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Evidence Matters, Part 7: Creating Economic Mobility Through Public Transit

January 20, 2026 • Think ND

0:00 | 1:10:22

Episode Topic: Creating Economic Mobility Through Public Transit

For families facing impossible choices between a doctor’s visit and a job interview, transportation costs can be a breaking point. Discover how King County, WA, and University of Notre Dame researchers used rigorous evidence to test a solution: free transit. The results reveal transformative impacts on community well-being, charting a new course for equitable mobility.

Featured Speakers:

David Phillips, University of Notre Dame
Matthew Freedman, University of California, Irvine
Truong Hoang, State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services
Maria Jimenez-Zepeda, King County Metro

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/06aa02.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Evidence Matters.

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Welcome and Introduction

1 0:06

Hello everyone. On behalf of King County and the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities at Notre Dame, I wanna give you a big welcome to our Evidence Matters series. I, can see the names of everyone who has joined, and it's great to see so many friends and colleagues, here with us. particularly wanna give a shout out to our, friends from Results for America who helped to promote this event. We're recording this webinar, uh, and plan to air it at a later date on King County Television. So I also wanna welcome everybody, who is tuning in to watch, via that channel. I'm Carrie Hawk. I am King County's Evidence and Impact Officer, and I am really passionate about advancing racial equity through bringing together the expertise of our staff. Our research partners, and most importantly, our community and, uh, Leo and King County, started this Evidence Matters series for three purposes. First, we wanna share the knowledge that we're building from our learning partnerships so we can use that knowledge to advance better and more equitable outcomes in our communities. Second, we wanna celebrate the successes from our work and also share our challenges. And third, we wanna build the connection with all of you tuning in from all around the country and learn from you and one another. Today you're gonna hear me talk a lot about Leo throughout the conversation, and that's not my, it is my astrological sign, but that's not what I'm referring to and I'm not referring to a particular person. LEO stands for Notre Dame's Lab for Economic Opportunities and their academic affiliates who work at universities across the country. Leo and King County have been working together on several learning projects for the last, really several years now. And today we're gonna be sharing results from the work that Leo and King County have done together to understand how affordable access to public transit contributes to wellbeing people with low incomes. King County Metro Transit is one of the largest transit agencies in the United States, and we have a really strong focus on working with the communities we serve to expand equitable access to transit, and particularly, particularly for communities who rely on transit, uh, to get around. One thing that became very clear during the pandemic is that all of us, every single one of us is transit dependent because we all rely on the essential workers who rely on transit. And that's something that, Tamika Butler has has written about very eloquently. King County Metro takes an income-based approach to transit fairs. and Metro was one of the first large transit agencies in the US to provide reduced or free fare transit programs at scale for people with low incomes. This income-based approach allows us to expand access to transit for the people who most need it and support a sustainable system. You probably recognize that it's really expensive to live here in the Puget Sound region. So in our income-based approach to fares, we're focused on people who earn 200% or below the federal poverty level. And just to give you a perspective in case you don't know what that number is right off the top of your head. for a family of three, we're talking about families who earn less than$50,000 a year. So for our event today, we have four great partners who will talk about Metro's, income-based fair programs, and what we're learning about their impact for people with low incomes. And we're gonna reserve time at the end of our event to take your questions. So if you're joining, the webinar live at the bottom of your screen, you'll see the chat and you can type your questions in there at any time during the webinar. And I'll direct your questions to the panel at the end of our conversation. So let me introduce the four people we have who are coming from four different organizations and have been working as a really marvelous team together over the last few years to figure out how we can best expand opportunity through transit. So first of all, we have Maria Jimenez Zepeda. Maria is a leader in King County's reduced fair programs, and Maria helps to design and improve affordable access, to transit in the King County region. Next we have Huang, who is with Washington State's Department of Social and Health Services. He is the Deputy Regional Administrator for the community service division. Andron oversees all of the, community service offices in King County where people come to access the benefits that they deserve. And then we have David Phillips, who's a research professor at the Lab for Economic Opportunities at Notre Dame. And Matt Friedman, a professor at the University of California at Irvine. David and Matt are both economists and have been working with Metro to study the impact of our reduced fair programs for people with low incomes. In addition to calling out results for America who helped us promote this event. I also wanna acknowledge, you know, it takes a village to do this work. It also takes funding. so we have some funding support from the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty, the National Bureau of Economic Research and Evidence for Action, a program at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for work that's related to, to what we're gonna talk about today. And our very most important acknowledgement has to go to the many, many people in our community who have helped us to develop metro's income-based approach to affairs and who are helping us to learn how these programs have shaped their lives. So thank you. Thank you for all of you who are participating in our work. So lemme let's start a conversation with our panel. and let's set the stage by really focusing around, um. Kind of what the context is for people with low incomes in King County. Um, so Chong, let's start with you. you know, thousands of people are coming through Washington State's community services offices. Many, I would expect the vast majority of folks are people with low incomes, low and people from vulnerable populations. Whatcha hearing from them directly about the challenges that they face getting around the region, and how is transportation impacting their lives?

Speaker 2 7:07

Hey, Carrie. Uh, it's great to be here. so, you know, Washington State is not an easy place to, have a car or, you know, commute For those of us that live in the area, you know, we have some of the highest gas crisis in the nation. Um, as well as, you know, we have, you know. Lots and waterways and hills and mountains. While, you know, it makes for a really beautiful place to live, it makes transportation really, really complicated. Um, those with low income and vulnerable populations, they're especially sensitive to rising gas prices as their budget and usually doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room for them. So, you know, they're sometimes having to choose, their priority and, and prioritize which commutes to, to go to. So they sometimes have to choose between, you know, going to medical appointments, going to a job search or a job interview. Even small things that we might take for granted, like going to the grocery store or visiting with friends and family. They're not necessarily able to go to all of these places. They, they, they might not be able to also go to the places where they have to apply for benefits. Um, you know, during the pandemic we were able to, have more services virtually, but we also know that those populations may not have cell phones. They might not have cell phone minutes. Um, they might not have computer access to access all of those vir, virtual services. So, you know, transportation, as a barrier not only just impacts, you know, their access to benefits, but it impacts really their daily lives, their physical health, their mental health, their ability to care for others. You know, having to go and care for somebody who might, a, a grandparent or something that lives across town or something. And then also just caring for themselves.

1 9:08

Yeah. Thanks. It's a, it's a good reminder. I think people think about King County as a really, you know, connected community, but, we have, we have really large pockets and populations who don't. Internet access people need to get around and those are some really difficult choices. So Maria, lemme also turn to you. I know that Metro Transit gathers a lot of input from communities in King County, both from people who do ride transit as well as from non riders. What do you hear from Metro's customers and others about cost as a barrier to their ability to get around?

