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Transportation and Food: The Importance of Access
A Policy Brief by the Center for Food and Justice
in conjunction with the Community Food Security Coalition
September 2002
Linking Food and Transportation:
A New Opportunity
Millions of Americans, especially people with low incomes, the elderly, disabled, and other transit-dependent populations, have difficulty accessing fresh, nutritious food. Food insecurity and hunger have stubbornly persisted, even through periods of economic growth. Rates of diabetes, obesity and other diet-related diseases are on the rise. Meanwhile, the majority of the nation's farmers struggle to stay in business and on the land. They face challenges in finding transportation options, markets, and fair prices for the food they grow.
Transportation and land use policies attuned to the nation's food security needs can build bridges between family farmers, food retailers, and consumers. Transportation policies and programs can make it easier for low-income families, the aged, and others with mobility challenges and particular nutrition needs to access supermarkets, farmers' markets, and other sources of affordable, healthy food. Innovative policies can also help small farmers transport their products to market and meet untapped demand for local, fresh food. These links can help revitalize rural and urban neighborhoods and improve the health and wellbeing of millions. Developing policies to change food access enables transportation advocacy groups to focus on critical community and household needs.
Fast Facts:
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• There are typically 3 times as many supermarkets
per capita in upper and middle-income neighborhoods
as in low-income neighborhoods. Some of this shift
can be attributed to the development of stores with
large parking lots located near freeway exits outside
the urban core.
• Over 30 million U.S. residents (10.5 percent
of the population) faced food insecurity in 2000.
Many of these people were obliged to pay higher
prices for lower quality and less fresh food.
• Food is traveling further and further (between
1000 and 2000 miles on average) to reach consumers.
• Low-income households are 6 to 7 times more likely
than other U.S. households to not own cars. Nevertheless,
most low-income households attempt to use cars for
food shopping, even though more than half cannot
rely on a car that they own.
• Obesity, fueled by poor nutrition and a sedentary
lifestyle, has become the nation's second leading
cause of preventable mortality, responsible for
300,000 deaths each year.
• Between 1979 and 1997, 300,000 farmers in the
U.S., most of them small, family farmers, went out of
business. One of the few bright spots has been the rise
of direct farm to consumer programs such as farmers'
markets. |
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Opportunities
for establishing a food and transportation link based on the goal
of increased access may be available through the mammoth omnibus
transportation bill, or what used to be known as the "Highway Bill."
The last two rounds of transportation legislation re-authorization
(ISTEA and TEA-21) have extended transportation goals beyond the
dominant focus on efficiency and highway infrastructure to a greater
emphasis on equity, access, and multi-modal linkages. This shift
in focus has emphasized the importance of land-use decisions in
transportation planning and access to important resources to all
people (rather than simply enhancing mobility for automobiles).
Transportation and land use policies need to do more to improve
access, including access to food. Similarly, food policies need
to focus on their transportation and land use ramifications. This
includes:
- Access for all people--urban and rural--to healthy, nutritious
foods obtained through sources that foster dignity and self-reliance
- Access for urban and rural workers to job sites in urban
and rural communities
- Access for small, low-income, and minority farmers to markets
for their food products
This Policy Brief focuses on how the reauthorization of TEA-21,
now under consideration by Congress, can provide those opportunities
to increase these kinds of access.
Transportation and Food Access in Urban Areas
Residents of lower income and minority neighborhoods in most urban
areas face a double bind that severely limits their access to fresh,
healthy food. Full service supermarkets and farmers' markets are
scarce in low-income areas. Residents of areas poorly served by
food retail options are also more likely than the general public
to be transit-dependent, so it can be difficult for them to travel
to food markets located outside of their immediate neighborhoods.
Studies have consistently shown that there are fewer full service
food markets per capita in neighborhoods with predominately low
income, minority, or immigrant residents. For example, in Los Angeles
a "grocery gap" persists despite the pledges of retail companies
following the 1992 civil unrest to build more markets in depressed
neighborhoods. There are 3 times as many supermarkets per capita
in parts of L.A. where only 10-20 percent of residents fall below
the poverty line than in areas with 60-70 percent of residents living
in poverty. According to a study of 216 neighborhoods in Maryland,
Minnesota, Mississippi, and North Carolina, there are on average
four times as many supermarkets in predominately white neighborhoods
as predominately black ones.
