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Recent Report Shows Almost a Third of Baltimore City Residents Are Without Cars

Posted on: Friday, 18 November 2005, 21:00 CST

By Jen DeGregario

Nearly a third of Baltimore City residents do not have access to automobiles, the fourth worst rate among U.S. cities, said a recent report by Washington think tank the Brookings Institution. Baltimore's 32 percent rate is higher than the 26 percent of New Orleans residents who did not have access to cars, a statistic the report linked to the high death toll among those stranded during Hurricane Katrina.But lack of car access is not only a problem because of the risks imposed during Katrina-scale emergencies. Rather, its greatest blow is to the everyday lives of low-income earners, said a new report by the Abell Foundation. The ability, day by day, to get and hold a job and become a productive citizen plummets without access to a car, the report said. People with a car are more likely to work, work more hours and have a higher level of income, said Margy Waller, a Brookings fellow who studies the relationship between poverty and transportation. A number of public policies in Maryland inhibit automobile ownership, the Abell report said. The high cost of vehicle inspection is one of the greatest barriers, the report said. Newly registered cars must be inspected for safety at a cost to the owner. Cars must pass inspection before they can be titled. But the safety guidelines are much stricter than in many other states, the report said

. Maryland is also one of the few states that require adults to attend driver education school before they can get a license, at a cost of $250 to $300, the report said. Insurance rates are also 60 percent higher in the city than a few miles away in Baltimore County, the report said, averaging $2,400 per year for a family with two cars. Even the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund - meant for people denied insurance due to poor credit - charges higher premiums than for-profit companies. Yet the fund does not allow installment-based payment, the report said. I think the Abell Foundation has properly identified some barriers that exist that do deprive some low-income people, said Donald C. Fry, president of the Greater Baltimore Committee, an advocacy group that supports mass transit.It's also part of the justification for investing in a more easy and fast and reliable transit system that is built around a network of interconnected rapid transit lines, Fry said. At $13 billion, the state Department of Transportation budget has a historic level of funding for the next six years, said spokesman Jack Cahalan.That includes more than $242 million for mass transit extensions such as the Red Line, a proposed 10.5-mile line that would connect Woodlawn in Baltimore County to Patterson Park in East Baltimore. There's quite a bit of financial support that goes into providing transportation outside of the city to jobs in the suburbs, said Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan. Unfortunately, there is a limit to what can be done cost effectively, because public transit really requires a sufficient number of people to make it worthwhile, he said.The costly nature of mass transit is a reason some Brookings scholars, such as Waller, have focused on lowering barriers to car ownership, despite the negative environmental impacts. Owning private transportation is far superior in how far you can go and how fast you can get there, said Steven Raphael, co-author of the Brookings report and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. The Abell report recommends a number of policy reforms that would promote car ownership in Baltimore, including better dialogue with insurance companies to find ways to lower rates, making the state insurance fund more affordable, and working with organizations to encourage insurance discounts. Other suggested reforms include re-evaluating the fees and laws associated with driver licensing and inspection, which the report deems too restrictive. While scholars tout the need for car ownership, others say the solution is investment in public transportation so it becomes a viable option for all citizens, not only low-income earners. The more we can become that kind of region with a rich transit system - the more people will be able to put together the resources that don't leave them so isolated, like we saw in New Orleans after the hurricanes, said Dan Pontious, the Baltimore regional policy director for the Citizens Planning and Housing Association.

Source: The Daily Record (Baltimore)

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