Speaker 3 9:45

Yeah, thanks Gary for that question. I'll start by saying that it depends on kind of really the full range of where they stand in terms of income that even within people with low incomes, you mentioned that special is 200% of the federal poverty level. Some of the customers we're serving May closer or even at that 0% at the federal poverty level. and so for people who have low incomes but are maybe towards that higher end of that income threshold, our standard faires, may the ones that are affordable, but programs like or Lyft. Make it so that they can actually use transit and be able to access our mobility. however, for people with very low or no incomes, we have often heard that even that reduced FA is unaffordable. from some of the work that we've done with this population, a little under half reported that in order to ride, they paid what they could in cash or chose not to ride. and many actually indicated that they were unable to pay for transit and when they were unable to pay, they did just choose not to ride due to fear of negative interactions with bus drivers.

1 10:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's really important and it's great that Metro is using that community input and, and data to expand access. And since we are gonna be broadcasting this on KC. I think it's a great opportunity to just give, you know, folks here in our region. a moment. Can you describe, Metro's income-based fair programs and where can people go to get more information and to get help signing up if they qualify? Yes, I

Speaker 3 11:23

think there's a slide coming up. so here's information about our, two main, income-based fair programs. Um, first we have ORCA Lift, which provides a reduced fair, from, Oracle Lift launch in 2015 and reduces the fair from 2 75 to currently on a dollar almost transit services. Uh, people automatically qualify in, they're enrolled if they're enrolled in SNAP on supplemental Nutrition assistance, program or EDT, um, apple Health, which is Washington Medicaid or wic. and people can actually also apply on their own if their household income is out or below 200%. Federal poverty level, and if they can provide that documentation, one thing that's really great about staff and EBT, is that if they're getting those services already through DSHS, that means they can enroll in Orca Lift at that time. but people can also enroll, by calling the number shown on the screen below, or visiting reduce bar at king county gov or in person at select location. Um, and you can see more on our website, king County gov slash or list. what's really exciting is that in 2020, in 2020 we launched and subsidized annual pass, which actually provides no cost transit on King County Metro Sound Transit, and as of this month, even Everett Transit Services as well. this is for people with an even lower income threshold. so this is people living at or below 80% of the federal poverty level, enrolled in a case hash state benefit program, such as. Sistance for needy families. and they must live in King Pierce or Snohomish County. They can also apply by calling at that number shown on screen visiting reduced at king county gov or gonna select locations. they can also enroll, in if, when they're getting those cash benefit programs through dshs. Um, and you can visit king county.gov/subsidizes. I know. Pass for more information.

Collaboration with LEO Researchers

1 13:19

Great. Thanks Maria. I'm glad we had an opportunity to share a little bit about those, those programs. So now that we've heard a little bit about how transportation is impacting people's lives and how Metro's income-based fair programs are set, set up to help address that. Let's turn to the work that, Metro's doing with Leo and what motivated that. So Maria, can you talk a little bit about why Metro was interested in working with LEO researchers? What did you and decision makers at Metro really wanna learn more about? Yeah,

Speaker 3 13:57

so one of the things that was, interesting is that we were getting multiple requests from a lot of community agencies saying, can you do a program for this population? Can you do a program for this population? and what we realized was that trying to do so all in one-off basis was maybe not sustainable, but that the under commonality between all of these groups was that they, were all, people with low incomes. and we knew that, you know, for example, forklift was, making a difference in people's lives, but there was still a lot that we didn't know and that we wanted to be able to better evaluate. As you see on the slide here, our theory of change is that by addressing cost and non-cost barriers, we can increase, improve people's mobility, which could then in turn lead to increased access to jobs, housing, education, and services. We then believe that in the long term, this would result in increased health and wellbeing. and the learnings from this type of valuation would be, really crucial and would be able to inform how metro, it's invest its resources and how to make sure that we are, uh, meeting our goal of investing where needs are greatest.

1 15:03

Yeah, great. And I see like a lot of those things in that, those midterm outcomes are what King County calls our determinants of equity. Things like employment, housing, job training, all those things that people need to really fulfill their potential. So that's awesome. So, Chong, I'm gonna turn back to you. you have a very busy job serving the state's own clients, and some people might think it's kind of unusual to see a leader from another level of government, from a human service agency interest in working on a transportation project. Tell us a little bit about what has motivated you to collaborate with King County and other partners on this project to learn about transportation access. What, what did you hope that, our work together would, would answer for you?

Speaker 2 15:54

So I'm kind of, um, you know, I went to school with a degree in psychology and, and sociology and kind of wannabe economist. So I have a lot of, you know, research sort of background that, I like to use in my, in my work. But, mobility is just such an important part of everyone's lives. We all felt the effects of that when we were all in lockdown for several weeks at the beginning of the pandemic. We couldn't go anywhere. And, and, you know, so transportation mobility is really tied into everything that we do here at the Department of Social Health Services. You know, the work that we're doing with clients, it's not traditionally thought of as one of the like four pillars of basic needs like shelter, food, health and employment. But really mobility plays into all of that. Um, you know, you can't get healthy if you can't go to your medical appointments. You can't get food if you can't go to the grocery store. You know, you can't, you know, be healthy and deal with your mental health issues if you aren't able to go and talk to friends and family. You know, the more we can really do and learn about our clients' behavior, the better we're able to develop services and policies. That really helped benefit them and also create, you know, greater access for them. I wanted to know, how much clients really depend upon transportation and for their access for employment and health. and, you know, if providing lower free transit, access would help increase some of those outcomes in those areas, as well because our, our mission in, uh, DSHS is to transform lives and I think transportation is a very important part of that.

1 17:41

Yeah, that's great. And ultimately we're all serving the same people. Right. And, the connection we've had with, the Department of Social and Health Services has been, I think, really incredible in just getting more access for everybody who's coming into your office, onto our transportation programs. It's made it really efficient for us, so. I really so appreciate your partnership and I think we can make you an honorary economist. Thank you. So let's actually turn to one of our official economists, David Phillips at Leo. I wanna bring your perspective into this conversation and, first could you just tell everybody a little bit about Leo and, and what Leo's mission is?

Speaker 4 18:30

Sure. Thanks Carrie. yeah, so I'm at the Wilson She Opera Economic Opportunities at the University of Notre Dame. And what we really believe in is partnership, right? That, that if academic researchers and, uh, service providers, both in government and nonprofit organizations and policy makers can all work together, they can play a critical role in responding to poverty. And so what we do is we match together researchers, leaders in social service world and local governments that conduct evaluations, that are trying to measure what's the impact of innovative, effective, scalable programs. That could help move people permanently outta poverty. Um, and so the really, the key to that vision is this sort of partnership of the, the sorts of voices that we've been hearing from so far, right. Of, of working together, uh, as a group of people who are committed to do the best that they can to help provide opportunity in their communities.