Those food markets that are located in low-income neighborhoods
are often smaller, with less selection in general, and less and
lower quality produce. One study in Detroit found that only 18 percent
of the stores selling food in three low-income zip code areas sold
a minimal "healthy food basket" of items necessary to assemble balanced
meals. What food is available tends to cost more than similar items
at supermarkets located in middle-income areas. The increase in
farmers' markets has been a boon for many urban shoppers, but the
distribution of farmers' markets tends to follow the same inequitable
trends visible for supermarkets. With fewer supermarkets and farmers'
markets, residents of low-income neighborhoods rely heavily on liquor
stores, corner markets, and small ethnic retailers for groceries.
These establishments stock packaged and processed food items, but
few if any fruits or vegetables. There are also fewer, and a smaller
range of sit-down restaurants in many low-income areas. Fast food
chains, serving high-fat items, are often the only source of prepared
food.
Residents of urban neighborhoods with few food markets have to travel
farther to shop for food. According to data from the federal government's
survey of personal transportation, a quarter of low-income households
lack access to an automobile. This percentage is higher in some
urban areas, leaving many residents dependent on walking, cabs and
transit for food shopping trips. Unfortunately, taxis are expensive,
and despite some notable exceptions (see innovative practices sidebar)
most existing transit systems are designed to meet commuter needs
rather than urban shopping patterns. However, the recent focus on
transit-oriented development could provide new opportunities for
establishing supermarkets and farmers' markets at major transportation
stops, thereby increasing fresh food access. But without adequate
transportation options, many families are denied equitable access
to fresh, nutritious food.
Transportation and Food Access in Rural Areas
Since rural poverty is often less visible than poverty in urban
areas, few would guess that food insecurity is rampant in rural
areas. In the midst of our nation's agricultural areas, 13.5 percent
of rural people faced food insecurity in 2000, compared to a nationwide
figure of 10.5 percent. Because population densities are low and
stores widely scattered in rural areas, distance to market is a
significant barrier for low-income, elderly, and disabled residents.
While most rural residents do have cars, those families that do
not or cannot afford a dependable automobile have even greater access
problems than their counterparts in urban areas. About half of rural
counties, including the most isolated areas, have no public transit
system at all.
Transportation and the Plight of Small Farmers
The nation's family farmers continue to face hard times. Concentration
in the agricultural economy, from corporate ownership of farms,
to the new "serfdom" of contract growing, to the market power of
food processors and shippers, squeeze small family owned farms.
Four corporations control 80 percent of the country's beef industry,
for example. As the Department of Agriculture admitted in 1998,
government policies have not helped. The nation's largest and wealthiest
farms get the lion's share of federal farm payments. The resulting
overproduction and artificially low prices for primary commodities
benefit processed food companies, but hurt farmers. Even though
94 percent of farms in the U.S. are considered small (sales of $250,000
or less annually), small farms earn just 41 percent of the nation's
farm receipts. As a result, every year, thousands of family farmers
are forced to abandon their livelihood and land. Minority farmers
are particularly hard hit. African-American farmers are losing their
farms three times faster than white farmers, at a rate of a thousand
acres a day.
Transportation infrastructure and policies have contributed to the
marginalization of many small farmers. Refrigerated trucks and railcars,
silos and storage facilities, produce brokers, and specialized agricultural
shipping firms have all lowered the costs of shipping agricultural
produce. But many of these transport modes and intermediaries are
economical only when farm products are transported in large quantities.
By subsidizing roads, rails, and barge channels, governments at
all levels (especially the federal government) have added to the
advantages held by the largest farmers. To stay in business, many
small farmers have tried to diversify outside of standard commercial
markets. They sell their produce at farmers' markets, which means
driving their own vehicles into urban centers. They set up community
supported agriculture (CSA) ventures and deliver food boxes to drop
off points. Farmers have also started pursuing institutional food
buyers such as public schools as potential steady markets for local
produce. But when scaling up their sales, farmers have discovered
there is often a gap in food transportation infrastructure between
their own farm vehicles and large commercial shippers. Transportation
(delivery and logistics) support systems for "direct marketing"
(farm to consumer or farm to institution) has emerged as a critical
need, even as programs like farmers' markets and farm to school
initiatives have become increasingly popular among both farmers
and consumers
In addition, because of subsidized transportation for long distance
shippers, and agricultural policies and practices favoring export
production rather than local food systems, food items, including
produce and animal products, travel farther and farther to reach
consumers. Beyond the added stresses on roads, rails, and canals
and the increased energy demand, an estimated 6-12 percent of household
food expenditures represent transportation costs; while transportation
of food accounts for around 2 percent of total U.S. energy use.
