Exploring Bicycle and Public Transit Use by Low-Income Latino Immigrants: A Mixed-Methods Study in the San Francisco Bay Area

Latin American immigrants will continue to make up a large share of transit ridership, bicycling and walking in the United States for the foreseeable future, but there is relatively little research about them. This mixed-methods study compares the travel patterns of low-income immigrants living in the San Francisco Bay Area with that of other groups and investigates the barriers and constraints faced by low-income immigrants when taking transit and bicycling. Much of the previous work on immigrant travel has relied on national surveys and qualitative analysis, which underrepresent disadvantaged population groups and slower modes of travel, or are unable to speak to broader patterns in the population. We conducted interviews with 14 low-income immigrants and a paper-based intercept survey of 2,078 adults. Interviewees revealed five major barriers that made public transit use difficult for them, including safety, transit fare affordability, discrimination, system legibility, and reliability. Although crime was the most prominent issue in interviews, the survey results suggest transit cost is the most pressing concern for low-income immigrants. Low-income immigrants were less likely than those with higher-incomes to have access to a motor vehicle, and were less likely than higher-income immigrants or the U.S.-born of any income to have access to a bicycle or bus pass. Finally, although most barriers to public transit use were the same regardless of nativity or household income, low-income immigrants were much less willing to take public transit when they had the option to drive and less willing to bicycle for any purpose. The prevalence of concerns about transit affordability, crime, and reliability suggest transit agencies should consider income-based fare reductions, coordinated crime prevention with local law enforcement, and improved scheduling

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Research Brief

As cities around the country adopt initiatives like Vision Zero to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries, they are faced with the question of how effective different types of interventions are. For example, do protected bike lanes or painted sharrows reduce the risk of severe injury to cyclists? A group of researchers from the New York University School of Medicine examined this question by studying where cyclists admitted to the hospital crashed and how severe their injuries were. This research brief explores their findings.&nbsp

Giving undocumented immigrants access to driver’s licenses has transportation benefits for everyone.

Despite the need for access to a car in most US towns and cities, only sixteen states effectively allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver’s license. In new research, Jesus M. Barajas finds that when undocumented immigrants have access to driver’s licenses, there is no change in the number of miles they drive or trips they drive alone, but it does increase the number of carpool trips taken

Mobility Justice in Rural California: Examining Transportation Barriers and Adaptations in Carless Households

This report describes the scope and scale of car access in rural areas, identifies barriers that rural zero-car and car-deficit households face in their mobility and access, and proposes personal and policy-level adaptations that would help these households achieve their mobility and access needs using descriptive analysis from US census microdata and interviews with 22 residents of California’s Central Valley. Results indicate that 5% of rural residents are fully carless and 18% live in a car-deficit household with less than one vehicle per adult. Both zero-car and car-deficit households tend to be in the Central Valley. Zero-car and car-deficit households in rural areas tend to be more socioeconomically disadvantaged than in nonrural areas. Both groups earn lower household incomes, are more likely to be Black, Latino, or Asian, have lower educational attainment, have more disabilities, have higher housing-cost burdens, and are more likely to be unemployed than their counterparts in nonrural areas. Almost half of workers in rural zero-car households drive alone to work compared to about a quarter in nonrural zero-car households, while mode shares are similar for car-deficit and car fully equipped households. Rural zero-car households are more likely to carpool and far less likely to take public transit. Three major themes emerged from the interviews. First, a commonality uniting the interview participants was the practice of relying on their social networks to get rides or obtain vehicle access. Second, the cost of car ownership and operation was high, placing vehicles out of reach for many. Third, alternatives to car access included public transit, medical transportation services, and car sharing, put poor availability often caused individuals to forgo trips. Interview participants shared a variety of options they saw as solutions to overcoming their barriers to lack of car access. While obtaining a vehicle was not absent from their preferred solutions, most preferred better personal access to transportation without the burden of private car ownership. The findings from demonstrate some of the complexities to consider when addressing transportation barriers in rural areas, where carlessness is less prevalent but solutions may be harder to implement than in urban areas.View the NCST Project Webpag

Engineered polyketides: Synergy between protein and host level engineering

Metabolic engineering efforts toward rewiring metabolism of cells to produce new compounds often require the utilization of non-native enzymatic machinery that is capable of producing a broad range of chemical functionalities. Polyketides encompass one of the largest classes of chemically diverse natural products. With thousands of known polyketides, modular polyketide synthases (PKSs) share a particularly attractive biosynthetic logic for generating chemical diversity. The engineering of modular PKSs could open access to the deliberate production of both existing and novel compounds. In this review, we discuss PKS engineering efforts applied at both the protein and cellular level for the generation of a diverse range of chemical structures, and we examine future applications of PKSs in the production of medicines, fuels and other industrially relevant chemicals

