Access to Jobs

For The State of Transit at 10, RIDE has recalculated all access to jobs statistics for transit service from 2012 to 2023 (and our modeled 2033 network) with an updated workflow and datasets. We did this to ensure a consistent baseline across all years, using the same methodology and data sources.Although the overall methodology for the access to jobs analysis has remained consistent since RIDE began performing the analysis annually in 2016, there have been minor changes to the workflow, methodology, and data sources used during that period (for example, in 2017, the State of Transit analysis used slightly different boundaries that included portions of neighborhing parishes; and since 2021 RIDE uses a different workflow to develop the pedestrian network dataset used in the analysis).

Additionally, for this year’s report RIDE has updated to the Version 8 release of LODES data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employment Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. LODES Version 8 is based on 2020 census geographies, which redefined the boundaries of many census block groups in Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard boundaries. The redefinition of base geographies led to a decrease in the number of census block groups in Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, and St. Bernard Parish, meaning that on average, a typical census block group is now slightly larger. Because the access to jobs analysis involves calculating travel times between block groups, these changes would make it more difficult to compare year-over-year changes between access numbers using the old and new census geographies. To avoid this issue, RIDE has recalculated access statistics from all previous years using data from the new LODES Version 8 release. For that reason, access metrics in this report may differ slightly from numbers presented in previous State of Transit reports.