1 19:16

Yeah, that's great. And I was just out at your 10th anniversary event. there were so many amazing, service providers there and policy makers, other, you know, all of your Leo affiliates at universities across the country like Matt. And, uh, I was just, I was really proud of the partnership and to be part of that group, so thank you.

Speaker 5 19:37

Yeah.

1 19:38

so, you know, following up on that, David, you and Matt are both economists. You've collaborated on a really wide range of work together. So tell us a little bit about what interested the two of you in this project looking at, um, the impact of removing cost as a barrier to transportation mobility in King County.

Speaker 4 19:59

Yeah, I, I think, I mean, first when you interact with individual people, I mean, transportation just comes up repeatedly. Yeah. I mean, for me, I, I, I got on this direction of doing research related transportation, many years ago, living in, in the other Washington, Washington dc working around a nonprofit employment agency and meeting a man who would walk several miles in the rain just to get help making a resume because he needed to have a job, but he didn't have a bus. Right? And so, I mean, there's just so many instances of that that show up just in daily life. But then I think, you sort of zoom out to that and the world that we live in, right? Obviously we have some neighborhoods where there's greater access to opportunity and there's others, there's less access to opportunity. And we, and right policy makers think a lot about how do we respond to that? Are there ways that we can use housing policy to help people? Who would like to move to, to move to a different neighborhood? Are there ways that we can invest in neighborhoods that have been underinvested in? And a lot of times those, those policies are, there's lot of conversation around, around, but it's also very difficult sometimes to make progress. I think what neat thing about Transit is it's a system that's already been built. Something like, like Faires is, okay, are there ways that we could use this existing system that we've already built? Are there ways that we could, we could adjust it, that would provide people with greater access to opportunity that could deal with this, these huge, huge challenges, in, in a way that might be be feasible. And so I think that's some, some of what attracted, an economist like me to, to work, work with Metro, a project like that.

Study Design and Methodology

1 21:19

Yeah. So thinking about transportation as kind of the flip side of the housing line, right? Yeah. And yeah. In, in King County, I know, you know, if you look at zip codes in King County, we have, you know, more than 10 years difference in, in life expectancy. Which is really not acceptable. so we wanna figure out how we change that. Alright, so we've heard a little bit about, you know, what was motivating people, to work on, the study that we're gonna talk about together. So let's dive in a little bit further to talk more specifically about the study and what we've learned from it so far. and David, I'll, I'll continue a little bit of the conversation with you. so, you know, obviously King County, state of Washington, our partners like Sound Transit. We want to clearly understand how metro's, income based fair programs, impact people's lives, those outcomes that Maria was talking about. in the theory of change, things like how does fair Free transit, for people with low incomes affect employment, their ability to access services? Health and wellbeing, but those are really big outcomes, right? Like those are outcomes that are affected by so many different things, not just access to transit. So talk to us a little bit about how you set up a study so that we can really understand just the contribution of the Fair, free and reduced Fair Transit programs, on the, on those big outcomes that people care about.

Speaker 4 22:59

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, there, there's so much going on in people's lives and the complexity of their lives to try to understand, okay, what if what going on here is just due to, fairs and, and access to transit? Like how, how much does that matter? Is, is difficult to parse out. So what we have to do is we have to be able to answer a what if question. We have to be able to say, okay, not just what happens to folks in their lives, what do their lives look like when they have access to a fully subsidized transit pass? But what would've happened to them if they didn't have access to that? And be able to try to measure both of those things. So the way that we do that is, uh, we, we look at two groups of people, right? We can't see that what if for any individual person, because they only live one life. Mm-hmm. But for two different groups of people, we can see what happens to one group of folks and we can see what happens to another group of folks. And if they receive different services, one of them receives access to fully subsidized transit and one, one does not, one receives the status quo. then we can get a sense, of the effect of transit as long as those two groups of people are similar, as long as, as those other things going on in their lives in the world around them, in their social environment. As long as those things are similar between those two groups, then we can compare, compare those two groups to get a sense, okay, here's, here's what access to transit is providing for, for these folks.

1 24:12

Yeah. Yeah. So for example, like you could imagine if we're just looking at a group of people who have signed up for transit, we might expect that that group of people, they would just they would naturally benefit more because they're so interested in it, right? So. How are you really making sure that the group, the two groups of people we're looking at are, are comparable?

Speaker 4 24:34

Yeah, so in this study like this, what we do is, I mean you can think about it as sort of drawing names outta a hat or something like that. You say, okay, we've got a, we've got a limited amount, of resources to be able to provide these fully subsidized passes to folks, and we wanna do it in a fair way. And so one fair way to, to provide that is sort of, you know, draw some folks names outta the hat and offer them this assistance. what you end up then is, is with two groups of people, right? If, if, if these two groups are sort of chosen by lottery, uh, not because yeah, one group likes transit more or whatnot because I like some group of people better or whatever, not, not for any particular reason, uh, but, uh, chose and you know, sort of drawing names outta a hat. Then you get two groups of people who are, are similar, right? They would have, if you had them all write down their ages on a piece of paper, right? You would end up with two groups that have similar average age. They'd have. Similar be similar in terms of where they live in the county on average. They'd be similar in terms of different barriers and advantages that they might have in, in their lives, because of the fact that they're not chosen precisely because they're, particularly interested in transit. But just because by, because they were chosen to be sort of comparable groups that are similar on, on these dimensions.

1 25:36

Yeah. So that, so that's what, uh, we mean by a randomized controlled trial. Right. Um, yeah's so we're, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4 25:45

Yeah, that's exactly right. So if you hear me say things like randomized controlled trial or RCT, they're referring to that, that sort of process, um, that's used in lots of different, uh, uh, research to try to get comparable groups of people who end up being similar because of a, a random draw.

1 25:58

Right. Yeah. Okay. Great. And that helps us to really isolate the impact of just that transit program on the kinds of outcomes that we're looking at. That, that's great. Okay. So, um, I'm gonna ask you to describe this study a little bit more. So, who participated? How did people get selected? How many people were involved? Talk a little bit about those questions.

Speaker 4 26:21

Yeah, so there were 1,797 people who participated in the study. and, and the way that they came into this project was that we offered them opportunity to participate as they were coming through, uh, state community service offices. So we heard from Tru before.