Evaluating Transportation Equity Data Dashboards

The historical impacts of transportation planning and investment have left lasting scars on communities of color and low-income communities. This research evaluates online equity tools that exist as spatial dashboards —i.e., interactive maps in which the parameters of interaction are controlled. Twelve tools ranging from the national to the local level were identified and qualitatively assessed for their ability to address conditions related to transportation equity. The evaluation focused on how each tool defines disadvantaged communities, the outcomes they measure (benefits, burdens, or other), their ease of use, and their ability to guide decisions about equity. The findings show a diversity of methods and metrics in defining disadvantage, with most relying on composite demographic indexes and comparative population thresholds. Tools most commonly provided accessibility metrics to assess transportation benefits, while incorporating a range of environmental and health indicators as burden measures. A minority of tools had integrated features to support planning or project implementation. This study provides examples of promising practices in transportation equity support tools

Evaluating Transportation Equity Data Dashboards

The historical impacts of transportation planning and investment have adversely impacted communities of color and low-income communities. In response, state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, and local and county governments have begun to address these injustices through plans, policies, and deeper engagement with communities, though work in this area is still nascent. There are a variety of data, tools, and metrics from research and practice that measure the distributional equity of transportation planning and projects to inform equitable solutions

Adenoviral gene transfer of interleukin 12 into tumors synergizes with adoptive T cell therapy both at the induction and effector level

Tumors infected with a recombinant defective adenovirus expressing interleukin 12 (IL-12) undergo regression, associated with a cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated antitumor immune response. In the present study we generated anti-CT26 CTLs by short-term coculture of CT26 cells and lymph node cells obtained from mice harboring subcutaneous CT26 tumors injected with an adenoviral vector expressing IL-12 (AdCMVIL-12), control adenovirus (AdCMVlacZ), or saline. Regression of small intrahepatic CT26 tumors in unrelated syngeneic animals was achieved with CTLs derived from mice whose subcutaneous tumors had been injected with AdCMVIL-12 but not with CTLs from the other two control groups. The necessary and sufficient effector cell population for adoptive transfer consisted of CD8+ T cells that showed anti-CT26 specificity partly directed against the AH1 epitope presented by H-2Ld. Interestingly, treatment of a subcutaneous tumor nodule with AdCMVIL-12, combined with intravenous adoptive T cell therapy with short-term CTL cultures, had a marked synergistic effect against large, concomitant live tumors. Expression of IL-12 in the liver in the vicinity of the hepatic tumor nodules, owing to spillover of the vector into the systemic circulation, appeared to be involved in the increased in vivo antitumor activity of injected CTLs. In addition, adoptive T cell therapy improved the outcome of tumor nodules transduced with suboptimal doses of AdCMVIL-12. Our data provide evidence of a strong synergy between gene transfer of IL-12 and adoptive T cell therapy. This synergy operates both at the induction and effector phases of the CTL response, thus providing a rationale for combined therapeutic strategies for human malignancies

After the Crash: Post-Collision Travel Behavior and Safety Perceptions

Post-collision travel behavior and effects on road safety perception are not well-understood. To quantify the ways thatcrash-related experiences shape the way individuals think about travel, we conducted four focus group discussions with people who had been involved in a crash or near miss or whose relatives or friends experienced one. Several themes emerged from the discussions. Participants changed their travel behavior after experiencing a collision by modifying their travel mode, travel frequency, trip purposes, or vehicle types. Participants developed an enhanced awareness about potentially unsafe behaviors of other road users and road environments and adopted more cautious attitudes toward their own travel. Many participants experienced long-term stress as a result of the incidents, including fear, behavior modification, or travel avoidance. Participants offered several recommendations, including the need for safer infrastructure, improved road user visibility, a shift in media narratives, educational programs, and policy changes focused on land use and transportation synergies

Exploring the Equity Effects of VMT Mitigation Measures

In 2018, pursuant to Senate Bill (SB) 743 (2013), the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) and the California Natural Resources Agency promulgated regulations and technical guidance that eliminated automobile level of service (LOS) as a transportation impact metric for land development projects under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and replaced it with Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT). The authors investigated the equity effects of VMT mitigation measures and developed a framework for evaluating those effects at the project level. The authors then applied the framework to two highway expansion case studies in California. They found that most VMT mitigation would be implemented at least partially within the project impact areas, as well as some disadvantaged communities, but would generally benefit communities outside of the project area, too. Most of the proposed mitigation measures would not displace existing residences or businesses or pose a significant risk of gentrification. Many of the measures showed substantial potential to improve accessibility to jobs, though less potential to improve accessibility to grocery stores. Community engagement and empowerment was harder to gauge. Overall, the five-part framework can provide a first-cut assessment of the equity effects of VMT mitigation measures during the environmental review phase of VMT-generating projects, like roadway expansions.View the NCST Project Webpag