gaps identify locations where observed transit supply deviates most sharply from need-based expectations. These gaps then serve as a basis for evaluating how targeted investments could alter equity outcomes in constrained-resource scenarios.

6.2 Equity Failure Census Tracts

To identify the most severe forms of transit inequity, the analysis focuses on a subset of census tracts where high levels of socioeconomic transportation need coincide with very limited or nonexistent fixed route transit service. These tracts are referred to as equity failure tracts.

Figure 4 shows the location of these tracts across the Austin study area. The pattern is geographically concentrated rather than widespread. The identified tracts are residential areas with elevated poverty rates, limited access to household vehicles, and little to no fixed-route transit coverage. In these locations, multiple indicators of transportation disadvantage overlap.

The concentration of these characteristics suggests that isolated service gaps do not drive transit inequity in Austin; instead, compounded conditions persist in specific parts of the city. These equity failure tracts, therefore, represent priority locations for further analysis and for evaluating the potential impact of targeted transit investments.

6.3 Transit Dependency and Observed Transit Provision

This section examines whether observed transit provision aligns with indicators commonly associated with transit dependency, focusing on household vehicle availability. If transit allocation were closely tied to dependency, areas with limited access to private vehicles would be expected to receive higher levels of fixed route service.

Across the study area, this alignment is inconsistent. Several census tracts with high transportation needs and elevated shares of households without vehicles receive limited fixed-route transit service or none at all. This pattern suggests that constraints on private vehicle access do not, by themselves, translate into higher levels of transit provision under existing allocation practices.

To evaluate this relationship more directly, a bivariate comparison is used to assess the association between household vehicle availability and observed transit usage.

Figure 5 compares weekday boardings per 1,000 residents with the share of households without vehicles at the census tract level. The distribution is highly dispersed. Tracts with similar levels of vehicle dependency often exhibit markedly different levels of transit utilization. Some tracts with high shares of zero vehicle households show relatively high boarding levels, while others exhibit much lower usage.

Taken together, these results indicate that household vehicle availability alone does not provide a consistent explanation for observed differences in transit access or usage across census tracts. While vehicle constraints are an essential component of transportation needs, they do not reliably predict how fixed-route transit service is distributed within the current system.

6.4 Socioeconomic Need and Transit Supply Mismatch

The analysis next considers the relationship between poverty and transit provision. Poverty is frequently used as a proxy for transportation need, yet its relationship with observed transit supply in Austin appears weak and inconsistent.

Figure 6 compares transit stops per 1,000 residents with poverty rates at the census tract level. No clear monotonic relationship is evident. Several tracts with relatively high poverty rates receive minimal fixed route transit service, while some tracts with lower poverty levels exhibit comparatively high stop densities.

These patterns reinforce the limitations of relying on single socioeconomic indicators to guide transit allocation decisions. Neither poverty nor vehicle availability, when considered independently, provides a consistent explanation for how transit service is distributed across the study area. This mismatch underscores the need for a more integrated equity framework that evaluates transit provision relative to multiple dimensions of socioeconomic transportation need.

7. Discussion

7.1 Interpreting the Equity Gap Framework

The results indicate that transit provision in Austin does not follow a consistent relationship with commonly used indicators of socioeconomic transportation need. Although some census tracts with high poverty and limited vehicle access receive substantial transit service, others with similar characteristics remain poorly served or entirely unserved. No single socioeconomic variable explains these differences.

The equity gap framework helps clarify this pattern by shifting the focus from individual indicators to the relationship between expected and observed transit provision. Instead of assuming that poverty or vehicle availability alone should determine where transit service is concentrated, the framework evaluates where existing service diverges most sharply from need-based expectations. This comparison allows us to distinguish between areas that are relatively well served and those where under-provision is most pronounced.

The presence of sizable equity gaps suggests that current transit allocation patterns reflect influences beyond socioeconomic transportation need. Factors such as legacy network structure, historical route placement, and incremental service adjustments likely play a substantial role in shaping where transit service exists. The equity gap framework does not attribute these outcomes to a single cause, but it does make the resulting misalignments visible and measurable.

7.2 From Equity Gaps to Actionable Priorities

Identifying equity gaps is informative, but it does not, on its own, provide guidance on how limited resources should be allocated. Ranking census tracts by the size of their equity gaps highlights where under-provision is most severe. Yet, this approach does not account for the extent of equity improvement achievable through marginal investments.

