Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237

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Journal of Transport Geography

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The working poor and what GIS reveals about the possibilities of public transit
Jennifer Rogalsky *
State University of New York, College at Geneseo, 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This study uses GIS to examine the constrained daily geographies of working poor women in order to
Urban transport assist transportation planners in understanding underserved populations and identifying gaps in transit
GIS service. Through interviews and travel diaries, I have uncovered constraints on daily travel in a sprawling,
Welfare reform medium-size American city (Knoxville, Tennessee). This study undermines the too-optimistic assump-
Working poor
tions generated by analyses of aggregate-level data, in that the transition from welfare to work will
Travel diary
Ethnography
not be as smooth, nor as uniform, as aggregate data indicate. Based on this research, I recommend
increased investment in car ownership and related assistance. Access to cars will not only increase work-
ing poor women’s daily mobilities, but also their job opportunities, overall earnings, and – ultimately –
their successful and permanent transitions from welfare to sufficient and satisfying work.
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction vehicles, and trolleys on 28 routes, carrying 3.2 million passengers

America’s wealth has increased immeasurably in the last half-
century, and Americans have used much of that wealth to radically
transform the urban landscape into one that gives them room to
consume all the goods and services available to them. This ‘‘edge-
less city” (Lang, 2003) has a landscape designed to be inhabited by
a population wealthy enough to afford a house, a large lot, and a
family car, perhaps even two or three cars. All Americans are not
wealthy, however, and the poor have to make their way in the
same cities as the wealthy and the middle class. To make matters
worse, spatial mismatch is such that almost three-fourths of wel-
fare recipients live in central cities or rural areas while three-
fourths of their jobs are in the suburbs (Waller, 2005).
While the aim of welfare reform is to transform millions of
recipients into responsible working citizens, the immediate result
has been to push many into the ranks of the working poor. In cities,
that means throwing them onto landscapes that are ill-suited to
their needs. Consequently, those in charge of welfare reform have
instituted or supported a range of programs to help the newly
employed organize their lives, including many that improve access
to transportation. Most of the thinking and effort, however, seems
devoted to public transportation as an instrument of self-suffi-
ciency for the working poor.
In this paper, I attempt to determine how well public transpor-
tation serves the working poor in a mid-sized city like Knoxville,
Tennessee. While ‘‘Knoxville once had perhaps the best public
transportation system in the South” (Tarr, 1998, p. 7) and today
Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) operates 80 buses, paratransit lift
a year, Knoxville is also sprawling as it grows (Knoxville Area Tran-
sit, 2005). Knoxville’s population is just 170,000, while its metro-
politan area has over 700,000 residents (About Knoxville, 2005).
It has been ranked in the top 10 worst sprawling metropolitan
areas (Ewing et al., 2002; Index of 271 Sprawling Metros by Popu-
lation, 2001); this sprawl results in more traffic, more driving, and
additional public transportation constraints. I began with the
assumption, grounded in the realities of the medium-size Ameri-
can city and the limits of public transportation, that public trans-
portation will fall far short of what is expected of it.
I used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze the ade-
quacy of transportation, childcare, and employment opportunities,
as well as other concerns of the urban working poor. I acquired indi-
vidual-level data through travel diaries maintained by the working
poor single mothers interviewed in this study. These data were ana-
lyzed to examine spatial and temporal patterns of travel and iden-
tify the constraints of using public transportation. I then used the
data set to recreate each woman’s travel as if she did not have the
use of a car in order to identify the costs in terms of time, money,
deferred opportunities, and inconvenience that she would have to
bear if she had to rely solely on public transportation. I could then
determine whether or not public transportation is a reasonable op-
tion for the working poor in the new, sprawling urban landscape.
Such research can aid in policy changes that will be crucial in assist-
ing the working poor negotiate the modern urban landscape.
2. Problems with public transit and working poor women

* Tel.: +1 585 245 5599; fax: +1 585 245 5180. The average commute in the United States has increased; how-
E-mail address: jrogalsky@gmail.com ever, access to alternative forms of transportation has decreased.

