A statewide assesment of areas trending urban in Georgia and the implications for transit funding

Abstract

There are two main sources of funding for public transit that depend on Decennial Census populations. Rural (urban) transit funding is for areas with populations less than (more than) 50,000. Urban funding is further classified into small urban and large urban areas depending on whether the population is less than or greater than 200,000. Only rural and small urban areas can use their transit funding for operating assistance. Given funding is tied to Decennial Census populations, it is important to understand how transit funding may be impacted by changes in population from 2010 to 2020. The purpose of this research is to estimate the impacts of urbanization on rural public transit funding for Georgia. This study predicts which areas in Georgia will be reclassified from rural to urban in the 2020 Census using 2020 population projections from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) and data from the US Census Bureau. Three urbanization scenarios are modeled at the Census block level using a multinomial logit regression. The results suggest that the model correctly predicts 93.5 percent of the cases and most influential variables are population density and an indicator variable equal to one if the block is within the Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The mapped results indicate that outward urban growth might lead to multiple urban clusters and urbanized areas merging, especially around the Atlanta Urbanized Area. Urbanization trends in Georgia could cause at least seven counties to transition from rural transit funding to large urban transit funding. This is important, as rural areas that merge into the Atlanta area will lose operating assistance for public transit after 2020. In addition, results suggest at least thirteen counties will be eligible for a mix of rural and small urban funding.