Waiting for Metro by GKJ.

Women account for 55% of transit riders in the US, according to the National Household Travel Survey, yet their travel needs and behaviors are not well understood, much less prioritized. That lack of knowledge results in transit systems that are less useful for everyone, research from Los Angeles shows, and “women tend to bear outsized burdens and risks in the course of their daily travel.”

If you lack an understanding of how and why women travel, how can you provide safe, reliable, and comfortable transit service? That’s the question Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Agency (LA Metro) asked itself with Understanding How Women Travel, a report that digs into womens’ transit behaviors and needs. The findings indicate it’s a question more transit agencies should be asking.

The LA Metro study provides data and analysis to illustrate how women travel and the obstacles many must overcome to go to work, care for their family, and access opportunities. This is the first research study about women’s travel behaviors by a transit agency in the United States, and it marks an important first step towards creating a decision-making process that results in a better transportation system for women.

Here are three key findings, and suggestions for how to build better transit.

1. Gender is overlooked during data collection

Women might be included in existing data collection efforts, but they are not included or analyzed intentionally as a demographic. LA Metro’s extensive data collection for this study highlights this larger problem of overlooking gender both during the data collection process and afterwards during analysis, when gender is often not examined as its own variable.

(Note: For the existing data sources that do require someone to indicate their gender, LA Metro provides a non-binary option. For this research study, the sample size for those responding as non-binary was too small to be included in the analysis.)

The LA Metro conducted a literature review, analyzed existing data sources, and collected its own data through surveys, focus groups, and participant observation. During this process, LA Metro realized that many of its existing data sources are gender-neutral, which can hide gendered issues and outcomes. Women still bear a disproportionate burden of caring for children and sick family members, and otherwise managing the household.

Rush Hour at Union Station, Los Angeles by Prayitno licensed under Creative Commons.

2. Women and men have different travel behaviors

LA Metro’s analysis reveals stark differences in how women and men typically travel. Women tend to travel more mid-day during what is considered to be “off-peak” in transit service terminology. Women also tend to make more trips with others, and take more varied trips to work, to care for others, to conduct household errands, and for social outings.

Taken together, LA Metro found that women are traveling more at times when the agency has lower service levels. Plus, they’re often spending more to ride transit because they have to take so many trips to fulfill their personal and family obligations.

A commuter waiting on transit in LA by LA Metro.

3. Existing services can amount to a “Pink Tax”

When a transportation system does not explicitly consider or plan for the needs of women, the additional costs they accrue amount gender-based price discrimination, also known as a “Pink Tax.” Of course, many woman (and probably, more than a few men) already know this. But how exactly does it play out?

First, women experience more harassment and assault in public spaces, and some will pay for more expensive transportation options like Uber and Lyft when existing transit systems and services don’t meet their safety needs. Buses and trains can be hard to navigate with a stroller or if you are carrying grocery bags, as is often the case for the women who use LA Metro.

Women running errands on LA Metro bus by Fred Camino licensed under Creative Commons.

LA Metro found that women also spend more time waiting for transit, accessing the bus stop or train station, and transitioning between modes of transportation. Since “time is money,” as the saying goes, this can cost women in terms of opportunity and bandwidth to do other things. Slightly more women than men rely on LA Metro’s services for people with disabilities, which tend can take an entire day to accomplish a single errand.

Plus, even in 2019, women are still responsible for the majority of a household’s errands, and they tend to chain trips together more to accomplish them. Transfer fees can make this type of travel pattern more costly. Service changes and different fare policies could alleviate these latter two aspects of the Pink Tax.

Woman with Baby by Ross Pollack licensed under Creative Commons.

What we can do about transportation disparities

LA Metro has pioneered this type of research in the US and has identified key next steps, including a Gender Action Plan to turn its research findings into actions. The agency may create more transit options during the middle of the day, new types of service, and better bus and train designs to better serve womens’ needs. This study references planning efforts that are currently underway, like the NextGen Bus study, Long-Range Transportation Plan, and Microtransit pilot, as opportunities to plan for women’s travel needs, with intention.

Understanding How Women Travel is a 168-page report, not including appendices. Its insights into safety, access, and reliability are worth a few hours of your time to read in full, and offer lots more findings than the ones mentioned above. Transit systems all over the United States, specifically Metro, can learn a lot from LA Metro’s study. For example, how many of the bus system redesigns that occurred in the last few years considered women as a separate demographic when considering service needs?

WMATA has rightly focused on overcoming critical safety issues that’s plagued the Metrorail system for years, but ridership plummeted in light of service cutbacks from extensive maintenance. Perhaps, now, the agency can improve its understanding of its existing and potential female riders. Could the insights from a similar study be leveraged with efforts already underway to make transit the safe, comfortable, reliable option that people of all genders deserve?