0966-6923/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.06.008
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
Only 5% of US workers use public transportation to get to work, and
over one-third of those live in New York City. Despite increases in
public transit investment, usage continues to decline as a percent-
age of urban travel (Buckner, 2004; Waller, 2005). Commute length
depends on mode of travel; those who rely on public transit will
have longer commute times, while those in private automobiles
commute longer distances. Thus, public transit-reliant workers
would be expected to work closer to home; however, the jobs they
tend to qualify for are moving away from central cities. Not only
are commuting distances and times increasing, but the share of
non-work trips is also increasing. Non-work trips account for over
80% of all trips, while commuting (15%) and work-related trips (3%)
account for just 18% of all trips (United States Bureau of Transpor-
tation Statistics, 2003). Temporal mismatch is also a problem with
public transportation, as 45% of former welfare recipients have
non-traditional work schedules (Bania et al., 2001). Public trans-
portation is also constrained by the fact that many medium-size
American cities simply lack the population density necessary to
support well-developed systems of public transportation; this lim-
its the available destinations, flexibility in scheduling, and times of
service.
Numerous researchers have found that women are further dis-
advantaged compared to men. Women have less spatial mobility,
are more reliant on public transportation, have lower job mobility,
and have additional time-space constraints because of the multiple
roles they fill (Blumen, 1994; Gilbert, 1998; Guiliano, 1988; Han-
son and Johnston, 1985; Hanson and Pratt, 1988; Holcomb, 1984;
Johnston-Anumonwo, 1995, 1997; Johnston-Anumonwo et al.,
1995; Lacombe, 1998; MacDonald, 1999; Madden, 1981; Preston
et al., 1993; Rutherford and Wekerle, 1988). The reason initially
proposed by researchers for limited spatial mobility was the need
to balance the competing demands of home and work (Blumen,
1994; Hanson and Johnston, 1985; Madden, 1981; Preston et al.,
1993). Women’s mobility is even more constrained because they
tend to perform multi-purpose commuting, combining both work
and household needs; women make more stops than men for
childcare, shopping, doctor, and school visits. Although they agree
that these family and household obligations do cause women to
minimize the time they spend away from home, Hanson and John-
ston (1985) argue that women are more sensitive to distance be-
cause of other factors, including mobility, rather than this ‘‘dual
role.” Women also tend to travel more on foot or by public trans-
portation than men, restricting their job search space even further
(Blumen, 1994; Hanson and Johnston, 1985; Preston et al., 1993;
Rutherford and Wekerle, 1988). Although women have shorter
average trips than men, they make more trips: 3.8 per day com-
pared to 3.3 per day (Lacombe, 1998; MacDonald, 1999).
While transportation is clearly difficult for women, the situation
is even more complex for working poor women. Employed women
make 31% more trips than women who are unemployed (Lacombe,
1998; MacDonald, 1999), and the transportation barriers
mentioned above create obstacles to employment for even the
most motivated welfare recipients (Regenstein et al., 1998). Only
65% of low-income households (and only 55% of welfare recipients)
have at least one vehicle; however, only one-fifth ever use public
transportation (Blumenberg, 2003; Ong and Houston, 2002).
Forty-five percent of former welfare recipients have non-tradi-
tional work schedules, leaving for work outside of the traditional
morning commute time of 6 AM to 9 AM (Bania et al., 2001), mak-
ing public transportation difficult to manage. Bania et al. (2001)
also state that 29% of former welfare recipients have to stop at
childcare on their way to work, making the journey-to-work even
more complicated, especially for those who have to rely on some-
one else for transportation.
To compensate for these disproportionately restrictive con-
straints, women tend to negotiate their days with more dense
227
travel patterns (Kwan, 1999). However, this is difficult for working
poor women without a car. Researchers have found that welfare
recipients with cars were more likely to have worked in the past
month, worked more hours, and had higher mean monthly earn-
ings (Blumenberg et al., 1998; Waller, 2005). Even those welfare
recipients who do not own cars make 35% of their trips by private
automobile (Blumenberg, 2003; Ong and Houston, 2002).
Working poor women’s transportation disadvantage, in addi-
tion to the decentralization of people and jobs, and the increase
in travel it necessitates, are clearly problematic; it is unlikely that
public transportation could solve everyone’s needs even if it was
available to all (Lang, 2003). Thus the question examined here is
whether or not public transportation can be made to serve the
majority of the working poor.
3. Methods
3.1. Creating an individual-level data set
A primary individual-level data set is needed to test whether or
not public transportation, even if substantially modified, will actu-
ally take the bulk of the newly working poor to jobs, back home,
and everywhere else within a reasonable period of time without
having to sacrifice childcare, shopping, safety, and more in a med-
ium-size American city like Knoxville, Tennessee. Individual-level
travel data can be compared to job location, support networks,
and transportation availability in order to test whether individuals’
patterns follow those predicted by theory.
There is a common bias toward aggregate data, examining indi-
viduals as a group, because it is easier and less expensive to both
gather and analyze. Shaw and Wang (2000), however, state that
using aggregate models limits our understanding of individuals’
travel behavior. Travel should instead be examined in the context
of time, space, and other constraints, rather than just trying to
understand the trip itself. Travel behavior results from temporal,
spatial, and other qualitative decisions, thus travel studies – espe-
cially those involving multiple trips or trip chaining – require that
the trips be examined as interrelated events. Travel data from mul-
tiple days is also important because of the variation of an individ-
ual’s day-to-day travel (Shaw and Wang, 2000).
I developed the individual-level data set for this study though
interviews with working, poor, single mothers, who are on welfare
or making the transition off of welfare. The primary criteria for the
respondents in this study included single women who are or have
recently been welfare reliant, have children, are currently working
or are currently seeking employment, and are living in subsidized
housing. Of the nearly 250 candidates contacted through the local
human services offices and their related services, only 29 re-
sponded positively and only 19 respondents actually completed
this study (Table 1).
While many women chose not to participate in the study, the
limited number of participants is mostly representative of the lar-
ger population (Table 2). Table 2 compares the characteristics of
study sample to Tennessee’s cases overall. While race is somewhat
skewed in the sample (under 60% of Tennessee caretakers are
Black, yet over 80% of this study’s sample are Black), when exam-
ining average age, number of children, education level, and access
to an automobile, while my sample is limited, it is actually quite
representative of the state’s characteristics (Center for Business
and Economic Research, 2003).
I conducted multiple interviews with each woman, mostly in
the respondents’ homes. Each woman was also asked to maintain
a travel and activity diary for at least five days to include a sample
of work and off days, as well as weekdays and weekend days. Each
respondent was asked to record the street address or closest
228 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237

Table 1
Summary of respondents’ general characteristics.

Pseudonym Race Age Marital status Children at home Work or school Own car
Betty Elliott W 38 Single 2 School Y
Diamond Young B 19 Single 1 Work Broken
Faye Nicks B 26 Single NO Work Y
Grace Randolph B 55 Single 1 Work N
Lisa White B 34 Single 3 NA N
Malika Felton W 37 Single 2 NA Broken
Michelle Kelly B 22 Single 3 School Y
Monique Pride B 21 Single 2 Work Y
Mary Stevens B 26 Single 3 Work N
Monica Williams B 31 Single 3 School Y
Mahogany Zaire B 27 Separated Pregnant Work N
Sharon Griffen W 28 Separated 3 School N
Sabrina Henkins B 33 Single 2 School Y
Summer Hunt B 29 Single 2 Work Y
Sheena Jordan B 22 Single 2 School Y
Sally Malone B 48 Single 1 NA N
Tracy Jones B 24 Single 1 School Y
Tracy Pruett B 21 Single 1 Work N
Whitney Davis B 39 Single 2 Work Y
Summary 16 black Average: 30.5 17 single Average: 1.8 9 work 10 yes
3 white Range: 19–55 2 Separated Range: 0–3 7 school 7 no
3 NA 2 broken