Speaker 5 26:36

That's great. Yeah,

Speaker 4 26:37

right, exactly. He talked about his work with, with, with Washington State dshs. Right. And, and, and it was the community service offices that he, that he manages and, and the wonderful, uh, staff there that were the ones who were involved in inviting people to be involved in this study. so everybody who's coming through those offices are, are folks, uh, who, have low income. And so they're a good fit for a, a project like this. And they were asked. I already, prior to the research study were being asked if they had interest in receiving, uh, public transit, the orca lift program that Maria talked about before. and so what we sort of layered into that existing process was to say, oh, what if we gave people an opportunity to participate in this study? And if they got in the study, they'd have a chance to enter this, this drawing to see if they would get a, uh, a, a sort of deeper subsidy for, for riding transit. And so lots of people said yes to that opportunity. And the people who said yes to that opportunity, uh, to participate in the study are, are the ones are, that's the, the seven, seven people who ended up, in, in the study that we worked together to, to conduct.

1 27:35

That's great. And so one part of that group of people were enrolled in our reduced fair orca lift program, and then the other group of people were given what were they given?

Speaker 4 27:47

Yeah. And so got, A transit pass. Transit pass that sort of piloted for, just for the purposes of this study. So it's not a formal program like some of the ones that Bria talked about before. Mm-hmm. But yeah, it was a, a particular pass that, that still worked with an ORCA card. but it was an ORCA card that was set up to provide about four months of fully subsidized transit so they could take unlimited rides without paying a fair metro would pay the fair, for riding different forms of transit, around the area. So the bus and the, the light rail and so on. and so yeah, compared to the folks, the status quo getting the orca lift program right, it's, it's reducing their, fair considerably and, and allowing them to ride for free for about four months.

1 28:22

Yeah. And, and this all happened before Metro actually launched what's now our fully subsidized pass program. Right. When, when did this, when did this, study occur?

Speaker 4 28:33

That's exactly right. So this, uh, this study occurred. People joined the study in 2019 and then, early 2020. So it happened for some folks it was, it was a little while before COVID and some folks joined the study right before COVID happened,

1 28:47

right? Yeah. And I see some questions coming in through the chat, in including a question about COVID impacts. So we might get to that a little bit later, but if you do have questions, I encourage you to put them in the chat. we definitely wanna hear your questions and, uh, we have time reserved at the end to get to your answers. so thanks for talking about the, the setup of the study, David, and, um, you know, having that kind of work lead into, uh, Metro's launch of the subsidized annual pass. You know, we learned a lot just from the process of setting it up and, kind of, you know, what we were seeing before you and Matt did a lot of your analysis of the, of the results. So let's actually turn to looking at some of those results. Very exciting. I feel like there should be a big reveal. Smoke coming up behind me or something like that.

Speaker 5 29:43

Drum roll.

1 29:45

Uh, so Matt, I'm gonna turn to you to talk a little bit about what we are learning from the study. So you and David have had a chance to work with a lot of the data, and they cover a really wide range of outcomes. And you're looking at what was different in the data for the group of people who had a fair free transit card and the group of people who were enrolled in orca lift or a reduced fare program. So let's walk through what that study showed, for each of the, the kind of links that we saw in that theory of change. So the first thing we would expect to see is that. A fair free card might use transit more? Is that what happened? What did you find out?

Speaker 6 30:30

Absolutely, yes. So using data that from Metro as well as follow up surveys, from individuals who were participating in the study, we saw immediate and fairly large increases in, transit use among those who had access to free fairs. So particularly we found that the, the group of people who, with low incomes, who got the fair free cards, uh, roughly doubled uh, their use of transit relative double who were on orca, Lyft.

1 30:57

Wow. So going from just a reduced fare reduced the, reduced, the fully subsidized fair is doubling their use of transit. That's amazing. That's correct.

Speaker 6 31:05

In terms of number of boardings on transit, mostly buses of course. And yeah.

1 31:10

And was that true for everybody who participated or were there like, you know, sometimes there are differences by demographic groups like gender, race. Where people live, that kind of thing?

Speaker 6 31:19

Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, the increases that we saw were pretty broad based. So, uh, they were fairly similar size impacts on transit use among people in different demographic groups.

Speaker 5 31:30

Hmm. And

Speaker 6 31:30

what's more, it wasn't kind of just a short run just in the first week or two of, of, of, when they had access to free fairs, it was quite persistent, uh, increases in transit use during the duration of the subsidy. So when they were actually had access to free fairs.

1 31:44

Oh, that's great. Yeah, and I know we, you know, at Metro, we put a lot of work into making sure we're getting out into those communities who most need it. So it's great to see that that's actually kind of coming to fruition. So how about, in terms of like what people used Transit for? Do we have any information about that?

Speaker 6 32:05

Yeah, I think one of the most striking things to come out of our work was, was in fact our, the wide range of things that people were using. Transit, transit for. So as I alluded, we conducted follow-up surveys with individuals, uh, in the study and, and in fact it revealed a variety of different uses of, of free transit, uh, ranging from using the free transit to run errands, to visit and assist family and friends and access healthcare and other city services to get to and from, uh, work to participate in community and logistic a wide array of, of different activities. And so, you know, I think it just highlights kind of that, again, coming back to things was talking about, you know, there's kind of barriers to participating in, uh, lots of things that, uh, in terms of transportation, transportation seemed like free transit, freed up people to, to do a lot of, a lot of different activities.

1 32:57

Yeah. That's great. really kind of getting at all of that stuff in the, in those midterm outcomes that, that's cool. and then, you know, I also know that even since COVID, even though transit ridership has fallen, you know, some of our bus routes at certain times of day can get kind of crowded. So it, you know, that, I think that was one big concern we had with thinking about moving to, you know, the subsidized annual pass program. How, what kind of impact is that gonna have on the crowding of our system? Did you find out anything about that?

Speaker 6 33:33

Yeah, that's a great question. So we, we could track using data from Metro, uh, the times that people were taking transit and the routes, uh, that they took as well. And so we found that the individuals with, with low incomes in a study that had access to free fairs, took a disproportionate number of, gonna be additional trips, at, off peak hours, uh, and on buses that, that weren't already crowded. Buses and routes that weren't already crowded. So. On the whole, at least for kind of the scale of the subsidy that we were looking at, in, in this study, there were very limited implications for congestion, uh, along the bus system itself.

1 34:10

Right. And so let's talk about, some of those other, other outcomes. you know, people obviously aren't just using transit because they wanna ride the bus, some people do. But, how, how did having a fair free transit card really impact people's lives? What, what changed about their overall wellbeing?

