Church-Based Transportation: A New Shared Mobility Service That Converts Church Parking Lots into Transportation Hubs

Abstract

The Atlanta metro region leads national polls and statistics that reveal the inadequacy of available transportation services. For example, Atlanta has the 2nd lowest rate of economic mobility, 4th highest rate of suburbanization of poverty, and is the 4th most traffic-congested city in the United States. Each ranked criterion can be credited to the region’s public transportation system and its inability to keep pace with the metro area’s sprawling land use pattern. Economic mobility or “an individual, family, or group’s ability to improve their economic status” is often measured by access to efficient and reliable transportation services (Forward Through Ferguson, 2015). Suburbanization of poverty, or the increase in poverty rates in suburbia, has close ties to how metropolitan governments have neglected to ensure adequate regional transit services. As regional governments allocate millions of public dollars to well-needed transportation projects, their projected completion dates are often in the distant future, thus forcing residents to wait years for a solution. However, this paper will analyze how a ubiquitous community asset can offer the space to implement immediate mobility services to underserved communities in the Atlanta metro area.