significant role in welfare to work planning (Shaw and Wang,

Table 2
Representative ‘‘Families First” welfare program case caretaker characteristics.
Tennessee
Black (%) 58.3
White (%) 39.5
Average age (years) 33.1
Female (%) 95.7
Single, separated, divorced, or widowed (%) 87.4
Average number of children 1.9
With two or fewer children (%) 76.2
Single adult headed household (non-child-only cases) (%) 97.8
High school diploma or GED (%) 59.7
Car in the household (%) 42
Source: Center for Business and Economic Research (2003). Families First: 2003 case
characteristics study. Knoxville, TN: College of Business Administration.
intersection of her daily origin and destination location, as well as
the start and end times, distance, purpose of travel, mode, and var-
ious costs.
After the travel diaries were complete, I then followed up with
each respondent at least once more to collect and discuss her diary,
address any gaps in her data, and find out how she did (or would)
deal with ‘‘exceptional trips” (a call into school, doctor visit, etc.).
3.2. Use of GIS along with ethnography
Because I expected to gather a tremendous volume of data, GIS
would be necessary to examine the complex relationships among
variables and uncover patterns and constraints that aggregate data
sets do not address. Many of these women do not have cars, yet I
expected that they would have complex travel patterns. Thus,
GIS, complemented by ethnographic research, is a powerful tool
for understanding these mobility problems.
GIS is used in this research to measure welfare recipients’ access
to transportation and common destinations, including support ser-
vices, training facilities, and childcare. GIS is also used to identify
how well the existing public transit system connects people to
jobs. In examining gaps in transit service, GIS is also used to illus-
trate spatial mismatch at different times of day based on the avail-
ability of night and weekend routes, as well as night and weekend
childcare opportunities. This temporal component of GIS can play a
2000).
The data collected from travel diaries was entered into a GIS
Study
database to illustrate specific origin-destination patterns, and to
sample
analyze the spatial characteristics of respondents’ travel. In an at-
84.2
tempt to integrate qualitative and quantitative data, information
15.8
30.5 about the individual and her household were also collected and
100 integrated into the GIS analysis. The 607 stops collected in travel
100 diaries were geocoded to their correct street addresses. An ‘‘end
1.8 of route” record was added to each ‘‘home-based” trip in order to
73.7
100
add a stop in the GIS for the final destination; thus an origin and
68.4 a destination point define each trip. One hundred and seventy four
52.6 home-based routes were created from these stops (an additional 3
routes were not analyzed, as they were just ‘‘riding” around town).
Because I did not collect data on the actual trip paths, the shortest
paths between each pair of trip origin and destination sites were
derived from GIS.
In addition, using GIS, I created a polygonal generalized travel
area for each woman’s travel during all of the days she kept the tra-
vel diary, which could be used for further work in activity-based
travel. All of these tables were then related in order to perform
queries and analyses on the stops database, routes database, and
travel area calculations.
I then used this data set to reconstruct respondents’ daily trans-
portation patterns as if these women did not have the use of a car.
Their costs in terms of time, money, distance walked, deferred
opportunities, and inconveniences were calculated to see what
these women would have to change or sacrifice if they did not have
the use of a car. I also determined the effects of changing bus ser-
vice (frequency and time of day), by testing the impact of increas-
ing route frequency. These results will illustrate how single,
working, poor mothers would have to significantly change their
daily lives in order to use public transportation.
4. Results: a sample of patterns of daily travel activities
Each respondent completed an average of six days of travel dia-
ries, for a total of 107 days. Only one person was uncomfortable
with the task, and refused to complete the travel diary; another
diary is only used for limited analysis because the respondent
moved out of the county during the study. Table 3 illustrates po-
tential connections between the respondents’ homes (Fig. 1) and
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237 229

Table 3
Public housing, employment, and services located within KAT’s 0.4 km (0.25 miles) service area.

Total number Within service area Percent (%) Within service area Percent (%)
for regular routes for night/weekend routes
Public housing (incl. Mechanicsville) 34 28 82.4 2 5.9
Subsidized child care 203 141 69.5 30 14.8
DHS services/training 24 23 95.8 4 16.7
Shopping centers 150 110 73.3 52 34.7
Offices 432 300 69.4 153 35.4
Industry 706 387 54.8 66 9.3
Churches 425 194 45.6 52 12.2
Hospitals 6 6 100.0 3 50.0
Libraries 19 12 63.2 6 31.6
Public schools 88 39 44.3 10 11.4
Private schools 36 21 58.3 7 19.4
Higher education 8 7 87.5 3 37.5
Recreation centers 25 23 92.0 3 12.0
Parks 215 111 51.6 29 13.5

Source: Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission (2002). GIS Data Files.

Fig. 1. Respondents’ residences and Knox County families below poverty by Census tract.

the services (Fig. 2) they might require. Significant percentages of
homes and employment opportunities are within walking distance
of bus routes (Fig. 3); however, very few in this sample actually
ride the bus (Table 4), and percentages decrease considerably
when examining night and weekend routes (Table 3; Fig. 4).
4.1. Mode of travel
I found that 90% of all trips were made in a car, approximately
4% were made on foot, and just over 6% were made on a bus; only
four women rode the bus at all (Table 4). When compared to Knox
County and the United States, the percentage riding the bus in this
sample is actually higher than average. Knox County’s recent Ori-
gin-Destination survey showed that only 1% of all trips in Knox
County are made with public transit (Knoxville Urban Area Metro-
politan Planning Organization, 2001). The national average of all
commuting with public transit is 5% (only 3% outside of New York
City) (Buckner, 2004). The proportion in this sample is higher than
the local and national average, but still lower than one might ex-
pect for a group of women making the transition off of welfare –
half of whom do not own a car (Table 1). One respondent in this
study, Diamond Young (names have been changed to protect the
respondents’ anonymity), summarizes how these women make
their lives work, ‘‘I depend on other people. At night I have to get
my walk on. I don’t know how to catch the bus.”
4.2. Purpose of trip and destination type
In the United States, 45% of trips are made to shop, visit doctors,
and for other family/personal business; social and recreation trips
make up an additional 25% (United States Bureau of Transportation
Statistics, 2003). In this study, ‘‘work-related” trips include: job,
230 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237

Fig. 2. Knox County public housing, subsidized child care, Department of Human Services locations, and KAT bus routes.

Fig. 3. Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) bus routes and service area.
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237 231

