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June 5, 2007
FTA-HUD Study Points to TOD as Important Affordability Strategy
Reconnecting America has just published an FTA-HUD study that finds that households in transit-rich neighborhoods spend just 9% of household income on transportation, while suburban households spend 25% of household income.
It also suggests that households that move to the suburbs to find lower housing costs spend up to 77% of the housing savings on transportation.
Posted by Chris Smith at 12:00 AM
Comments
June 5, 2007 1:32 AM
Greg Tompkins Says:
I think people choose to live in the suburbs for more than just affordability. They may like the open spaces and wider range of shopping choices. They may like the fact there aren't vagrants at every turn....
In my own personal experience since I moved from Beaverton to downtown Portland a year ago.... My housing went up AND my parking fees went up. I thought it was going to save me money to "live where I work" but that hasn't been the case. Additionally my quality of life and size of my living space went down.
I think the inverse should be true - it should be MORE expensive to live in the suburbs where you have luxuriously large living spaces but instead the inverse is true. People for some odd reason want to live in these cramped verticle high-rise 500 sq. foot cubicles at outrageous prices. I don't get it.
June 5, 2007 2:14 AM
Hawthorne Says:
Interesting study. Of course 77% still leaves a 23% savings if my math is correct. It would be interesting to know at what point in terms of fuel prices the savings would tip. And what if we factored in costs like pollution into the mix? What if drivers really did have to pay the true costs of their choices?