These numbers also reflect the long distance nature of food transport,
subsidized in part by transportation costs that favor a long distance-oriented
system.
Innovative Food Transportation Projects
Despite a food and transportation system that creates more barriers
than opportunities for reducing the distance that food travels and
increasing access to markets, a number of innovative food transportation
projects have been initiated in the past few years that can serve
as a signpost for new programs and approaches. These include:
- The Seniors Farmers' Market Nutrition Pilot Program (SFMNPP)
is a USDA program that awards grants to States, U.S. Territories
and Indian tribal governments to provide coupons to low-income
seniors that may be exchanged for eligible foods at farmers'
markets, roadside stands, and CSA programs. Eleven current
funded projects also incorporate transportation components,
either partnering with senior centers to take seniors to and
from markets, or arranging local farmers to bring their produce
directly to senior housing.
- The Chelsea Farmers' Market and the Chelsea Area Transportation
System (CATS) are partnering for the first time to bring senior
citizens to the Chelsea Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings.
The CATS bus is an "on demand" service but on Saturdays it runs
a scheduled route to three senior centers in town and drops
them at the market at 9am and picks them up an hour later for
the return trip. Serving this community in this way provides
the seniors with more variety and choices, as opposed to setting
up shop with a few vendors at one of the homes.
- The Hartford Food System in Connecticut also runs a program
for seniors, partnering with Geissler's Supermarket to provide
phone order grocery service. Funded by the North Central
Area Agency on Aging and other local businesses and churches,
delivery is free for participants, making the service a competitively
priced way for elderly people without cars or with disabilities
to have access to a variety of fresh, quality food.
- For the working people of Hartford, CT, the L-Tower Avenue
bus route plays an impressive role in increasing access to major
supermarkets for transit-dependent residents. The L-Tower
Avenue route was designed as part of the Jobs Access program
to link people who lived in the north end with jobs, shopping
and medical service. Food shopping immediately surfaced as a
major benefit of the new route: ridership increased from 4,978
passengers in September 2000 to 10,349 passengers the following
August, and grocery shopping was cited as the primary reason
to take the bus by 33% of riders. With future funding of the
route in jeopardy, the City of Hartford Advisory Commission
on Food Policy is advocating the route as one that works.
- In a similar example, the Austin, Texas Capital Metro,
working with the Austin/Travis County Food Policy Council started
a "grocery bus" line in 1996 with the specific intent of
providing improved food access to residents of the primarily
low-income, Latino Eastside. The bus route was designed to run
at regular intervals seven days a week and to link neighborhoods
with two supermarkets.
- The city of Miami recently received a grant for a shuttle
bus system that will fill public transportation gaps, helping
transit-dependent residents of North Miami access jobs and services,
such as the Publix supermarket at the Biscayne Boulevard stop.
- In other cases, the supermarket itself has operated a
shuttle bus for its shoppers. Numero Uno Market in Los Angeles,
CA capitalized on the population density and high transit-dependence
in the inner city to establish a van shuttle service that takes
shoppers who spend at least $30 to their door. Coordinated with
two Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus routes as a means
for people to get to the store, Numero Uno's 9-van shuttle service
made it one of the top five grossing supermarkets in Los Angeles.
In an effort to ensure that the one supermarket that serves
26,000 people in a neighborhood in Springfield, MA, did not
close, community members, public officials and store management
developed a free, once-a-week shuttle service that improves
access for transit-dependent residents and increases business
for A&P.
- A number of farmers' markets locate in areas that are
accessible for public transit riders. For example, the farmers'
market in El Segundo, CA, can be accessed by two bus lines.
- In California, the Department of Defense's fresh produce
project will be linking directly farmers to schools by acquiring
5 produce items from local farmers at a fair market price but
then making available the produce at a minimal cost for use
in school meal programs.
- Boston-based The Food Project promotes food security by
providing transportation to inner city youth and seniors to
regional farms for educational and recreational purposes.