Table 4 residences, making it very difficult for these women to ride the bus,
Summary of travel diary results. as fixed bus routes cannot efficiently drop off/pick up at every
Mode of travel residence. However, the other top destination types should all be
Car: 90% relatively easy to get to on a bus, especially given the high concen-
Bus: 6% tration of essential services within the 0.4 km (0.25 mile) service
Walking: 4%
area for KAT’s routes (Table 3).
Days of the week Upon examination of the individual-level data collected in this
Weekday: 78.6% study, it is clear that extraordinarily high percentages of respon-
Weekend: 21.4% dents’ origin and destination points are within KAT’s service area.
Ninety-three percent (565/607) of all destinations are within the
Time of day
6:01 AM to 9:00 AM: 116/607 trips (19.1%) regular fixed-route service area, and 29% (177/607) are within
9:01 AM to 3:00 PM: 193/607 trips (31.8%) the night/weekend route service area. These are high percentages
3:01 PM to 7:00 PM: 192/607 trips (31.6%) compared to the percentage actually riding the bus; it appears that
7:01 PM to 11:00 PM: 70/607 trips (11.5%) these women could be riding the bus, but they simply are not. Be-
11:01 PM to 6:00 AM: 36/607 trips (5.9%)
cause of the flexibility and freedom personal automobiles offer, it is
Number of trips and trip chaining safe to assume that most people with their own automobiles will
Average number of trips per day choose to drive rather than rely on the bus. However, nearly half
Range: 1.4–11.3 trips of the women in this study do not have cars, and five do not even
Average: 5.9 trips
have a driver’s license.
Average number of trips per route
Range: 2.0 (includes return home) – 5.25 trips
Average: 3.5 trips 4.3. Days of the week and time of day
Average number of routes per day
Range: 0.6–3.57 routes Because bus schedules vary on weekends compared to week-
Average: 1.7 routes days, and differ at night, it is important to examine whether the
trips in this study could be managed on a bus. In this study, the
Distance traveled
incidence of weekend travel is very high for some (Table 4), which
Average trip distance
Range: 1.9–19.5 km (1.2–12.1 miles)
is significant because KAT bus routes are much less frequent, are
Average: 4.7 km (2.9 miles) often combined, or do not run at all on weekends, especially on
Maximum trip distance
Sundays, when only four partial routes are in operation.
Range: 4.2–24.8 km (2.6–15.4 miles) Almost one-third of the trips (31.8%) were made in the middle
Average: 13.5 km (8.4 miles) of the day (between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM) when bus frequency of-
Minimum trip distance ten declines. Another 17.4% of trips were made between 7:01 PM
Range: 0.06–24.8 km (0.04–15.4 miles) and 6:00 AM, when buses are not running, or when only the four
Average: 1.6 km (1.0 miles) ‘‘Night Rider” buses are in operation until midnight (Table 4). These
conditions are a challenge for public transportation planners; the
Duration of trips
Average trip duration times of day at which these trips are made suggest a serious con-
Range: 1–71 min straint to riding the bus given present scheduling.
Average: 14 min
Average by mode of travel 4.4. Number of trips and trip chaining
Car: 13 min
Bus: 49 min
Walking: 11 min Overall, respondents averaged approximately six trips per day,
with a maximum of over 11 a day (Table 4). However, the average
Lapse time between trips for females in Knox County is just 3.6 trips per day (Knoxville Ur-
Range: 1–630 min
ban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, 2001). MacDonald
Average: 81 min
Average eliminating time at home/work: 30 min (1999) found similar results in the United States, as women make
3.5 trips per day compared to 3.3 per day for men.
Travel area Besides the number of trips, it is also important to examine
Range: 6.0–169.1 square km (2.3–65.3 square miles) whether trips are made individually (one-stop trips) or if they
Average: 43.0 square km (16.6 square miles)
are chained together, as it is more difficult to manage multiple
trips on a bus compared to a one-stop trip. Nearly 60% of all trips
school, meetings, and any other activities that fit into a woman’s were chained together, while just 41% were one-stop trips (Table
requirements to receive welfare benefits. Almost 85% (15 of 18) 4). The women traveled to 2.5 places per trip, on average, before
of the respondents who completed their travel diaries actually returning home; the maximum was 12 places before returning
had a job or performed work-related activity (Table 5), yet even home. Making this number of trips would be very inefficient, if
excluding the return trip ‘‘home,” less than 16% (66 of 421) of their not impossible, on a bus.
trips were related to work (Table 6). This is a very low proportion
of work-related trips: lower than the US average of 18%, and 4.5. Distance traveled
much lower than Knox County’s 50% (Knoxville Urban Area Metro-
politan Planning Organization, 2001; United States Bureau of The overall average distance of the trips in this study is 4.7 km
Transportation Statistics, 2003). It should be noted that 38% of (2.9 miles) (Table 4). However, this average is quite misleading, be-
those surveyed in the Knox County Origin and Destination Study cause there are many short trips (over 31% are 1.6 km [one mile] or
were merely passing through the study area, perhaps accounting less). The minimum distance was just 0.06 km (0.04 miles), while
for this extraordinarily high Knox County statistic. the maximum distance traveled was 24.8 km (15.4 miles). Only
It is impossible for fixed-route service to connect to every resi- 18% (107/597) of the trips were longer than 8 km (5 miles). While
dence in a community. In this study, 45.5% of the destinations are making individual short trips might be somewhat inconvenient on
232 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237

Fig. 4. Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) night and weekend bus routes and service area.

Table 5 Table 6
Work-related activities of the 17 respondents completing travel diaries. Trip purpose (in this study) including ‘‘home”.

Employment (47% – 8 of 17) Purpose Percent (%)

Diamond Young (DY), Mahogany Zaire (MZ), and Tracy Pruett (TP):
Dollar General internship (clerk) Home 31
Fay Nicks (FN): EdSouth (customer service) Pick up/drop off friend/relative/child 21
Grace Randolph (GR): Temporary services (office) Recreation 15
Monique Pride (MP): GC Services (customer service) Shopping, banking, etc. 14
Mary Stevens (MS): Taco Bell (food service) Work or school 10
Whitney Davis (WD): Park West Hospital (food service) Automotive (repair, gas, etc.) 3
Work-related activities (41% – 7 of 17) Transportation related (bus, pick up/drop off car) 2
Betty Elliott (BE), Michelle Kelly (MK), Sabrina Henkins (SH), Medical/dental 1
Sheena Jordan (SJ), and Tracy Jones (TJ): Pellissippi State (technical school) Pick up/drop off something 1
Sharon Griffen (SG): Tennessee Tech (technical school) Families First (welfare) related 1
Monica Williams (MW): Career Investment Academy (job training skills) Other 1
No current employment or related activities (12% – 2 of 17)
Lisa White (LW) and Malika Felton (MF)

