A well-funded and well-designed transit system helps increase access to opportunity across a region and connect residents to each other, jobs, education, grocery shopping, health care, and recreation. However, a transit system that does not serve current housing, employment, and education patterns exacerbates existing racial and economic disparities.

This paper focuses on the role that transit planning and funding can play in addressing one aspect of these disparities: the transit time penalty, which is the additional time required to travel between two points by public transportation, compared to travel by car.