The Spatial Mismatch of Food Access: Comparing Public Transit Accessibility to Grocery Stores and Food Pantries in Atlanta Open Access
Zhang, Tianjie (Spring 2026)
Abstract
Background: Food insecurity in urban environments is increasingly recognized not merely as an absolute shortage of resources, but as a systemic spatial and transportation barrier to healthy lifestyles. This study investigates the spatial mismatch of food assistance in the Atlanta metropolitan area by evaluating public transit accessibility to both commercial and charitable food sources.
Methods: Utilizing General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data from the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), transit catchments were simulated for a Wednesday evening peak (6:00 PM) across 394 census tracts. A 30-minute travel threshold was applied, representing the widely accepted standard for a reasonable one-way urban commute to access essential resources. Given zero-inflation and overdispersion of the accessibility data, Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) regression methods were employed to model structural transit barriers. In addition, we examined Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation (LISA) statistics to explore spatial arrangements of access.
Results: The analysis reveals a pervasive transit-food disconnect: nearly half of all census tracts in our study area experience a service void within this 30-minute limit, lacking transit access to commercial grocery stores (approx. 46%) and emergency food pantries (approx. 39%). Traditional USDA distance-based "Food Desert" designations failed to fully capture these disparities. LISA mapping uncovered a stark spatial polarization: commercial grocery hot spots are concentrated in the affluent northern suburbs, whereas charitable pantry hot spots are anchored in the urban core. Massive, contiguous service cold spots (the "double voids") dominate the southern peripheries of our study area. ZINB regression confirmed that macro-level spatial clustering is associated with hampered food access, whereas localized socioeconomic indicators like poverty rates.
Conclusions: Urban food insecurity is deeply intertwined with transportation inequity. Overcoming these barriers requires integrating public transit dynamics into food security metrics and urges urban planners to structurally address the transit-food voids in southern Atlanta to achieve true spatial equity.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Methods 3
2.1 Study Area and Data 3
2.2 Transit-Based Accessibility Measurement 5
2.3 Statistical Analysis 6
2.3.1 Spatial Pattern Analysis 7
2.3.2 Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) Regression 9
3. Results 10
3.1 Descriptive Statistics and Group Differences 10
3.2 Spatial Clusters of Food Accessibility 14
3.3 Results of Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) Regression 17
3.3.1 Model Specification and Collinearity Management 17
3.3.2 Zero-Inflation Model: Baseline Structural Transit Barriers 19
3.3.3 Count Model: The Dominance of Spatial Clustering 19
4. Discussion and Conclusion 23
4.1 Re-evaluating the "Food Desert" through a Transit Lens 23
4.2 The Spatial Mismatch and Systemic Infrastructure Failure 23
4.3 Policy Implications and Recommendations 24
4.4 Limitations and Future Research 25
4.5 Conclusion 26
5 Appendix 27
6 References 27
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