Note: Names are pseudonyms to protect privacy of the respondents.
a bus, many of these short trips chained together would be quite
difficult.
Analyzing the distance traveled with different modes of travel
revealed that, of the 2760 km (1715 miles) traveled in this survey,
only 8.5% were on the bus, for an average of 10.1 km (6.3 miles) per
bus trip. Although the total distance traveled on the bus is quite
low, the average distance traveled on the bus is more than double
the average distance of all trips.
4.6. Duration of trips
The overall average duration (measured in time) per trip in this
study was 14 min; the minimum was 1 min; the maximum
(excluding three ‘‘riding around” trips) was 71 min (Table 4). The
overall average trip time in Knox County is approximately
18 min (Knoxville Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization,
2001); therefore, not only are the women in this study making
more trips, but they are also making shorter trips (duration) than
Knox County’s average. Waller (2005) argues that shorter trips
are ‘‘another example of the high transportation costs of being
poor.” Because low-income riders travel shorter distances, they
pay more per unit of distance traveled, subsidizing the commute
of higher-income riders.
After examining travel time by mode of transportation, it was
not surprising to find that bus trips took longer on average: bus
speeds are slower because of frequent stopping, and there is more
walking and waiting involved. Car trips (540/604) averaged
13 min, while bus trips averaged 49 min.
KAT reports an average bus speed of 22.2 km (13.8 miles) per
hour (Hairr, 2002); the average driving speed in this study is just
21.4 km (13.3 miles) per hour. This indicates that it would actually
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
be slightly faster to ride the bus than to drive one’s own car. How-
ever, many shorter trips would probably not be made on the bus, as
people would be more likely to walk or not make the trips at all.
Also, there can be a significant amount of time spent waiting for
buses. In addition, one has to take walking to and from stops into
account. Grace Randolph summarizes:
the waiting. . . it’s so much time consuming. I go there, they only
run every hour. So you have a whole ‘nother hour to wait. It’s
too much time consuming.” Sheena Jordan agrees that buses
are ‘‘frustrating. I used to take it every day to school. . . I’d have
to transfer. It took me like an hour and a half or more just to get
home. After 12, they run like every hour or hour and 15. You
just standing there ‘til the bus comes. It would be hard. . . I’d
take four different buses each day. . . It’s a long ride.
4.7. Lapse time between trips
Another measure that can be used to see if riding the bus is fea-
sible is the amount of time respondents spend at a given place. Not
counting overnight hours, the overall average was 81 min (Table
4), making women’s access to the bus seem somewhat flexible,
as buses run every 30 min (at best); thus, they would ostensibly
have multiple buses to choose from with such a long lapse time.
However, this does not present a clear picture since the average
is skewed by very long durations at jobs or at home in between
trips. The minimum time spent at a particular destination was just
1 min, while the maximum was 630 min.
To get a clearer picture of the length of time spent at places,
work-related activities and time spent at home were eliminated.
The average time spent at a particular place is then reduced to just
30 min, and nearly 50% of all trips have a lapse time of 15 min or
Fig. 5. Sample of respondents’ travel areas.
233
less (i.e., many in-and-out trips); thus, over half of the rides would
be inconvenient on a bus, as people would be forced to wait for
buses that run only every 30, 45, 60 min, or more.
4.8. Travel area
Travel area is also important in activity-based travel studies in
order to examine transportation and time constraints. Kwan
(1999) argues that in order to compensate for disproportionately
restrictive mobility constraints, women tend to negotiate their
days with more dense travel patterns. Thus, using GIS, I created a
polygonal generalized travel area for each woman; each woman’s
travel area polygon includes all of the trips made while she main-
tained her travel diary. Fig. 5 illustrates a sample of these travel
areas to show the range in size and shape. The average travel area
was 43.0 square km (16.6 square miles) (Table 4). Nearly half of the
women kept their travel area under 26 square kilometers (10
square miles), while less than one-quarter had a travel area of over
65 square kilometers (25 square miles), indicating that these wo-
men do indeed tend to keep their travel areas dense in order to
cope with mobility constraints.
Sheena Jordan had the smallest travel area; however, she only
completed one day of her travel diary. The next smallest travel area
was that of Mary Stevens whose travel area was only 9.6 square
kilometers (3.7 square miles); although she travels more than
13 km (8 miles) to her job, her travel patterns are very linear, mak-
ing the travel area quite small. Malika Felton, on the other hand,
had the largest travel area of 169.1 square kilometers (65.3 square
miles). This is surprisingly large for a woman who does not have a
job or a car; however, her daughter is active in sports, thus Malika
gets rides or borrows a car to take her to other schools for practice
and games.
234 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
4.9. Explanation of variations in travel patterns
There are a number of similarities and differences among
respondents when examining their travel patterns (these are dis-
cussed in much greater detail in another journal). While all of
the women in this study are receiving some kind of federal and/
or state assistance, and they are all attempting to become self-suf-
ficient, there are many differences that result in different travel
patterns. Of course, their access to cars is an important factor that
explains difference in travel behavior. An additional determinant of
travel behavior is the fact that some women are much closer to
achieving self-sufficiency and are more settled in their lives, while
others are just beginning the transition from welfare to work or are
having trouble getting/keeping jobs because of their multiple con-
straints (transportation, lack of skills or education, racial discrimi-
nation, health issues, etc.). Age can also somewhat determine
travel patterns, as the women in this study over age 35 (28% of
the sample) made fewer than average trips, while the women un-
der 25 (33%) made more than average trips. However, age is likely
less important that family situation and work responsibilities. For
example, Allard (2002) found that heads of large households have
more difficulty finding or retaining jobs, require higher salaries to
make the transition from welfare to work, and also are more likely
to live in the central city, thus facing spatial mismatch. In this
study, women with more children indeed made fewer than average
trips. Another family-related factor is that of support systems; in
this study, many of the respondents were dependent, to some de-
gree, on family members for rides or cars, increasing their number
of trips and decreasing their need to use the bus. Allard (2002) also
found that families living in areas of higher poverty have more dif-
ficulty finding work. Fig. 1 illustrates that all but three of the
respondents live in Census Tracts with more than 15% living in
poverty.
5. Recreating the respondents’ trips without the use of a car
In order to examine potential costs and constraints in terms of
time, money, distance walked, deferred opportunities, and incon-
venience, I reconstructed the women’s daily lives and transporta-
tion patterns as if they did not have the use of a car. This was
done for more than one-third of the trips, to include a representa-
tive variety of ‘‘work days,” ‘‘off days,” weekdays and weekend
days.
These new travel scenarios include walking, riding the bus,
