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Monthly Archives: May 2018

H+T Not So Efficient

By | | Housing, Transportation
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One of the excuses planners have made for their support of densification is that, yes, housing costs are higher in dense areas, but this is more than offset by lower transportation costs. They call this the H+T Affordability Index, but — as the Antiplanner pointed out nearly five years ago — this claim was based solely on hypothetical and, in some cases, obviously inaccurate numbers.

Despite the lack of any real evidence, density advocates managed to persuade lending authorities to loosen mortgage loan criteria for people locating in dense, transit-rich areas. Since people living in such areas supposedly saved a bundle on transportation, they could afford to spend more on a mortgage.

Now a new study has come out that collected ten years of real data from 11,000 families who moved to compact, transit-rich areas. The study found that some people saved money on transportation, but others spent more, and the net overall effect was a wash. “We conclude that the location affordability literature may significantly overstate the promise of cost savings in transit-rich neighborhoods,” say the researchers. Continue reading →

Wave Bye Bye

By | | Transportation
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As predicted, Nashville voters have rejected a multi-billion-dollar light-rail plan by a margin of 64 to 36 percent. Some people are wondering “Now what?” But the reality is that no major changes are needed to Nashville transit except to figure out a way to back out of long-term obligations in the face of declining ridership.

Less predictable, it appears the Fort Lauderdale Wave streetcar project also died yesterday. The project, which was promoted by Broward County, received federal, state, and local funding. But when construction bids were opened last October, they came in much higher than expected. Skeptical members of the city council got the county to agree that the city could withdraw from the project if it didn’t appear it could be built for less than a 25 percent cost overrun.

The county put it out for bids a second time and the low bid was $2.2 million over the 25 percent threshold. As a result, the city commission voted yesterday to save its money. Continue reading →

The Key to Transit: 240,000+ Downtown Jobs

By | | Transportation
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An op-ed in last Friday’s San Antonio Express-News argues that San Antonio is “one of the least-suited big cities in the world for building rapid transit.” This is because, though San Antonio is the nation’s seventh-largest city, it’s jobs are so spread out that transit just can’t work for most people.

According to Wendell Cox’s report on downtowns, in 2008 transit carried more than 10 percent of people to work in just five metropolitan areas: New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington. These also happen to be the only metro areas that had more than 240,000 downtown jobs. Transit in Philadelphia, which had just under 240,000 jobs, carried only 9.3 percent of metro-area jobs. San Antonio has only about 60,000 downtown jobs, so is less than a quarter of the way to needing an improved transit system.

Note that Cox is counting jobs in metropolitan areas, which include all the land within the counties surrounding the cities, whether that land is urbanized or not. Most data cited by the Antiplanner is for urbanized areas, which only includes the urbanized land (roughly, land developed to more than 1,000 people per square mile). Transit’s share of commuting will be slightly higher in an urban area than in a metro area. Continue reading →