Impact of Free Transit on Health and Financial Security

Speaker 6 34:34

Yeah, that's great. We were, so, we were really fortunate, uh, in this study. We were able to access a wide variety of data that was already being collected by the county and state as well, as well as, again, using follow up surveys of individuals to kind of investigate some of these, some of these, different outcomes. So we didn't detect large changes in paid hours, worked or employment at least using the administrative data that we had access to from the state. But we did see that that access to free transit was associated with some indications of improved health. also using credit data, we were able to see some modest improvements in financial security, uh, among those with access to free transit relative to those who were on or Lyft and did not have access to free transit. When we asked people directly, uh, about their wellbeing, along different dimensions and follow up surveys, we also found that free transit was associated with better self-reported wellbeing along a number of different dimensions, right? Including not only transportation, which we would expect, uh, but also financial wellbeing, health, wellbeing, and even wow as well. And so this is consistent kind of with a large, to a large extent with what we were able to observe in the administrative data. And, you know, more generally with the varied uses of transit that the people, reported.

1 35:54

Yeah, that's really interesting though, because you were saying you didn't really detect a big effect on the measures of employment in the state data like ours were, or income, but people were reporting like their credit scores went up, which is amazing because, you know, we may not agree with, you know, how credit scores work, but they do impact so many aspects of our lives. And it sounds like people were also reporting that their employment situation was better. So like how do you, how do you reconcile that? What, what do you think's going on there?

Speaker 6 36:34

Yeah, that's a great question. It's something that we kind of thought about, a lot. So, you know, based on, based on our results, it may be the case, right? That transit. Facilitates more trips for things like errands, visiting family and so on. But, but maybe at least the temporary access to, to free transit for this population may not have been enough to kind of move the needle on, on, uh, employment outcomes.

Speaker 5 36:57

Hmm.

Speaker 6 36:57

That being said though, right, the administrative data on, on employment, uh, that the state collects and that we were able to, to link to individuals in the study, just consists of jobs where people pay payroll taxes and kind of give us very limited information about, about the jobs themselves. And, and so, you know, we don't see much movement, right, in sort of administratively measured employment outcomes. But as you mentioned, right, people do self-report improvements in, in employment wellbeing when they have access to free transit. So it may just be that we're not able to detect some of the more subtle changes that are happening with people's employment situations, uh, with these administrative data. I think this also kind of highlights, uh, the value of this sort of more multi-pronged approach to looking at outcomes using data. Not only that stuff that's collected already by the state, for administrative reasons, but also asking people who are directly in a kind of qualitative way, what has changed in, in, in their lives. And I think the kind of combined evidence here can be really helpful in just sort of understanding, uh, what's happening and, and people's responses to grief news.

1 38:03

Yeah, that's great. And I, I guess also, you know, I'm just thinking like the, the study was giving people a fair free transit card that was for about four months maybe. Right. So probably not really, you know, it takes a long time to like think about finding a new job, right. So, yeah,

Speaker 6 38:21

exactly. Exactly. Um, and so I think, you know, that new this, uh, new subsidized pass program that Maria was uh, referring to is giving people access to free fair, fair period of time. And so we may expect to see some somewhat different impacts on some of these. Medium and longer run outcomes that we care about.

1 38:38

Yeah. And it's really exciting that the team is working together on evaluating that program too. So it'll be, we'll have another one of these in a year to talk about, what we've learned from, from that evaluation too. So tha thanks so much for that, Matt.

Speaker 5 38:55

Yeah,

1 38:56

absolutely. so great to hear about some of the amazing results of, our study looking at, providing people with fair free transit. So twice as much use of transit, increase in people's credit scores, lots of markers of increases in people's health and wellbeing. It's, it's really pretty remarkable. Um, it's amazing to see what we're learning about that and how it impacts, the lives of people with, with low incomes. And, you know, those results are most meaningful when we, as you know, public sector decision makers really put those results to use. So let's talk a little bit about that and what's coming next. So, Chong, I wanna turn back to you and your perspective from the State's Human Services role. How do you see these results in this work influencing the way the state thinks about human services and helping to meet people's needs, particularly people with low incomes. What, what do you see might change as a result of this work at the state level?

Speaker 2 40:04

So, I mean, this work not only, you know, informs the state to, change some of its policies, um, on providing, you know, greater support services, but also, you know, helping policy makers and the legislature. Provide, um, provide and seeing, transportation mobility as one of those essential pillars to self-sufficiency that I was talking about, already we're, you know, exploring additional funding to other programs. Um, you know, traditionally we have only had support services that provides, bus tickets or transportation needs for clients that were on the temporary assistance for needy families. So a TANF program. we're, we're shifting to also looking at clients on other programs. Um, you know, being able to give them similar support services for welfare, um, or nofa costs for them for transportation because we're seeing just like some of those, um, impacts that, you know, we were seeing with. Credit and the health, those things, now we can, we can show to those policy makers to say, transportation is that important and, and here's the evidence that says it's working. And so they're more apt to provide us funding for that because, you know, here in Washington we have limited resources and so we wanna make sure that we're using those resources as responsibly as we can.

1 41:32

Yeah. So it's, it's really, you know, showing how, transportation might be improving the outcomes that you care about for people and also kind of making the way you provide services more efficient people can get to their services and all those kinds of things. That's, that's great. So Maria, lemme uh, turn to you as well. what about at Metro? How are decision makers like you and others using these results at Metro?

Speaker 3 42:01

I think wanna start by mentioning that like maybe historically Metro was more of a transportation agency, thinking about how to get people from point A to point B. but in more recent history has been thinking about what does it mean to be a mobility agency and how do we support people's mobility? king County Metro believes that mobility is a human right and that the ability to pay fair should not be a barrier to using transit. and as such takes an income-based approach to Faires. what this means is that those who can pay a full fair are asked to do so. Whether that fair is paid by themselves or by their employers. Uh, for those with lower incomes, we then provide a low or no cost option, to be able to ride transit. And I think the results from this research really has only strengthened that income based approach to affairs, of providing no cost transit based on income, especially the most. Lower lowest income and most vulnerable populations. as was mentioned earlier, these results also then in this research came before the subsidized annual pass. Um, so the learnings that we had from this really informed the creation of the subsidized annual pass, what we could expect, uh, what are the benefits that we could receive. and we're continuing to use the learnings from this study and other research that we're doing to be able to inform how do we make this work more sustainable? How do we make it, you know, longer lasting? And, you know, how do we make sure that we are fulfilling our goal of, uh, investing where needs are greatest.

1 43:30

That that's great. Maria? I, I love, Metro's focus on mobility as a human right, and I can see how it's shifting the work of, of the agency. So, you know, the study has really amazing results, you know, along many dimensions, and I know that there are people here in our region as well as. Conversation happening around the US who are advocating that transit systems just get rid of fairs for everybody. how, how do you, you know, how do you think about that? How does, what's Metro's response to that?

