[Excerpt] Employer concerns about labor shortages for entry-level positions in the suburbs and outlying city neighborhoods prompted county planners to ask Cornell ILR to conduct this study. We organized a series of focus groups with low-income inner-city residents who commute to the suburbs or outlying city neighborhoods and work in health services, hospitality, or warehousing; we also spoke with several supervisors and a transportation planner. We found four major transportation challenges: limited service at non-standard times; out-of-synch schedules; off-schedule and off-route buses; and poorly located bus stops. We highlight several transportation initiatives that have been tried in other communities and propose a series of recommendations that transit planners, the transit company, and employers might consider in order to mitigate the reverse-commute challenges in ways that would benefit all stakeholders