using Call-A-KAT (on-demand ride system available every day until
midnight), and using a taxi. I examined options for all routes that
were within walking distance (1.6 km or 1 mile) of respondents’
origins and destinations, not just those that passed directly in front
of the origin or destination point. It is important to note that this
assumption (walking 20 min) is a much greater area than KAT’s as-
sumed 0.4 km (0.25 mile) service area. This analysis also makes the
assumption that these women can walk (at approximately 4.8 km
[3 miles] per hour); it does not consider health, pregnancy, weath-
er conditions, carrying packages or children, whether or not there
are sidewalks, or if the area is safe. It also assumes, probably incor-
rectly, that these women have the time and ability to analyze all
routes and timetables. Some scenarios took me up to 20 min to
recreate, evaluating the options for just one trip (origin-destina-
tion). I had access to every paper route map with timetables, and
all routes in a GIS so that I could carefully compare routes, arrival
and destination times, and connections. I often compared route
maps and timetables to identify street corners (rather than the
downtown transfer station) where they could get off one bus to
catch a bus on another route. However, many of these women said
they simply ‘‘stood outside and waited until a bus came.”
I chose the walking or bus option when possible; if these op-
tions were not possible, I next chose the Call-A-KAT service if it
was available at that time. Excluding ‘‘exceptional” or emergency
trips, I assumed that the respondents had planned their trips
24 h in advance and would be able to use Call-A-KAT. If these op-
tions were not possible, and the trip was deemed ‘‘necessary” (e.g.,
a trip to work), I chose the taxi option.
Another constraint of the travel diary data is that it was often
difficult to determine whether or not trips were to some degree
flexible. For example, if someone spent 60 min at Wal-Mart, I rec-
reated her trip on the bus with 60 min at Wal-Mart. If she was at a
friend’s house for several hours, however, I had her imaginary
counterpart depart at the actual time she recorded (assuming she
left at a certain time to arrive at the next place at a set time)
instead of having her stay exactly the amount of time she recorded.
In these recreated scenarios, a traveler might miss a bus by only
minutes; however, if I thought that certain trips were somewhat
flexible, I assumed that she could leave early to get to her bus on
time, likely making my results even more ideal than reality.
Because of the conservative rules I used in recreating the trips, I
assumed that every bus was on time, at times giving the woman
just a minute or two to catch the next bus. Had the first bus been
late (causing her to miss the next bus), times would have increased
dramatically. Many women in this study commented on the unre-
liability of KAT buses, however. Tracy Pruett states, ‘‘they aren’t
reliable. . . they might be late or the bus might break down or
something like that. You might be late getting to work or where
you need to be.” Summer Hunt is also ‘‘sick of the buses. They’re
too slow and they change the schedule. Everything’s haywire. . .”
Finally, to determine the cost of these recreated trips, I exam-
ined the number of riders and their ages (fares are $1.00 for adults
($0.20 for transfers), $0.50 for school age children; children under
five are free). For taxi fares, I split the cost between friends and rel-
atives that were riding with her. It was also difficult at times to
accurately calculate the cost with a car. I assumed an operating
cost of $0.33 per mile (the rate for Knox County at the time), which
includes gasoline, depreciation, insurance, and other costs, but not
the cost of purchasing or repairing a vehicle. However, many
women were borrowing cars or getting rides; thus, I recorded
her cost as zero if she was a passenger, but also recorded when
she bought gas or gave money to a friend.
5.1. Recreated trips with public transit
While I recreated over one-third of the trips in the study, only a
sample of results are included below. While it is unrealistic to as-
sume that all trips would be attempted if the women could only
use public transportation, unless the trip was related to the main-
tenance of the vehicle (e.g., getting gas or picking up a friend), it
was included in the analysis.
5.1.1. Weekday ‘‘off day”
Sheena Jordan traveled 26.7 km (16.6 miles) in 50 min in her
own car. After recreating this day without the use of a car, and even
eliminating one trip (to get gas), her travel time would be nearly
six times greater at 291 min (86 min walking, 121 min waiting,
and 84 min riding the bus). The total travel time would be 3.5
times the amount of time she actually spent on the bus, as 3.5 h
would be spent walking and waiting, making the overall average
speed just 5.3 km (3.3 miles) per hour.
5.1.2. Weekend ‘‘off day”
Tracy Jones’ travel consisted of five trips and a total of nearly
18 km (11 miles). Without a car, these trips would take 1.8 times
longer (from 75 min to 137 min) and her speed would decrease
from 14.3 km (8.9 miles) per hour to 7.9 km (4.9 miles) per hour.
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
Her day included typical activities for an ‘‘off day”: visiting two
friend’s houses, grocery shopping, and dining at a restaurant. A
great deal of her time increase (33 min) would be spent waiting
for buses. Transferring buses and walking to and from bus stops
would also increase her time, and there was not a minute to spare
in any of her transfers. Tracy has experienced these constraints
while using the bus in the past: ‘‘you didn’t know what time the
bus was coming, so you’d have to walk. . . and go uptown and
transfer, wait another 15–20 min. . .” Also, I assumed she could rely
on Call-A-KAT for two of her rides; these two Call-A-KAT rides
would only be possible, however, if she had planned trips 24 h in
advance, as required by the service.
5.1.3. Weekday ‘‘work day”
I assumed that a weekday ‘‘work day” would be the most effi-
cient on the bus, as more routes run on weekdays, and they run
more frequently during ‘‘rush hour.” Whitney Davis’ weekday work
day consisted of 64.4 km (40 miles) traveled in just 100 min in her
own car. After recreating this day without the use of a car, her rec-
reated travel time would be 2.7 times greater, totaling 265 min
(21 min walking, 59 min waiting, 155 min riding the bus, and
30 min in a taxi). Her actual time on the bus and in the taxi would
only be 185 min, but the total would be 1.4 times the time she
actually spent in a vehicle. Were she to follow this plan in the fu-
ture, she would not have to eliminate any trips; however, this sce-
nario is not realistic for her, as she could simply not afford the $20
taxi ride required to get to work.
5.1.4. Weekend ‘‘work day”
Monique Pride’s weekend ‘‘work day” was expected to be diffi-
cult without a car, as routes are less frequent on weekends. After
recreating her six trips without the use of a car, four of them would
have to be eliminated. She would not need to or be able to pick up
her friend to take her to work and back home again. In addition, her
trip to and from a restaurant for lunch would not be possible be-
cause the buses only run every hour on the available route, and
walking would have taken 36 min; this is not tenable, as she only
has 30 min for lunch. Even with four of her trips cancelled, result-
ing in a seemingly simple day of traveling from home to work and
then back home, it would take her nearly three times longer with-
out a car: from 55 min to 146 min (walking 11 min, waiting
24 min, and riding the bus 111 min) because of transfers and inef-
ficient route paths for her travels. In addition, she would not have a
minute to spare in making the transfer required to and from work.
5.1.5. Large number of trips
Because trip chaining and the proportion of non-work-related
trips are increasing nationwide, it is important to analyze the tra-
vel of women who make many trips with a car. On a weekend ‘‘off