Speaker 3 44:04

Yeah. First is, cost errors only one of the barriers to people using transit. And I think, I'm not sure if it was mentioned or not, but one of the things that we did find in this study is that, reducing the cost barrier really increases access to transit and mobility, but only if there's a transit stop near them. Oh, sure. Um, so metro's prioritizing, where needs are greatest and trying to provide an all day regional network of frequent transit services. Um, what that means is that we need to be thoughtful about striking the right balance between providing affordable transportation and making sure that we have a system, sustainable system that prioritizes other things that are also really important to everyone. Speed, such a speed, um, safety and a system that actually can move people from where they need to go. Um, currently Farers help Metro and the region maintain the level of service that we have and are also important if we wanna continue to grow our services and be, make it possible for people to have even more mobility, without an alternative source of revenue. going fair, free at this moment would likely mean cuts to our services, um, that would likely impact those with low incomes, and vulner populations that actually rely on our transit services the most.

National Interest and Broader Implications

1 45:21

Yeah, so I was trying to find that balance of, you know, bringing in revenue through Faires, providing access, to people who can't afford to pay a fair, but then investing in a system as well that really. Provides all the other attributes that people need to get around, like where, you know, extensiveness of the system, safety, reliability, all of those kinds of things. Is that a, does that sound right? Yes. Well that's, that's great. Thanks Maria. so David and Matt, I wanna bring you back into the conversation too. Um, in, in terms of how these, uh, results are being put to use. What are you, do you, are you hearing from other places in the us are you seeing other transit systems and jurisdictions interested in the results of our work here? Do they translate?

Speaker 5 46:19

Yes. I mean, there's definitely been a lot of interest.

Speaker 4 46:22

I think the, the co right, first of all like, right, lots of different places are in transit. Agencies are wrestling with these same questions, right? They're wrestling with, whether to have traditional fair structure that flat fair, right? Whether to have an income based fair structure, right? Some places have. like I'm sitting in Washington DC right now, which is, which is moving toward, free fares, uh, on, on the bus, not on the train, but on the bus. and, and yeah, I, so I think a lot of these places have have similar questions about what happens when some or, or all riders have, are not paying for, for the buses, for the train. And so I think that what we've been able to do in Seattle, in King County with the metro to be able to have a, a sort of clear measure of impact through doing the, the random control trial, and through being able to pull together, through partnership with the county and with the state, all of these different forms of, of information on how this affects people's lives in different ways. I think it's really informative to, to these other jurisdictions. So like, I'm, I'm, I'm in the, I'm in Washington DC right now. I'm gonna be presenting to folks here locally because Right. They're interested in learning from what the ways that that Metro and others in King County have been innovating, and the ways that it can help guide them as they're thinking about their own systems.

1 47:27

That's great. Matt, do you wanna add anything?

Speaker 6 47:31

No, just to echo David, I think that there's in incredible interest around the country in, in exploring kind of that, that, uh, not just, of course the, you know, fair policy, but also some of these other tradeoffs that you're referring to, Kerry, about whether we both resources to reducing fares versus, changing, you know, sort of access, right. Uh, routes. and so these are kind of really important questions and our hope of course is that if we can kind of provide information, even if it's only on, you know, one dimension of this, it can help inform these broader, uh, policy discussions that, that, again, are so relevant today for many transit systems.

1 48:07

Yeah, and I do know we have, uh, some of our partners from Results for America with us here today, and they've actually done a case study that's featured in their economic mobility catalog on, on this very study. So. If folks wanna, you know, check that out, I'd encourage you to do so. It's a great way to get the findings of this work out. So lemme um, you know, I think one really important thing about any kind of study is to be clear about what we've learned, but also to be really clear about what the limitations of this study are. So, you know, like Matt, you, you know, your discussion about the employment, that's like kind of a question that was unearthed for us that we need to do more work on. So I'm interested in hearing a little bit from everybody, uh, Maria, Tron, David and Matt, what's, what's coming next? What, what are we doing to continue to learn more about how we can serve people with low incomes, with transit access?

Speaker 5 49:06

Maria, you wanna take a crack at

Speaker 3 49:07

that? Yeah. As one of my colleagues says, uh, good research only begets more questions. Um, and so now we are really just curious about what was it about this fully subsidized transit pass? That was making an impact on people's lives. Was it really just cost alone or was it that they no longer had to worry about how or where or when to reload their cards? as well as questions about what part of increased transit were they was really making the difference for it, was it getting to services? Was it spending time with friends and family, just like digging deeper on those questions. and so actually we're doing an evaluation project of our subsidizing of Pass program. And, all of these unanswered questions then are prompting us to do a qualitative component to be able to dig deeper on some of these questions and really get a better understanding, more holistically of, what, why we're seeing the results that we're seeing.

1 50:04

That's great. so I, I know we've got some questions in the chat and I'd encourage other folks to, put your questions in the chat too. We're gonna turn to those pretty shortly here. But before we do that, I'm gonna move to maybe kind of a little bit of a rapid fire question that I want each of you to answer. So, one thing I think that's really struck me about this work is that it's a really remarkable team, right? Like you're four people from four different organizations. you know, the team who's doing this work is even larger than the four of you. you know, working across organizations across different sectors, levels of government, we're all learning together, and learning from the people who we are serving. So that, that's kind of unusual and I'd love to hear something about that or about the work in general that's just really kind of stuck with you. and lemme uh, maybe Chong, could I ask you to go first?

Speaker 2 51:06

Um, yeah. So I, I think probably what has struck me the most is the level of. really trying to learn and understand from each other, from each other's perspective. And, taking a step back and just viewing it from a different standpoint. You know, we have our own sort of, specialties and, and things that we look at. But, you know, what really struck me is, is with, you know, David and Matt, they really sat there and not only listened to the things that, you know, myself and Maria were saying, but really asked probing questions as to getting to the point instead of just going straight towards, you know, their research. Really trying to understand all the different aspects of how client's behavior is and what they do, on a daily basis, I think really helped them to sort of, Factor those things in and how they, um, structured the research project.

1 52:11

That's great. David, I hope that resonates with you. And what's your rapid fire answer? It does

Speaker 4 52:19

to me. What sticks with me is just how, how doing this type of work well really requires like very different forms of expertise that different people have and you need the whole team to do it. Like I think we tend to have this like big man of science sort of view of these things where Notre Dame study says that free faires do such and such, right? It's that that tends to sort of highlight particular aspect of this, but it's like we need customer service re representatives who know how to communicate with

Speaker 5 52:46

yes.

