Access to jobs by all travel modes rose year over year in 2024 in most large U.S. cities, a result of economic improvement combined with changing transportation supply, according to new research from the Accessibility Observatory at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies. The 10th annual Access Across America (AAA) study uses the most current comprehensive walking, biking, transit, and auto travel data to analyze the performance of these transportation options for residents of major urban areas.
Watch a webinar presentation of the research findings
Because of its expansive roadway system and many regional jobs, Los Angeles is again the top metro area for the most destinations reachable by auto in 2024. New York and Dallas were joined in the top five for auto access by San Jose and Minneapolis, the latter two regions punching well above their economic size in connecting residents to jobs by car. Improvements year over year on a percentage basis were highest in Las Vegas and Louisville, though strong gains were also seen in San Antonio and Jacksonville. These gains in access to destinations came despite the fact that congestion worsened in 47 of the top 50 largest urban areas.
“The fact that accessibility increased despite congestion leading to slightly longer travel times really highlights the value of measuring land use and transportation together,” says Observatory lead researcher and CTS scholar Andrew Owen, primary author of the reports. “Transportation agencies should be aware that the success of their projects can be determined much more by coordination with destinations than by any remediation of congestion.”
Increases year to year in accessibility by walking and biking were overwhelmingly positive—all urban areas showed an increase in one or both. For low-stress biking, the cities of Providence, Denver, and Indianapolis led improvements in connecting residents to opportunities. In Providence, residents could on average reach 26 percent more job destinations than in 2023; in Denver and Indianapolis, access increased by 14 percent. Average accessibility by walking is predictably highest in the urban centers of New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. All these top five cities notched significant 8 to 14 percent increases in pedestrian accessibility to jobs compared with the prior year.
In a turnaround from recent year-to-year trends, public transit accessibility increased in all but seven large U.S. urban areas. Job access via public transit (which includes the walk or roll portions of the trip to and from transit stops) is influenced by the frequency and speed of transit service as well as coordination with land use and job density. Challenges such as hiring enough drivers and mechanics and funding uncertainty from long-term loss of fares have led some agencies to pare back service. Still, the widespread increases in transit accessibility show some promise for continued regrowth of the ridership base. Bright spots in the year-over-year changes included increases by 15 percent in Louisville, 14 percent in Richmond, and 13 percent in San Diego as well as big increases in Los Angeles and New York.
The AAA reports summarize millions of trip opportunities, measured from every residential block in the U.S. (numbering over eight million origins). Program researchers gather the latest job location data from the U.S. Census and classify these locations as potential trip destinations. Using detailed information about roadway speeds, transit service, bicycle facilities, and more, the researchers apply custom trip planning software to quantify how many jobs could be reached in a given amount of travel time from a specific location. Summing up these opportunities across the largest urban areas yields a value—accessibility—that measures how well each city’s transportation system and land use are working together. The annual research project, conducted since 2015, is sponsored by the National Accessibility Evaluation pooled-fund study, a multiyear effort led by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and supported by partners that include the Federal Highway Administration, 11 additional state DOTs, and the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities. These 2024 AAA reports mark a decade of continuous nationwide destination access measurement. Owen calls it a milestone for how DOT partners use the data.
“Over the past decade, our consistently calculated data have charted the trends in what people can do with the transportation system, before and after the COVID pandemic,” Owen explains. “As we look to the rapidly changing landscape of transportation options, understanding how easily people can reach the places they want to go has to be the primary focus of transportation planning. We hope to be continuing to measure what’s possible in urban daily travel for another 10 years.”
The Accessibility Observatory is the nation’s leading resource for the research and application of accessibility-based transportation system evaluation. Visit the Observatory’s website for the Access Across America research reports for auto, transit, walking, and biking and associated publicly available data as well as other related research projects.
—Eric Lind, Accessibility Observatory director