day,” Monica Williams made 13 trips, many of which were essen-
tial to her family and work life: taking her children to school, going
to her classes, picking up her children, then going to the bank, gro-
cery store, her mother’s house, and finally taking her family out for
recreation in the evening. She traveled 29.5 km (18.3 miles) in
108 min; after recreating her trips without the use of a car, she
would not have to eliminate any trips; however, her time would al-
most double to 207 min. Because many of her trips were less than
0.4 km (0.25 miles), she would be able to walk to six of her desti-
nations in the recreated scenario. This would actually take little or
no more time than her car trips. Two of her trips could also be
made with no time increase if she planned her trips a day in ad-
vance using Call-A-KAT. Of the five trips that would be made on
the bus, the time increase would be significant, however. Instead
of driving her car 50 min, using the bus for these five trips would
take 142 min, including walking just 10 min, but waiting for
66 min, and riding the bus for 66 min. Although her time spent
235
on the bus would not be much more than her driving time of
50 min, the time required to use the bus would be nearly triple
the time it took in a car. While she could make a perfect connection
(the bus arrived at the same time the transfer bus was leaving), she
would miss another bus by just 3 min, forcing her to stand and
wait 27 min in the January cold for the next bus with her two 5-
year-old children. In addition, her cost more than doubled from
just over $6 to almost $14 without the use of a car.
5.2. Summary of all recreated trips
Using these scenarios as examples, it is clear that riding the bus
is much more inconvenient than it might first appear; much more
is involved than just the actual time spent on the bus, which alone
is faster than the average speed of car travel in this study. Of the
2615 km (1625 miles) traveled in trips over 1.6 km (one mile) in
this study, it would take about 122 h in a car (at the average speed
of 21.4 km [13.3 miles] per hour). On a bus, these trips would take
only 118 h (at the average speed of 22.2 km [13.8 miles] per hour)
(Hairr, 2002). However, based on recreating the routes in this
study, the actual speed when relying on public transportation is
actually only 11.7 km (7.3 miles) per hour, and would take 223 h,
approximately double the amount of time it would take in a car.
As low as it already is, this average speed assumes (very liberally)
that buses and respondents were never late; some schedules were
so tight that if any of the connections or the rider were even 1 min
late, there would be up to an hour wait. This evidence indicates
that buses are much more inconvenient than they first appear be-
cause of the amount of walking, waiting, and transferring. Lisa
White summarizes: ‘‘It’s the route and the wait. . . you gotta wait,
wait. . . wait on it.”
I also found it to be 2.4 times more expensive to rely on public
transportation than to use one’s own car. Although this does not
include the purchase price of a car, it is much cheaper on a daily
basis to drive one’s own car than to rely on public transportation.
On average, it would cost these women about $5 per day to drive
their own car, or over $8 per day without a car; it would cost nearly
$100 per month more to rely on public transportation. This high
average cost is mostly attributed to the fact that participants
would have to use taxis, as buses were not running during the
times or to the places they needed to go.
In addition to slower speeds and higher expenses, one must also
sacrifice a great deal of convenience. Approximately 20% of all trips
were eliminated from analysis: trips that were unnecessary with
no car (e.g., getting gas or picking up a friend), trips that were made
for someone else, or trips that simply would not be possible with-
out a car (e.g., a 36 min bus ride to lunch on a 30 min break). Reli-
ance on public transportation would require that a great number of
trips be sacrificed; however, many of these trips are probably cru-
cial to women’s emotional and physical well-being, as well as
maintaining important social and familial networks.
This analysis is limited in the sense that assumes that the wo-
men would attempt to make all the same trips, and that they
would not be able to rely on others for rides. However, it is clear
that the additional time, cost, and inconvenience of relying on pub-
lic transportation can be overwhelming. This analysis illustrates
the impossibility of pulling together a normal life, let alone coping
with contingencies and emergencies for women who rely on an
inadequate and costly public transportation system. By using the
bus, these women would be inconvenienced in almost every case,
and possibly even more so than my recreations indicate; to assess
the accuracy of my trip reconstructions, I even ‘‘recreated” routes
on the bus (according to my established parameters) for respon-
dents who actually did use the bus. I found that my results were
actually shorter than what respondents recorded on their travel
diaries.
236 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
5.3. Solution?: increasing route frequency and hours/days served
Because these idealized situations were so inconvenient in
terms of time, money, and sacrifices, I consequently interrogated
possible changes to these scenarios to see if improvements in ser-
vice provision might decrease the constraints associated with pub-
lic transportation. Increasing route frequency and hours of service
resulted in the following examples.
Doubling route frequency for Sheena Jordan’s sample ‘‘off day”
would result in 189 min of travel without the use of a car. This is
reduced from the 291 min it would take without a car at present
route frequencies. This is a considerable decrease; however, it
would still be nearly four times her travel time with a car (only
50 min) because of the walking, waiting, and transferring involved
in taking the bus. Making routes 24 h a day, seven days a week
would have no effect on her travel, as all of her trips were made
when buses are actually running.
Doubling route frequency for Whitney Davis’ sample ‘‘work
day” would result in 235 min of travel. This is slightly reduced
from the 265 min it would take her without a car, with route fre-
quency as it is today. This is still considerably more time than
the 100 min it took her with her own car. Making routes 24 h a
day, seven days a week would actually dramatically increase her
travel time to 368 min. This increase is attributed to the fact that
she could now use the bus for all her trips, rather than relying on
a taxi. Although this is a considerable time increase, the cost would
now be feasible, without the expense of a $20 taxi ride. By doubling
route frequency and making routes 24 h a day, seven days a week,
the best possible scenario for her would be 323 min. This is, how-
ever, still more than three times what it took in her car.
Even after doubling route frequency and making routes 24 h a
day, riding the bus would still be too inconvenient for these work-
ing poor women. The public transportation problem is robust; sim-
ply adding routes and hours will not solve it. Not only is this
unacceptable in terms of convenience, but it is unlikely that KAT
could afford to invest this much money in public transportation,
especially when it is already 80% subsidized (Knoxville Area Tran-
sit, 2005). Clearly, more than public transportation improvements
are needed, no matter how we analyze the data.
6. Discussion and conclusion
It is unlikely that one transportation scenario will solve all
transportation problems; however, GIS can clearly be of great
assistance in determining whether public transportation can play
a significant role for the working poor. The goal here was to exam-
ine the constrained daily geographies of the working poor in order
to understand underserved populations and identify gaps in transit
service.
Simply improving public transit is a non-answer to the problem,