Speaker 4 52:46

Folks who are coming through to be able to in the study and to do that in a respectful way, we need people who have expertise at Metro who know. Right questions to ask about, like, how is the transit system changing? What policy decisions are coming up? How can this actually be informative, right? We need all of these different voices and different pieces of expertise in the conversation to actually do something that's useful. And that's, that's sticking with me.

1 53:08

And most importantly, the, the expertise in our community, right? And of the people who we're, who we're serving directly. Yeah. So Maria, how about you? What's really stuck with you about this work?

Speaker 3 53:21

one is that definitely just thinking about the scope of learning is a lot bigger than I think would've been if it were just metro. And also that then we get to share those results with a much wider audience than it would've been if it were just metro. I think just that perspective of being able to share learnings, across the whole country,

Speaker 5 53:41

um, has been really impressive.

1 53:45

That's great. And Matt, you have the last word. What stuck with you about this work?

Speaker 6 53:51

Well, uh, you stole my thunder because I was gonna say, they, uh, they, I think what what stuck with me the most is, is kind of, uh, that one how passionate everybody here is, about this work. And I mean, it's, it's hard to not honestly be excited about, um, working on, on projects with this team because, there's so much energy around, around, uh, these, these policy questions and so much interest. And to be honest, you know, it, being able to work with this, with this team has, has made it, you know, clear that like work we do ha is having bigger, bigger impacts. And, and I think that's really important of course to us, to Leo, to, um, and, and hopefully just the, the society, the city itself. So that's one. And then I think that, that, again, the ability to, to kind of visit. To hear kind of the diverse voices. and to participate kind of both qualitatively and on the quantitative side to studying these questions has been just enormously rewarding. and so, you know, and it's been really, uh, fantastic to work with this team.

1 54:55

Yeah. Thanks Matt. I'll, I'll say for myself too, I think, um, you know, there's so much passion around the big policy questions, you know, serving our community really well, but also that marriage of, policy questions, the service equity and using data and evidence to help us do it all better then. Great. Okay. Well, we do have some questions from the audience that I wanna turn to. first one I want to ask you, and I'll have any of you jump in, is. Is there a person you encountered, in the course of this study or a story you heard, um, from, you know, someone who has served, by metro's, income-based fair programs that really sticks in your mind about the impact of transportation or, um, the impact of the, of, fully subsidized transit? Maria, you're unmuted. Lemme take Maria and then I'll come back to you.

Speaker 3 56:04

I beat you to it. I had two, but I'll just share one. Um, this is from a Subies. I know past customers and I'm just gonna read it. I cried just thinking about how many resources I'm spared with the subsidized I know pass money, obviously time, knowing I won't have to rely on compassionate drivers if I am short or properly fearless and running the risk of a mis missing a connection. But especially it is the dignity of being able to board a bus without fear of being punished or judged because of my economic situation. It really does wear on a body when contemporaries roll their eyes because they don't get that$2 is a big deal. It hurts to know when I'm operating in integrity, but the person I'm talking to, questions whether or not I can actually pay this. Fair.

1 56:50

Yeah, that's, that's really powerful, Maria. It's always so great to hear it directly in someone's wor their own words. And um, the word that really stuck with me from that was dignity. You know? So that's not something we can measure in administrative data, um, but is really, really, really important in the delivery of these services. So, Chong, you had something to add? What's a story? Um, or someone who's really stuck with you?

Speaker 2 57:17

Um, I actually just, um, heard about, uh, an individual, uh, last month. he is on state disability. He has some mental health issues and he likes to go to beaches and parks in the area, which he says, you know, makes it easier for him to deal with his mental health issues. And, you know, in the past, um, you know, he had to worry about whether or not he could afford to go to these places. And, with, you know, the past, he, he's able to go to more parks and more beaches and be able to really take care of himself more. When he found out that he, you know, he was eligible for the program, he was just ecstatic.'cause he, he, he said to, the, the worker that was giving him the card that he now had the ability to go whenever he wanted to. And also he had the ability to go to more places. So he expanded, you know, the coverage area for where he could go to. And he said that just, just the thought of that alone helped ease his. Sort of stress of having to, to like, choose from those services that I was talking about. He didn't have to think about anymore. He could just go do it.

1 58:33

That's great. I love that. Anything come up for you, David and Matt? Because I know you spent a lot of time direct connect with people.

Speaker 4 58:43

Yeah. I think to me that the one that comes to mind is being able to sit there right at, right at the beginning of, so we, we, we were privileged to be able to be there during some of the enrollments where, where folks were being invited, say, Hey, here, this, there's a study going on and you might have a chance to have access to this card. You know, that would give you free bus spare for a few months. And then, and being able to see people in that moment when it's like they're being told, yeah, you could sign up for this thing and here's the card. And now this person has, you know, they walked in that day with no sense of this and now they, now they walk out with a card that's gonna pay the bus for the next four months. And just seeing people's face light up in that moment of, you could just see like how much this means to an individual, in that place.

1 59:22

That's great, Matt.

Speaker 6 59:23

Yeah, I, I felt the same way. I, I, there's been no better moment in this, in this work for me than to be actually sitting in a CSO with one of the customer service reps, talking to individual clients and sharing the news that they, uh, had access to free transit. So, and again, you know that I think the, CSO toys themselves are amazing, amazing people, uh, and they do amazing work every day. and they, you know, which, you know, we're also really delighted to be able to, to, to share this, uh, with the customers there. And so to hear their stories about it too was really incredible. So that, that's been really a huge highlight for me.

COVID-19's Impact on Transit and Low-Income Populations

1 1:00:04

Yeah. That's, that's great. Matt. I also, you know, I had the opportunity to actually share some of the, the results with some of our transit staff. I will never forget the moment when I told, told them that, you know, the study was showing that it doubled people's transit use. I mean, the looks on people's faces, right? Like, because our employees are so dedicated, they want to be providing good service. They want to be expanding access to mobility for people. And so this was like an indication, a real data point of the contribution that they were making to that aim. And so it's, it's great to to see that too. Okay. I'm gonna turn to some, a couple more, questions from the audience. And, there were several questions fairly detailed about, the impact of COVID on transportation. And maybe all just shift the focus of those questions a little bit to focus on, um, the impacts on people with low incomes. So, David and Matt, I'll turn to you because I know that you actually did quite a bit of work looking at the impacts of COVID on, uh, transportation in King County. Can you one of you talk a little bit about that, and particularly like what did you see between, you know, people of higher incomes and people of lower incomes?

