Sun Metro's transit coverage of the El Paso metropolitan area as it connects workers to opportunity and jobs has been ranked sixth by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
According to the report Sun Metro is providing transit to 90.4 percent of the metropolitan area, the best percentage rate in all of Texas' major metropolitans. Dallas reported 58.2 percent; Austin, 60.2 percent; San Antonio, 72.6 percent; Houston, 57.8 percent; and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, 57.6 percent. El Paso also fared better than Albuquerque (84.5 percent), Phoenix (80.8 percent), and Tucson (79.7 percent).
"Where the Jobs are: Employer Access to Labor by Transit" analyzed data from 371 transit providers in the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas. The report revealed that more than three-quarters of all jobs in the 100 largest metropolitan areas are in neighborhoods with transit service, and the typical job is accessible to only about 27 percent of its metropolitan workforce by transit in 90 minutes or less.
According to the Brookings report, the suburbanization of jobs obstructs transit's ability to connect workers to opportunity and jobs to local labor pools.
While Sun Metro's transit coverage rates are among the top, the system strives to continually improve the service and hopes to further advance the system and improve labor access by providing even better service with the up and coming Rapid Transit System beginning in 2014.
Public transit can best support metropolitan economies when it serves both the neighborhoods where people live and the places where businesses are located.
For more information regarding the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, visit http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/07/11-transit-jobs-tomer.
