Transportation and Community Development News
Monday, October 24th, 2011
This joint CTA/I-GO smart card is the only one in North America that provides access to public transit and car sharing vehicles.
“I-GO sees itself as a form of public transportation that provides the last mile solution for the CTA.” That’s the good word from reporter John Skelly, Jr., writing about I-GO’s partnership with the CTA for Northwestern University’s Medill Reports.
The article describes the motivating factors behind the 2008 development of the Chicago Card Plus/I-GO Card, a joint smartcard offered by I-GO Car Sharing that lets its members access both I-GO vehicles and CTA trains and buses. There are about 1,800 cards in circulation. The result: cost savings across transportation modes and a progressive re-thinking of how public transit can fit within a mixture of services to better meet the needs of a metropolitan population.
Read more »
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Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
Although housing and transportation costs are currently affordable to most residents of Northwest Arkansas, high transportation costs and a growing demand for housing in walkable, centrally located neighborhoods are putting pressure on the region’s economic development efforts. That’s according to a new CNT report whose analysis of four Arkansas cities—Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers, and Springdale—is based on US Census data and 23 interviews with regional stakeholders. Read more »
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Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) just announced that it has awarded a two-year contract to Manhattan Strategies Group (MSG) and subcontractor CNT to create a national housing and transportation affordability index.
“Affordability is much more than just paying the mortgage, it involves other costs like transportation, gas, and utilities,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan in a press release. “The availability of a national affordability index will provide consumers better information about the true costs of a home by accounting for that housing’s proximity to jobs, schools and other services. Our goal with the creation of this housing and transportation index is to provide American families with a tool that can help them save money and have a better understanding of their expenses and household budget.”
As a subcontractor, CNT will use its years of experience in creating the Housing + Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index (and Abogo®) to assist MSG and HUD in exploring how the agency can incorporate this sort of metric into its work.
Click here to read the HUD press release in full.
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 29th, 2011
For a limited time, Cook County employers are still eligible to receive up to $1,700 for enrolling employees in a pre-tax transit benefit program. The transit benefits program allows employees to buy transit fare (Metra, Pace, CTA) before their paycheck is taxed, reducing their taxable income and saving up to $400 a year without costing their employers a dime.
But what can $1,700 really do for a company? Not much, right? Actually, $1,700 gets you:
The incentive program is ending soon, so companies are encouraged to act quickly to take advantage of the program. To sign up, visit http://lesstaxingcommute.com or email James Drew at jdrew@cnt.org for more information.
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011
The District of Columbia’s Office of Planning and CNT have released a new study that customizes CNT’s H+T Index with localized data to examine how neighborhood characteristics across the region affect household transportation costs. The CNT study found that average household transportation costs in the DC region ranged from $8,500 to as much as $25,000 per year for a typical household. Actual costs can be even lower when the neighborhood enables the residents to live without owning a car. Read more »
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Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
More than 200 planners, city officials, and other members of the American Planning Association (APA) from around the country joined presenters from CNT recently for a webinar showcasing current applications of the Housing and Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index in the planning field. The webinar was part of the APA’s monthly webcast series. The presentation, delivered by CNT’s own Maria Choca-Urban, Peter Haas, and Stephanie Morse, detailed why and how the Index was developed, described how different communities are using it, and provided a demonstration of the H+T Index website. Read more »
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Friday, July 8th, 2011
Governor Quinn signs two electric vehicle bills as I-GO CEO, Sharon Feigon, and EV project manager, Jonathan Goldman, look on.
Gov. Patrick Quinn signed two bills over the weekend that will foster the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in Illinois. CNT’s affiliate, I-GO Car Sharing, has been instrumental in promoting EV deployment and advocating for passage of the two bills. I-GO CEO Sharon Feigon spoke at the bill signing.
Later this year I-GO will install 18 solar canopy charging stations to power its 36 electric vehicles with emissions-free electricity. Sign up for I-GO to be one of the first in the city to drive an EV. Be sure to follow I-GO on Twitter to stay up to date on the exciting EV project developments. Read more »
Posted in I-GO, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
CNT provided the analysis for the new Transportation4America report, Aging in Place, Stuck Without Options, out today on the cities that have worst mobility options for seniors. Large cities with the poorest transit access for seniors included Atlanta, Riverside-San Bernardino (CA), Houston, Detroit, and Dallas. A whopping 90% of seniors in Atlanta will lack transit access in 2015. Medium-sized cities (1million-3million) with the poorest transit access for seniors are Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth-Arlington, Nashville, and Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. By 2015, 88% of seniors in Kansas City will have poor access to public transit.
Where does your city rank? Are you planning to stick around there as you age? Read more »
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Friday, May 20th, 2011
The Great Recession has hammered Ohio. The unemployment rate topped 9 percent in its three largest regions of Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus. And the 2010 Census revealed that the cities of Cincinnati and Cleveland lost 10.4% and 17.1% of their population over the course of the decade.
But in three recently released reports funded by Living Cities, CNT found that Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus possess the transportation infrastructure and urban form to spark new and sustainable investment as the economy recovers. Read more »
Posted in Featured Portfolio News, Transportation and Community Development | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
We’ve launched a new tool on our Abogo® website that shows how rising gas prices could affect household transportation costs at a given location. Users can type in an address to see average transportation costs for a neighborhood and then select a gas price to calculate how it would affect transportation costs at that location. Auto-dependent locations see their transportation costs increase dramatically as prices move up along the slider, but transit-rich locations have more modest increases. Read more »
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