To address this limitation, the analysis introduces the concept of equity return. Equity return measures the reduction in the equity gap resulting from adding a single transit stop. This metric shifts attention from the absolute size of a gap to the effectiveness of potential interventions, allowing prioritization decisions to be evaluated based on their likely impact.

Applying this approach identifies a small set of census tracts within the City of Austin, primarily located in eastern and peripheral areas, where targeted investments yield relatively significant equity gains. These tracts are identified by GEOIDs 48453000608, 48453000605, 48453000606, 48453001606, and 48209010811. Focusing on such locations illustrates how equity-oriented prioritization can be implemented under realistic budget constraints.

This distinction between identifying need and prioritizing action is particularly relevant for metropolitan agencies operating with fixed or incremental capital budgets. By emphasizing marginal equity gains rather than gap size alone, the framework offers a practical way to translate equity considerations into defensible investment decisions.

7.3 Spatial Concentration of Transit Inequity

The results indicate that transit inequity in Austin is spatially concentrated rather than evenly distributed across the city. Census tracts with significant equity gaps and limited transit service tend to cluster in specific geographic areas, most notably in the city's eastern portions and in outer residential zones.

This pattern suggests that observed inequities are not the product of random variation or isolated service gaps. Instead, they appear to reflect more persistent features of the transit system and urban form. Historical route placement, land-use patterns, and the gradual accumulation of incremental service decisions likely contribute to the continued underprovision of transit in specific neighborhoods.

The spatial concentration of inequity has practical implications for planning. If inequities are geographically clustered, then targeted, place-based interventions may yield greater equity gains than broadly distributed investments applied uniformly across the network. This observation supports prioritizing strategies that focus on specific locations rather than relying solely on system-wide adjustments.

7.4 Race as a Diagnostic Lens, Not an Allocation Rule

Race and ethnicity are not directly included in the equity index or the prioritization framework. Incorporating race as an explicit allocation criterion raises normative, institutional, and legal considerations that differ across planning contexts and jurisdictions.

When examined diagnostically, however, a clear pattern emerges. Equity gaps tend to be larger in census tracts with higher shares of Black and Hispanic residents. This relationship does not imply that race itself drives allocation decisions, but rather that racially disparate outcomes arise through overlapping socioeconomic and spatial conditions, including poverty, limited vehicle access, and patterns of labor force participation.

This distinction is essential for interpreting policy implications. It suggests that equity-oriented transit investments based on neutral measures of transportation need can still generate racially progressive outcomes. At the same time, it cautions against framing observed disparities as the result of explicit racial bias in allocation processes, emphasizing instead the structural pathways through which inequity is produced and maintained.

8. Limitations and Extensions

8.1 Data and Measurement Limitations

The analysis relies on tract-level measures of transit supply and socioeconomic conditions, which introduces several limitations. The count of fixed-route transit stops per census tract represents transit provision. This measure provides a clear, spatially consistent indicator of baseline access, but it does not capture variation in service frequency, headways, route structure, or vehicle capacity. As a result, differences in the intensity or quality of service within and across tracts are not reflected in the analysis.

Census tracts also provide an imperfect approximation of lived neighborhood boundaries. Although they are widely used in transportation and urban research, results may be sensitive to the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem, particularly in larger or irregularly shaped tracts. Patterns observed at the tract level may differ if alternative spatial units were used.

Socioeconomic indicators are drawn from the American Community Survey five-year estimates. While these data improve reliability at small geographic scales, they smooth short-term demographic variation and may not fully capture recent changes in neighborhood conditions. This limitation is particularly relevant in rapidly growing areas of the Austin metropolitan region.

8.2 Model Scope and Interpretation

The regression analysis used in this study is intended as a diagnostic tool rather than a predictive model. Its purpose is to evaluate whether observed transit provision exhibits a systematic relationship with commonly used indicators of transportation disadvantage, not to optimize stop placement or forecast ridership outcomes.

Consistent with this role, the model explains only a limited share of the variation in transit stop distribution. The relatively low explanatory power reflects the heterogeneous and historically contingent nature of transit network development rather than a failure of model specification. Transit stop locations are shaped by legacy routes, institutional constraints, and incremental planning decisions that are not fully captured by contemporary socioeconomic variables.

Low explanatory power should therefore be interpreted as evidence of weak alignment between transit provision and measures of transportation need. Rather than undermining the analysis, this result reinforces the motivation for using explicit equity frameworks to assess and guide transit investment decisions rather than relying on emergent or assumed correspondence between need and supply.

