Public Perception of Public transportation on Long Island Hillary Flurkey Mentor: Dr. Sasha Pesci Department of Geology, Environment, and Sustainability
Introduction • From the belt parkway to the first Levitt town, Long Island has long been the testing ground for personal automobiles like cars. • Thanks to the likes of technocrats like Robert Moses and his infamous low hanging bridges, (Schindler, 2015) large vehicles like buses have been hindered. • This lack of public transportation has led to transit deserts (Jomehpour Chahar Aman & Smith-Colin, 2020) and contributes to food deserts (Hamidi, 2020). • This research focuses on residents of Northport and East Northport, Long Island, where there are buses available, but their schedules are inconsistent, and they have slow turnaround times.
Figure 2. Public transportation awareness.
Figure 1. Automobile Use.
Frequency of Automobile Usage 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
80%
18 (75%)
70%
60% 50%
Public Transportation Awareness 13%
40%
37%
30% 4 (17%)20% 1(4%) Daily
10%
1 (4%)
0 0of travel Figure 1.0Typical method
A few Weekly Monthly Rarely Never/I days a (yearly don’t week or less) drive
N/A
50%
0%
Yes
n %
No
N/A
Discussion • Findings suggest that residents are not familiar with the current public transit systems. • The majority of residents use automobiles. • Residents that oppose an expansion would find it useless or redundant. • Residents that are amenable to the implementation believe it would help others. • The majority of participants do not see themselves using the public transportation. • Limitations: • No demographic characteristics based on race, sex, gender, or age were recorded. • The demographic area skews white and older according to the US Census website. • Not enough public transportation users were recorded.
Results Research questions 1. How do Northport and East Northport residents feel about an expansion of the town’s current public transportation system? 2. What are their opinions holistically? (Whole responses)
• • • •
24 responses to the questionnaire 46% (n=11) of participants report positive feelings about public transit holistically 25% (n=6) of participants report negative feelings about public transit holistically 54 themes based on opinion and feeling were recorded in regards to public transit on questionnaire • 47% (n=25) of responses were positive in nature • 13% (n=7) of responses indicated an incentive for an increase in ridership • 43% (n=23) of responses were negative in nature • 11% (n=6) of participants thought implementation would be useless
Conclusions / Significance • The majority of residents believe that the expansion of public transportation to be beneficial. • There is little incentive and poor infastructure to expand public transit. • The sample size is far too small to draw a proper conclusion. More research is needed.
3. What are the themes of their opinions?
Table 1: Thematic sentiments towards the implementation of public transit.
Methods • Distributed online survey questionnaire to Northport and East Northport residents • Collected demographic data about automobile usage and public transportation usage • Gathered data on the opinions and feelings of respondents • Qualitative analysis: • Coded overall sentiments of each response (Holistic) • Broke down each response into themes (Thematic)
n
Theme Less expensive Reduces air pollution Increased ridership Expanded accessibility Decreased traffic congestion Increased Traffic Congestion Longer commute time Lack of privacy Useless Redundant N/A
Total N
3 1 14 6 1 2 3 1 14 4 5 54
% 6% 2% 26% 11% 2% 4% 6% 2% 26% 7% 9%
Themes value Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive Negative Negative Negative Negative Negative N/A
Citations Hamidi, S. (2020). Urban sprawl and the emergence of food deserts in the USA. Urban Studies, 57(8), 1660–1675. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26959534 Jomehpour Chahar Aman, J., & Smith-Colin, J. (2020). Transit Deserts: Equity Analysis of Public Transit Accessibility. Journal of Transport Geography, 89, 102869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102869 Schindler, S. (2015). Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment. The Yale Law Journal, 124(6), 1934–2024.
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Sasha Pesci for the mentorship. I would also like to thank Dr. Bennington for suggesting I obtain a grant from the National Center for Suburban Studies (NCSS) as well as helping me develop my proposal. I would finally like to thank the NCSS for giving me a grant to conduct this research.