Integrating Foot Access with Public Transit Service where there are Food Deserts

PI: Felix Liao (UI), hliao@uidaho.edu, ORCID: 0000-0001-8057-8678

Co PIs: none

AMOUNT & MATCH: $40,000 from PacTrans; $40,000 Match

PERFORMANCE PERIOD: 3/16/2022 – 3/15/2023

STATUS: Completed

CATEGORIES: Public Transit, Food Deserts

RESEARCH PROJECT HOT SHEET:

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DESCRIPTION: The goal of this research is to quantify and better understand accessibility to healthy food retailers. The new $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill calls for a transportation system that provides equitable access to jobs and critical amenities, such as schools, day care, and healthy food opportunities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has called for the mitigation of food desert. They define as “urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food”. This project aims to do the following:

  • Identify spatial and temporal patterns of transit-based accessibility to healthy food retailers
  • Estimate travel times at the census block group level to create a new food desert index
  • Statistically evaluate socioeconomic disparities between residents living in neighborhoods with low access to healthy food retailers and the citywide average
  • Develop an open-source toolkit in ArcGIS Pro, which enables planners to integrate data on transit services and food retailers’ characteristics in other cities.
DELIVERABLE DUE DATE DATE RECEIVED
Research Project Progress Report #1 10/10/2022 10/9/2022
Research Project Progress Report #2 4/10/2023 4/10/2023
Draft Report 4/30/2023 6/12/2023
Final Project Report 6/30/2023 12/6/2023