The research presented here aims to explore the perceived Quality of Life (QoL) and perceived accessibility among varying demographic and socioeconomic groups in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. A relationship between perceived QoL and perceived accessibility was further investigated. The data was collected through the Phoenix Area Social Survey (PASS), which sent randomized surveys to 496 people in the Phoenix region. The survey’s response rate varied, from a low of 22.2% in one of the lowest-income neighborhoods and a high of 55.6% for a middle-income neighborhood. Results were obtained through statistical analyses, such as correlations, chi-squared tests, and t-tests. Results for income, gender and ethnicity indicated similar and comparable perceived QoL and perceived accessibility in the Phoenix area. The data did not reveal a relationship between perceived QoL and perceived accessibility; however, accessibility did increase with increasing income. A striking finding revolved around disparities in access to walkability and transit across all income, genders and ethnicities. This presents implications for built environment and resource allocation planning in order to enhance the lives of residents in the Valley. Future research and investigation into the objective indicators of QoL and impacts of culture on QoL should be pursued.

Accessibility is increasingly used as a metric when evaluating changes to public transport systems. Transit travel times contain variation depending on when one departs relative to when a transit vehicle arrives, and how well transfers are coordinated given a particular timetable. In addition, there is necessarily uncertainty in the value of the accessibility metric during sketch planning processes, due to scenarios which are underspecified because detailed schedule information is not yet available. This article presents a method to extend the concept of "reliable" accessibility to transit to address the first issue, and create confidence intervals and hypothesis tests to address the second.