Speaker 6 1:01:33

Yeah. I'll take, so I'll take it. So the, um, yeah, so the COVID COVID happened of course, in, you know, March, 2020. And, and it was in, in fact, kind of towards the end of when we were doing enrollment for, uh, this study, uh, as well. Um, and so, obviously a lot of things changed, uh, with the, with, COVID, and including a lot of big changes within the transit system itself. And so as, as many folks in the audience from King County may remember, there's, they, they kind of, uh, suspended fair collection, beginning of COVID. There was also some service. Uh, that happen. one really in some ways fortunate thing, was that because we had the study running, we were con, we were conducting surveys with individuals, who participating. and we continued to conduct, surveys of folks, uh, during, during the pandemic itself. So that shed a lot of light on sort of the types of trips they were taking, if they were taking any at all, and, you know, uh, sort of general sort of sta situations during COVID. And so we were able to understand a lot about, of course, a very large general reduction in COVID, uh, COVID, you know, during COVID, during in travel, uh, itself, in, in a particularly large reduction in transit use, during COVID. One thing that was also clear from, the work we did, and, and this was Metro, was incredibly helpful in providing additional data, that was useful here. Um, we also used some, some smartphone based mobility data, is that we could see very clearly. Differentials and the extent to which travel declined across different groups. So, travel, uh, declined disproportionately among folks who were higher income relative to lower income, in part because of course, the extent to which individuals were able to work from home come up with other accommodations during, during COVID. So we were able to learn a lot, uh, just about travel behavior during COVID itself. and then, you know, of course we had to sort of think about that in the context of our, of our study too, and, and sort of, you know, can speak more, more to that. But obviously, you know, dealing with a COVID shock was a big, is a big, part of the study and part of the reason of course, we're continuing with this work now to try to understand some of these medium and longer term outcomes better.

1 1:03:46

Yeah. And I, I think you're, that work, Matt, really points to, you know, what I brought up at the beginning, right? Like. Some of us were able to really work from home. And so many others of us, and particularly a lot of people with lower incomes, were not, and we were dependent, we are dependent on those folks, right? Uh, to do the essential work. Healthcare workers, people who are delivering things to us, people who are just keeping things running, um, as much as they could. And so we're all transit dependent in that, in that respect. and I think also we saw, you know, maybe some people were switching from transit to their own vehicles, but there was just a lot of, you know, among people with higher incomes just not traveling. Right? so really big, really big impacts. We invite everyone to come back to the transit system, back to that community space of the bus where we can. Be together and enjoy a stress-free, commute together. It's something, you know, I'm working from home almost all the time. It's something I really miss is my, is my commute. It was a chance for me to, you know, just, have a, have a moment to myself. all right, so, um, another question I saw in the chat was about trade-offs. So it's great that the research is informing, you know, how we think about transportation, but how do we think about, you know, how do we do research? How do we think about the trade-offs between, you know, different types of interventions like healthcare interventions or housing interventions or transit interventions? Is it a trade off? How do we, how do we think about that? Anybody wanna tackle that one? David,

Speaker 4 1:05:40

a little bit of word. I'd love to hear folks on the, the policy side. I mean, I think Bria was speaking to this a little bit before, but talking about how, you know, Metro system works and thinking about fair subsidies, right? I mean, I, I even within Metro, right, within any transit agency, right? There is some question of like, okay, given a certain budget, you know, how much do we spend on providing access in terms of cheaper transit? How much do we spend on access in terms of more frequent or, or how quality or more expensive transit, right? And so I think there are some real trade offs there given a fixed budget. Now, of course, right? More resources allow, allows something to, sometimes allows you to, to get past some of those trade offs. But I think there are some trade offs there. I do think one of the things that are, that this study points to, and Matt talked about in the results is that you might think about transit versus health versus all these things as being different. But I, I think one thing that we're showing is that they're interconnected, right? That, that, allowing people greater access to transit is providing people with an opportunity to, for instance, improve their health. Like the story that trunk told. About the gentleman gonna the beaches and, and parks right, is a great example of this, right? There might be situations where you might think, oh, we need to invest in healthcare, but sometimes investing in transit is, is investing in people's health if it's providing people access to the things that they need in order to be healthy. And so I think there are trade offs. That's true. I'm an economi, we love trade, trade offs, right? But it, it's also the case that these things are interconnected and sometimes they're complimentary too.

1 1:07:04

Yeah, I think there's so much of the both and right, like when we, when we look at our equity work in King County and our determinants of equity, you know, you can't take any one of those roots of the tree away. A branch will die off. So it's really, you know, a foundation of lots of different things that people need to be able to fulfill their potential. And so how do we really focus on where the need is greatest and where we as a public sector agency. help to provide that support for those who are most in need of it. So, trying to, trying to think more about the both and maybe, and strike that right balance is, is really, really important. Okay. I think last question, and we'll tackle it pretty quickly, but what about the data? What data did you use? How did you get access to it? And importantly, how was people's privacy protected? Because you're looking at individual level data, right? David or Matt? You wanna tap a lot.

Speaker 5 1:08:13

Okay.

Conclusion and Future Engagement

Speaker 4 1:08:14

I, I'll say, the short version is that the most, there were some surveying, but most of the data was data that already exists. That's created for other purposes, just metro, the purpose of the process of doing business state agencies, the process of doing business created. Yeah. And so then the question is, okay, when do, does someone get a researcher, get access to that, and how do you guide that? I think there's a couple of key points. One is that. As I mentioned, I think a while ago, people were given an opportunity to participate in this. Anybody could say no to it. And so if some, if someone didn't want to, we ask people's permission, is it okay for us to look at this data that already exists? And so that's really important. a second piece of it also is that a lot of the data that we got back, especially including all the data that we got from the state of Washington, from their great, uh, research and data analysis group at dshs, was, did not conclude people's identities when we got it. And so we, they were able to link that data up themselves, take people's names and that sort of thing off of it provided to us so that we can analyze that data, but without seeing people's identities. And so we put some of these firewalls in place and are careful about data security and so on so that, uh, we can learn the things that we need to learn while also being respectful of, of people's privacy and giving them a chance to, to decide not to participate if they, if they don't wanna participate in research.

1 1:09:19

That's great. And I'm gonna take the, one of the last questions we got, which was, how can I sign up and learn more? So I'll ask Patrick to put up our, um, our final slide, which has a website where you can sign up, to learn about future evidence matters events. I wanna give a big thanks to our wonderful team here. Um, who, and to all of you who joined us today, I wanna thank everybody who may be watching us on KCTV. We're so glad to have your interest. I hope you can, uh, make it to the website to sign up to learn more. And most of all, again, I wanna thank the people who participated in this study, Metro and our partners are learning so much from you, and we promise that we will put the results to work to serve you better. So thanks everybody. thank you for spending part of your day with us, and we look forward to seeing you all again.