Transit has long connected people to opportunities but access to transit varies greatly across space. In some cases, unevenly distributed transit supply creates gaps in service that impede travelers’ abilities to cross space and access jobs or other opportunities. With the advent of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, however, travelers now have a new potential to gain automobility without high car purchase costs and in the absence of reliable transit service. Research remains mixed on whether ride-hailing serves as a modal complement or substitute to transit or whether ride-hailing fills transit service needs gaps. This study measures transit supply in Chicago and compares it to ride-hailing origins and destinations to examine if ride-hailing fills existing transit service gaps. Findings reveal clustering of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs across the City of Chicago, but that the number of ride-hailing pickups and drop-offs was most strongly associated with high neighborhood median household income rather than measures of transit supply. In bivariate analyses, transit service was not associated with ride-hailing trip ends. But after controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic status, transit dependency, population density, and employment density, we found fewer ride-hailing trips in neighborhoods where bus service dominated and significantly more ride-hailing trips where rail service was prevalent. Patterns were slightly different for overnight weekend ride-hailing pick-ups, where higher transit density predicted a greater number of trips in nearby tracts. Additional research and policy is needed to ensure that ride-hailing services provide travel options to those who need them the most and fill transit gaps in low-income communities when options to increase service are limited.

Transit-oriented gentrification studies in Los Angeles record contrasting findings, but yield consistent implications for station area planning. As these cases demonstrates, simply building transit will not gentrify neighborhoods; a blend of built environment factors, development, and governmental support are needed to catalyze gentrification. This paper reveals the importance of government involvement as both the precursor of gentrification and protector of residents. Given this, cities should enact multi-pronged and context-sensitive policies to protect incumbent residents from gentrification’s potentially negative effects. A mix of housing policies can help residents weather rising housing costs, remain in neighborhoods, and capitalize on increased local amenities.

A stark mobility divide separates American households with and without cars. While households with cars move easily across space, households without cars face limited access to opportunities. But no longer. Ridehail companies such as Uber and Lyft divorce car access from ownership, revolutionizing auto-mobility as we know it. Despite its high-tech luster, we do not yet know how ridehailing serves different neighborhoods and travelers, and who, if anyone, is left behind. The closest historical analog to new ridehail services is the taxi industry, which has a history of discrimination, particularly against black riders and neighborhoods. Ridehail services may discriminate less than taxis and extend reliable car access to neighborhoods underserved by taxis. Or they may not.

In this study, I pose and answer three questions about ridehail access and equity in Los Angeles. First, what explains the geographical distribution of ridehail trips across neighborhoods? Second, what explains ridehail use by individuals? Finally, is there evidence of racial or gender discrimination on ridehail and taxi services? To answer these questions, I relied on two novel data sets. First, I used trip-level data to evaluate ridehail travel in neighborhoods and by individuals. Second, I conducted an audit study of ridehail and taxi services to evaluate if and how wait times and ride request cancellation rates vary by rider race, ethnicity, or gender.

I find that ridehailing extends reliable car access to travelers and neighborhoods previously marginalized by the taxi industry. Ridehailing served neighborhoods home to 99.8 percent of the Los Angeles County population. Strong associations between ridehail use and neighborhood household vehicle ownership suggests that ridehailing provides auto-mobility in neighborhoods where many lack reliable access to cars. For most users, ridehailing filled an occasional rather than regular travel need, and a small share of avid users made the majority of ridehail trips. While hailing shared rides was common in low-income neighborhoods, I also find that people shared less if they lived in racial or ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Finally, audit data reveal high levels of discrimination against black riders by taxi drivers. Black riders were 73 percent more likely than white riders to have a taxi trip cancelled and waited between six and 15 minutes longer than white riders, all else equal. By contrast, ridehail services nearly eliminate the racial-ethnic differences in service quality. Policy and platform-level strategies can erase the remaining mobility gap and ensure equitable access to ridehailing and future technology-enabled mobility services.