Program Summary
- Plan, design, and provide transportation for welfare recipients and eligible low-income individuals to and from place of employment.
- Plan, design, and provide transportation for reverse commuters (persons living in urbanized and non-urbanized areas but who work in suburban areas).
- During the past year, partnering with more than 22 community social service agencies:
- RTA issued transit vouchers for over 19,380 trips via local bus routes, Relax and Ride bus service, regional rail, and taxis.
- Provided over 700 hours of travel training.
- Provided rides via commuter vans, when and where no public transportation was available.
- Funded with federal, state, and local funds.
Program History
The Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program was established as part of TEA–21 to address the unique transportation challenges faced by welfare recipients and low-income persons seeking to get and keep jobs. With many new, entry-level jobs located in suburban areas, low-income and/or welfare recipients have found it difficult to access these jobs from their inner city, urban and rural neighborhoods on a daily basis. Also, many entry-level jobs require working late at night or on weekends when conventional transit services in many communities are either reduced or non-existent. Finally, many employment-related trips are complex for low-income persons, often involving multiple destinations, including reaching childcare facilities and other services, as part of the work trip.
JARC has had a dramatic impact on the lives of thousands of welfare recipients and low-income families, helping individuals successfully transition from welfare to work and reach needed employment support services such as childcare and job training activities.
Program Goal
The JARC program aims to improve access to transportation services to employment and employment-related activities for welfare recipients and eligible low-income individuals, and to transport residents of urbanized areas and non-urbanized areas to suburban employment opportunities. Toward this goal, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) provides financial assistance for transportation services planned, designed, and carried out to meet the transportation needs of eligible low-income individuals, and of reverse commuters regardless of income. The program requires coordination of federally-assisted programs and services in order to make the most efficient use of federal resources.
Job Access & Reverse Commute Program Measures
Under the Government Performance Results Act (GPRA), FTA is required by law to “establish performance goals to define the level of performance” and to also “establish performance indicators to be used in measuring relevant outputs, service levels, and outcomes” for each of its programs. The performance measures described here are designed to fulfill FTA’s obligations under this Act. These measures will be used at a program level, and will not be used to assess individual grants.
FTA will be capturing overall program measures to be used with the GPRA and the Performance Assessment Rating Tool process for the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB). FTA will conduct independent evaluations of the program focused on specific data elements in order to better understand the implementation strategies and related outcomes associated with the program. The following indicators are targeted to capture overarching program information as part of the Annual Report that each grantee submits to FTA. Specific reporting requirements for recipients can be found in Chapter VI.
The two measures established for the JARC Program are:
- Actual or estimated number of jobs that can be accessed as a result of geographic or temporal coverage of JARC projects implemented in the current reporting year.
- Actual or estimated number of rides (as measured by one-way trips) provided as a result of the JARC projects implemented in the current reporting year.
