Archive for the 'Transportation and Community Development' Category
Monday, August 23rd, 2010
A new report by the Grand Rapids Area Coalition to End Homelessness uses CNT’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index (H+TSM Index) data to illustrate the dearth of affordable housing in the region. The report, part of the coalition’s decade-long plan to end homelessness, aims to re-shape how leaders in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan, think about and address homelessness.
Highlighting the impact of transportation costs on affordability, the report incorporates CNT’s first ever rural analysis of housing and transportation costs for Grand Rapids and eight nearby counties, including Allegan, Barry, Ionia, Kent, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, and Ottawa. Read more »
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Monday, August 16th, 2010
The popular website that gives you a score based on the walkability of your neighborhood will now include CNT’s ground-breaking transportation cost information to its suite of consumer-oriented tools.
Walk Score, which allows users to obtain a “walkability” rating for a specific location based on the number of nearby amenities, is using data from CNT’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index to provide a better sense of the transportation costs and environmental impact for a neighborhood. Adding the H+T Index to Walkscore will further illustrate how choosing to live in walkable, transit-connected neighborhood can lower household expenses and one’s impact on the environment. Read more »
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Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
Money Magazine's "best places to live" cover story fails to take into account the cost of transportation.
Money magazine’s “100 Best Places to Live in America” is the most recent, high-profile example of how we need to re-think our definition of affordability when it comes to where we live. A quick scan of the communities that topped Money’s list suggests the magazine didn’t consider the cost of transportation in making their selections. Many of the places — suburban Minneapolis, suburban Baltimore, suburban Dallas, — are low-density, outer-ring suburbs that lack transit options and require households to drive most places and own several cars.
Like the Money article, many of us fall into the trap of thinking affordability boils down to the cost of our mortgage or rent payments. That encourages a “drive ‘til you qualify” mentality, where home-hunters pass over city neighborhoods or inner-ring suburbs and choose to live in outer-ring communities where housing is cheaper. However, these people soon learn that their new community is not as affordable as they thought, finding themselves stuck behind the wheel to get to work, school and the grocery store. Read more »
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Thursday, August 5th, 2010
A partnership between HUD, DOT, EPA. Secretaries Shaun Donovan, Ray LaHood, Lisa Jackson, respectively. Photo: EPA
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), approved the Livable Communities Act on August 3. The legislation would create an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities to encourage comprehensive regional planning and sustainable development by breaking down federal agency and department barriers.
The Livable Communities Act would strengthen communities and increase housing affordability for families by encouraging sustainable development. Grant money made available through the legislation, for instance, would fund projects that prioritize vibrant downtown business districts within walking distance of homes and transit stops, brownfield redevelopment in struggling industrial areas, and public transit options to reduce household transportation costs—the second highest expense for Americans after housing. Read more »
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Monday, July 26th, 2010
Late last week Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index Act, which will give state agencies the complete information they need to make wise investment decisions in housing.
The theory behind the bill is simple: Housing costs do not end when we sign our rent or mortgage checks. Where we live has other costs associated with getting around: to work, to school, to the grocery store. How much that costs depends on where we live and what options are available to move us from point A to point B. Read more »
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Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Next year, I-GO Car Sharing will add to its fleet 30 electric vehicles that run entirely on renewable energy. For the past two weeks, I-GO has been one of the few groups in North America to test drive the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, a zero-emissions electric vehicle (EV) currently sold only in Japan.
While I-GO had the keys to the i-MiEV, we invited political leaders, funders and journalists out to preview the car and take it for a spin. Check out who took it for a spin here. Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune transportation reporters Mary Wisniewski and Jon Hilkevitch recently wrote about I-GO and their impressions of the i-MiEV here and here. Read more »
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Thursday, July 15th, 2010
CNT has developed a new tool for individuals to find what a typical household spends on transportation in their neighborhood. “Abogo” is a more consumer-oriented extension of the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which offers the true cost of housing based on its location, by measuring the transportation costs associated with place.
Abogo measures the money a typical household, living in a given neighborhood, would spend getting around– including car ownership, car use, and transit use. It also provides the carbon emissions associated with using a car. CNT developed Abogo so that individuals can now measure the true cost and impact of where they live in 337 metropolitan areas in the U.S., in the same way that planners and municipalities have been using the H + T Index to better understand the combined costs of housing and transportation at the regional level, for example. Read more »
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Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
This map shows that cities produces less GHG's, per capita, than areas that require more Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).
CNT, through our partnership with the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD), has released, “Transit-Oriented Development and the Potential for VMT-related Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction.” This report provides a quantitative analysis of potential greenhouse gas reductions of transit-oriented development from the transport sector.
The research, led by CNT, finds that by living in a central city near transit, the average household can reduce its transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent. The number increases when living near the most location efficient transit zones, which can result in a 78 percent emission reduction.
“This research shows that, in a nutshell, location does indeed matter,” said Scott Bernstein, President of CNT. “Individuals and families that live near transit centers own fewer automobiles, drive fewer miles, and leave a much smaller carbon footprint than those who don’t.” Read more »
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Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is a well-recognized symbol of the city and its historical significance in westward migration. The grounds surrounding it, designed by Dan Kiley, are also beautiful. But the lovely site is isolated from the city and from the Mississippi River, partly due to Interstate 70, a huge highway that cuts off the park from downtown St. Louis and makes pedestrian access difficult.
As we approach the Arch’s 50th anniversary, the “Framing a Modern Masterpiece” competition, coupled with federal dollars, makes improving access to the park and revitalizing St. Louis’s downtown more than just a dream. The competition to properly frame this national masterpiece is underway, and one of the five final proposals got our attention. City To River aims to turn the Arch grounds into a version of Millennium Park and the highway into a boulevard resembling Michigan Avenue. According to Kevin Muesenfechter of City To River, “The boulevard would allow for easier pedestrian access between the riverfront and downtown, and it would allow for the redevelopment of land along the boulevard that could spark an estimated $1.1 billion in investment over the next 20 years.”
This proposal emphasizes walkability and smart growth to revive downtown St. Louis by turning a highway into a boulevard, an action CNT has strongly supported in the past. For more information on the proposals for the park still in the running, visit the “Framing a Modern Masterpiece” website.
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Friday, June 4th, 2010
Location Efficiency Trumps Sprawl, HUD’s Job is Housing AND Urban Development
At the recent 18th Congress for New Urbanism, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan made a tremendous declaration: “For the first time in the history of federal grant competitions, I want to announce today that HUD will be using location efficiency to score our grant applications”.
The energy in the room was tangible. “We’re breaking down silos”, Donovan asserted, and indeed, this commitment from HUD to weight grant applications with spatial context in mind will advance the comprehensive approach to community development that CNU, CNT and other smart growth advocates have urged for years.
Over the past year, HUD has taken on an impressive task of touring cities, meeting and listening—“from mayors and other officials of both small and large communities, to business leaders in growing regions, to governors of states that have been hit hard economically”—to design and tailor a program that reflects what communities want, with the ability to apply context-sensitive solutions that work for each community. And CNT believes that the outcome and the subsequent announcement by Donovan show a real commitment to developing tools and resources that will help regions become strong economic engines—with healthy communities and reduced household expenses. Read more »
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