Access to Jobs

One popular metric of Accessibility is the number of jobs reachable in a given travel time from a given origin. For instance, the number of total existing jobs at destinations reachable in 30 minutes by auto from a residential block gives a relative sense of what the opportunities are for someone who lives in that block 

Maps like these make clear that accessibility is a synthesis of two systems. The first is land use, as the strong imprint of density of opportunity in the center of Houston means access to jobs is highest, closest to those urban areas. But the transportation system matters as well, and residences close to highway connections stand out on the map as having higher access than surrounding regions. This access measurement was developed with observed roadway travel speeds, reflecting typical congestion levels on weekday mornings in 2023.  

This map is a summary of what the transportation and land use systems together provide to residents. It captures a relative measure of what economic and social interactions are possible, from each starting place on the map. The map is not a measure of how far residents travel, or how much, or by what mode; those attributes of travel behavior are influenced by accessibility, but also by many other sociodemographic variables, individual decisions and preferences. But the map does depict where opportunities are greater or lesser in the region, and by how much. In 2023 Houston’s county-based statistical area outlined on the map contained around 3 million jobs.* The typical resident of the region, however, could only reach on average about 875,000 job destinations in in 30 minutes of driving on a typical weekday. 

Put another way, the typical Houstonian can only reach 29% of the region’s jobs in a reasonable drive commute time. If the transportation system has a primary mission of connecting residents to economic opportunities, should this be considered good performance? If not, what can be done to improve it? 

*Authors’ calculations from U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program (LEHD).