Transit Board Diversity and Pandemic Service Cuts in Vulnerable Communities
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2025
Subject Area
place - urban, place - north america, organisation - governance, policy - equity, technology - management information systems
Keywords
sustainability and resilience, transportation and society, transportation equity
Abstract
Despite its primary role in shaping policy and service characteristics, board governance is an understudied topic in the field of urban transit. Existing research on board management and representative bureaucracy theory suggests that the race and gender diversity of boards has a significant impact on organizational activity but that these relationships are highly dependent on the cultural context and industry analyzed. In this paper, we evaluate how the diversity of transit boards (with respect to race, gender, and disability) in the U.S.A. correlates with service changes authorized by these boards during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing a database on board governance and general transit feed specification data for 36 agencies, we find a positive relationship between the presence of women on transit boards and vertically equitable service cuts, defined as increasing or maintaining transit service in more vulnerable neighborhoods. Overall, transit agencies with more female board members had more equitable service cuts, on average, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by SAGE, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Voulgaris, C. T., Ray, R. S., & Fischer, L. A. (2025). Transit board diversity and pandemic service cuts in vulnerable communities. Transportation Research Record, 2679(2), 575-591.
