Name: Static Interactive
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lt is apparent that many of these steps to improve economic opportunity do depend on the performance of the transportation system, its ability to get workers to the jobs and back home, as well as to employment agencies, training centers, or day-care services. However, accurate measures of the degree to which transportation can enhance economic opportunity turn out to be elusive, and a direct link between poor access to jobs and high unemployment rates is not easy to document in the New York Region.

The fact that unemployment in the lower-skilled blue collar occupations in the City is three times as as high as outside the City does show that City residents are unable to compete effectively in the suburban job market. Discrimination and lack of knowledge about suburban job openings are partly at fault, but faster and cheaper access to the suburbs would help. Within the City, the picture is less clear. Differences in employment among the three low-income areas studied seem unrelated to job access. Out of some 2,400 low-income residents interviewed who were not working, only one gave “bad transportation” as the reason. The 1970 Census also found a fraction of one percent. ln fact, bad transportation may be causing considerably more unemployment, but the unemployed themselves have no way of knowing it. Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn estimated that perhaps 15 percent of the unemployed were out of work because of inadequate transportation in the Brooklyn Model Cities area.