Taking a cue from research into the root causes and consequences of food and housing insecurity, the Federal Transit Administration in 2023 announced an initiative to understand and address transportation insecurity.

The federal agency selected University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies’ Mobility, Access, & Transportation Insecurity: Creating Links to Opportunity Program to lead the initiative, which includes both research and demonstration projects to understand and address transportation insecurity. Center for Neighborhood Technology provides survey design, community engagement, and research methods to grantees that are part of the initiative nationwide. Examples of projects the initiative is helping to make happen include:

• Researching barriers and alternatives to help third shift workers get home late at night in north-central Ohio
• Adding transit and pedestrian safety infrastructure stations in Honolulu to address women and children's access to opportunities
• Programs in multiple areas addressing transportation challenges for people with disabilities, those in need of rides to medical appointments or to drop kids off with caregivers

Projects are spread across 12 states (Arkansas, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas).

Providing survey design, engagement strategies and research support

As part of the program, Center for Neighborhood Technology has been matched with several groups receiving support through the program to provide technical assistance and coaching on survey design, community engagement, and research methods to several grantees. These include:

• A team led by University of Illinois at Chicago looking at parents’ ability to get their children to daycare via transit in partnership with Illinois Action for Children and Pace (Urban Cohort Phase 1 Demonstration)
• The project in Honolulu, led by the Hawai’i Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice in partnership with Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Department of Urban and Regional Planning (Urban Cohort Phase 1 Demonstration)
• A team led by North Carolina State A&T University in partnership with Aging, Disability and Transit Services of Rockingham County (North Carolina), Clemson University, and North Carolina State University exploring microtransit services with autonomous vehicle technology in rural Rockingham, County. (Rural Cohort Phase 2 Communities)

The teams at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Hawai'i Appleseed Center completed their first year of research and community engagement in 2024-2025. They have both been selected to move forward with a 2-year demonstration project to put some of what they’ve learned into practice. The North Carolina State A&T University team is conducting their research and community engagement phase in fall 2025 - fall 2026.

Questions?