- In addition to connecting rural food production with urban
consumers, some cities are linking transportation and food production
within the urban setting. In Tennessee, ISTEA funds a program
that constructs community gardens along recreational corridors
like bike and walking trails. In Madison, WI, low-income gardeners
working with the Community Action Coalition set up food gardens
in highway rights of way, within cloverleaf intersections and
by the side of roads.
Opportunities to Advance Food Security in TEA-21 Reauthorization
Adequate nutrition is commonly seen as a social welfare issue. The
health of the nation's family farms is considered the purview of
agricultural policy. Neither health nor nutrition policies have
been sufficiently linked to transportation. Upcoming TEA-21 Reauthorization
provides a vital opportunity to connect food and nutrition concerns
with transportation policies and programs. Food access concerns
could be funded through TEA-21's existing transit grant categories.
In addition, Congress could create a new transit grant category
to address food access-related transportation needs. This food access
program could follow the model of TEA 21's Job Access and Reverse
Commute Grants in using transit funding to enhance social equity.
- Increase food access in urban and rural communities:
| Food
Access Need |
TEA-21
Reauthorization Opportunity |
| Study
barriers to food access and map food and transportation
assets. |
Address
through TEA-21's Research and Planning programs. |
| Ensure
existing and new transit systems provide direct connections
between low-income communities and food retail locations.
|
Fund
through a new food access grant program and/or existing
transit funding sources such as urban area formula grants,
rural transportation access incentive programs, new starts,
and bus programs. |
| Fund
local governments, transportation agencies, community
development corporations, and non-profit organizations
to operate para-transit systems (ideally using low-emissions
vehicles) connecting low-income community members to grocery
stores, farmers' markets, and community supported agriculture
programs. |
Fund
through a new food access grant program and/or existing
transit funding sources such as urban area formula grants,
rural transportation access incentive programs, and clean
fuel grants. |
| Fund
transportation programs to increase access to fresh produce
and healthy food for seniors, schools, child-care centers,
and after-school programs. |
Fund
jointly through a new food access grant program and/or
existing transit funding streams; and Federal senior nutrition,
meals on wheels, child nutrition, and community food security
programs. |
| Provide
incentives for food and farmers' markets that provide
customers free or low-cost transportation. |
Establish
food access business tax break (equivalent to tax incentive
for employers offering employees commuter fringe benefits) |
| Encourage
local jurisdictions to lower minimum parking space requirements
for food establishments, in exchange for store-initiated
transportation alternatives. |
Transportation
and Communities and System Preservation Pilot Program |
| Coordinate
economic development efforts and transportation and land
use policies to site new food and farmers' markets at
transit hubs. |
Transportation
and Communities and System Preservation Pilot Program |
- Expand transportation options and economic opportunities
for small farmers:
| Small
Farmer Need |
TEA-21
Reauthorization Opportunity |
| Support
small and medium scale cooperative food transportation
ventures. |
Fund
through a new food access grant program and/or existing
transit funding sources such as rural transportation access
incentive programs and clean fuel grants. |
| Reduce
federal subsidies for large-scale transportation projects
that primarily benefit large commodity producers (canal
dredging, highway construction, international trade promotion).
|
Continue
TEA-21's trend of reducing the percentage of Federal transit
dollars going to new highway construction. |
| Fund
programs that allow small farmers to transport produce
to institutional buyers like schools and hospitals. |
Fund
research, planning, and Food to Institution Logistics
pilot projects jointly with USDA. |
| Research
plant-based alternative fuels. |
Fund
jointly through a new food access grant Clean fuel grants. |
| Fund
the development and dissemination of mobile "farmers'
markets" with Electronic Benefits Transfer capabilities. |
Fund
jointly through a new food access grant program and/or
existing transit funding sources such as urban area formula
grants and rural transportation access incentive programs;
and WIC farmers' market and Seniors Farmers' Market Nutrition
Pilot Programs. |
| Fund
local governments and nonprofit organizations in rural
areas to help connect farm workers with job-sites, social
services, and food establishments. |
Address
through new food access program and/or existing job access
and reverse commute grants. |
Next Steps
The initiatives described in this policy brief have been developed in conjunction with a coalition of organizations that have developed a New Transportation Charter. The Charter in turn has been seen as an organizing tool to bring together a powerful coalition working to make transportation serve communities better. The link between food access and transportation that resonates as part of that organizing effort while also presenting for food and transportation advocates to work together. To learn more about these efforts, please contact us.
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