8.3 Scenario Simplification

The policy scenario examined in this study allocates a fixed number of transit stops based on equity return, treating each additional stop as an identical unit of investment. This simplified structure abstracts from a range of operational considerations, including right-of-way availability, capital and operating costs, service scheduling, and political feasibility.

The intent of the scenario is not to replicate real-world planning conditions, but to isolate the equity implications of different prioritization choices. By holding the total number of added stops constant, the analysis examines how placement decisions alone affect equity outcomes. Within this constrained setting, the scenario illustrates that relatively small, targeted investments can yield meaningful equity improvements when guided by transparent, need-based prioritization criteria.

8.4 Directions for Future Work

Several extensions could build on the framework developed in this study. Future research could incorporate additional dimensions of transit service, including service frequency, headways, and route coverage, as well as accessibility measures based on travel time rather than stop counts alone. Incorporating multimodal connections and first- or last-mile considerations may also improve the representation of transportation access.

More advanced modeling approaches, such as spatial regression techniques or network-based accessibility metrics, could further refine the identification of equity gaps. Importantly, such extensions should preserve the core logic of the framework presented here. Enhancements to model complexity should complement, rather than replace, the transparent, tract-level approach that links observed transit provision to underlying socioeconomic transportation needs.

9. Conclusions and Policy Implications

This analysis shows that transit provision in Austin does not consistently align with commonly used indicators of socioeconomic transportation need at the census tract level. Treating equity as a measurable relationship between expected and observed service reveals patterns that are not apparent from descriptive indicators alone. In particular, several tracts with high levels of transportation disadvantage receive limited or no fixed route transit service, while other areas with similar characteristics are comparatively well served.

These mismatches are not randomly distributed across the city. Instead, they are spatially concentrated in specific parts of Austin, reflecting persistent features of the existing transit network. The results suggest that current allocation patterns are shaped by factors beyond present-day measures of need, including historical route placement and incremental service adjustments over time.

By translating equity gaps into a prioritization framework, the analysis moves beyond identifying disparities to evaluating how to address them. The equity return metric highlights where marginal investments are most likely to yield the most significant improvements in alignment between transit provision and need. Under a constrained policy scenario allocating 50 additional transit stops, targeted placement substantially reduces the most severe equity gaps and affects more than 14,000 residents, based on tract-level population estimates.

The framework presented here is intended to complement existing planning processes rather than replace them. It offers a transparent way to evaluate where incremental investments may yield meaningful equity gains, without prescribing specific service designs or network changes. Although the empirical application focuses on Austin, the underlying approach applies to other metropolitan regions seeking to move from aspirational equity goals to more operational decision-making tools.

Overall, the findings suggest that equity can be incorporated into transit planning as a concrete, tract-level consideration rather than a general guiding principle. Explicitly evaluating where transit supply falls short of demand provides a practical basis for prioritizing investments and addressing persistent disparities in access to public transportation.

Appendices

Appendix A. Analytical Dataset

The analysis is based on a cleaned, census tract-level dataset integrating socioeconomic indicators from the American Community Survey and transit supply measures from Capital Metro. The dataset contains one observation per census tract and includes all variables used in the empirical analysis.

Key variables include GEOID, poverty_rate, median_household_income, labor_force_participation, vehicle_availability, stops_per_1000_population, boardings_per_1000_population, equity_gap, and equity_failure. The dataset enables full replication of the analysis.

Appendix B. Data Sources

Socioeconomic data are derived from American Community Survey five-year estimates (2018–2022 ACS 5-year) at the census tract level, including Tables B17020, B08201, B23025, B19013, and B01001. Transit supply data are derived from Capital Metro General Transit Feed Specification files and official spatial datasets.

Appendix C. Supplementary Outputs

Supplementary tract-level rankings, regression diagnostics, and policy scenario outputs are provided in external CSV files referenced in the text.

References and Data Sources

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Golub, A., & Martens, K. (2014). Using principles of justice to assess the modal equity of regional transportation plans. Journal of Transport Geography, 41, 10–20.

Pereira, R. H. M., Schwanen, T., & Banister, D. (2017). Distributive justice and equity in transportation. Transport Reviews, 37(2), 170–191.

Karner, A. (2023). Assessing transportation equity: Tools, metrics, and implications for planning practice. Transport Policy, 131, 1–10.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2022). American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority. (2025). General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data. https://www.capmetro.org