and a number of different policies and alternatives are needed to
fill the gaps. Policy alternatives could include reducing urban
sprawl and spatial mismatch, encouraging employers to change
work schedules or even their locations, encouraging employers to
provide transportation, moving workers to comparable housing
closer to the workplace, providing services like daycare at transit
stations, providing ride-sharing, providing automobile subsidies,
and providing access to vehicles. Improving public transit by pro-
viding free bus service or even 24-h on-demand site-to-site trans-
fers may also be useful, but in the end, it is clear that the working
poor, like those in this study, need access to personal automobiles.
While just over 50% of the women in this study have cars, no
matter what inconveniences they faced in accessing cars, almost
90% of all trips in this study were made with a car. This analysis
supports the argument that the only way for the working poor to
achieve self-sufficiency is through car ownership. Increasing route
coverage and bus frequency would be cost prohibitive, and without
a complete reorganization of the urban landscape, personal auto-
mobiles are the only answer:
Transportation policies must now heed the complex and diverse
travel needs of both current and former welfare recipients who
use both private and public transportation. Moreover, as travel
patterns of welfare recipients and working poor converge, pol-
icy makers must confront the difficulties that job-seekers and
carless job-holders face, by facilitating car ownership and by
promoting new transit modes that are affordable, auto-like,
and likely to help families that are struggling toward self-suffi-
ciency. (Ong and Houston, 2002, p. 40)
Of course, there are potential problems with car ownership for
the working poor. For example, Katz (2005) and Waller (2005) find
that compared to higher-income households, poor people tend to
pay higher prices for cars, interest rates, and insurance. This is be-
cause businesses often charge higher prices or interest rates to cov-
er the higher risk when they sell to the poor, who are more likely to
miss payments or default on loans. Also, predatory businesses of-
ten take advantage of poor families, charging unnecessarily high
prices or interest rates. Additionally, low-income households often
lack market information, making them less likely to shop for lower
prices or detect marked-up prices (Katz, 2005; Waller, 2005).
Another important issue to consider is that using an automo-
bile, although liberating, requires a variety of skills, attitudes,
and behaviors, the lack of which often lock women into their
poverty and welfare dependency in the first place. Lack of driver’s
education or outstanding tickets or fines often restrict the working
poor from acquiring a driver’s license in the first place. For
example, in this study, Mary Stevens needs to get her license to
‘‘do what I want to do. . . It’s like $60 some dollars to get my license.
And there’s some insurance you’ve got to have. Some kind of clas-
ses.” Summer Hunt also feels constrained by the high price of car
ownership, yet even without a license, she is driving herself to
work:
‘‘I’m really not supposed to be driving. I got in trouble some
years ago. I’ve never had a license. It’s hard to get a license. I
went out there and they said I owed $200 and something dol-
lars. I got pulled over on the way to work, and he gave me a nice
little chat and said I had to go uptown. I went uptown and found
out that my fine was $480. Now I gotta pay that, and I have to
pay the $219 to get my license. I’m just driving myself to work.
I don’t want to go nowhere else.”
To assist with these constraints of car ownership, there are cur-
rently over 160 state and local programs that support car owner-
ship for low-income households (Waller, 2005). As part of this
research, I served on Knox County’s First Wheels loan committee,
a car loan program that provides up to $5000 toward a vehicle,
with no required down payments and no interest. Payments are
no less than $50 per month, but no more than $100 for those on
cash assistance, or 30% of gross family income for those recently
off cash assistance. Loans are awarded after all documentation is
provided (e.g., verifying a driver’s license, monthly budget, vehicle
maintenance training, financial management training, etc.), and an
interview is conducted by the First Wheels loan committee (Knox
County Department of Human Services, 2002; Tennessee Depart-
ment of Human Services, 2000). However, programs such as these
would be prohibitively costly for entire populations making the
transition off of welfare, so it is clear that other programs are also
necessary. It is this type of program, however, that is needed to
help women become more self-sufficient and able to negotiate
the new urban landscape.
 J. Rogalsky / Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 226–237
It has been shown that welfare recipients who have cars are
twice as likely to work compared to those without cars (United
States Federal Transit Administration, 2000). Diamond Young,
whose car is inoperable, feels that the only way to ‘‘make things
happen” is to have her car back. The reason she says she is on wel-
fare in the first place is because her car is currently ‘‘in the shop.”
This makes getting to her internship difficult without her family’s
help. Even though she does not want to receive benefits, she signed
up for benefits ‘‘because the only way they could fix my car is if I
was on Families First.” After talking about her broken down car
for over 5 min, she summarized, ‘‘what’s standing in the way the
most is my transportation. I need to get my car fixed. That’s the
only thing I really, really need. If I get my car fixed I know I can
get to and from. That’s what I need is my car. I need my car to
be fixed. Then I can make things happen.”
Recommendations for further research include extending this
study to other medium-sized cities. In addition, many other pat-
terns could be identified from this data set, for example, examining
patterns based on age of children, race, whether the women are
attending school or work, or whether residences are urban or sub-
urban, and more. While there is much more that could be done
with these data, the results in this study indicate that the tran-
sit-dependent poor will find it difficult to make the transition from
welfare to work successfully given existing public transportation
services; the restrictions and constraints associated with public
transportation are so prohibitive in medium-size American cities
that bus travel simply does not fit into the lives of the working
poor. The fact that millions of dollars are spent on public transit
every year does not necessarily mean it is going to work as it is in-
tended. The only time public transportation seems to work in a city
like Knoxville is when trips are planned well in advance, and when
few destinations are involved.
While the scope of this study is limited to a small number of
women in one city, the complexity of women’s lives that I have
uncovered undermines the too-optimistic assumptions generated
by analyses of aggregate-level data, in that the transition from wel-
fare to work will not be as smooth, nor as uniform, as aggregate
data indicate. Aggregate-level data do not draw a complete picture
of the poor, nor their unique, situated needs. Not only do such
omissions lead policymakers to implement untenable solutions,
they may even by trying to solve the wrong problems, often at
the expense of the poor. Public transportation is an example of
this: public transportation is one problem, poverty is another, spa-
tial mismatch is yet another. Based on this research, I recommend
increased investment in car ownership and related assistance. Ac-
cess to cars will not only increase women’s daily mobilities, but
also their job opportunities, overall earnings, and – ultimately –
their successful and permanent transitions from welfare to suffi-
cient and satisfying work.
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