Comments on: Commuting Market Share Is the Wrong Way to Judge Transit

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:51:32 +0000

Ugh… must you always resurrect old threads, Nathanael?

But I’ll bite: often, the worst zoning laws for urbanity are not in the central city, but in its outer-urban neighborhoods and its inner suburbs. One of the reasons there’s so much developer pressure on the inner half of New York is that in the outer half it’s illegal to build densely, to say nothing of the suburbs. I believe the same is true in other Rust Belt cities: try proposing apartment blocks in the San Francisco Peninsula or Beverly Hills.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:56:08 +0000

“Wonderful as my old neighborhood was/is, more people every year moved to the ‘burbs…”

In the 50s and 60s this was due to racism. Now it’s due to cost.

“and no developers there thought there was any money in re-creating the neighborhood where I lived.”

Yes, they did think there was money in it, but it had been made *illegal* by zoning laws. You really have no idea how bad the zoning laws are in most of the country, do you?

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:54:28 +0000

“Alon, that’s the problem with desirable city neighborhoods in the US: they gentrify. ”

Proof there are not enough of them to match demand.

Why aren’t there enough to match demand? Zoning laws. Zoning laws often prohibit them from being *built*. Parking minimums are the worst.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:51:54 +0000

“Finally, it is true you can get houses in all sorts of neighborhoods for pretty cheap in Cleveland, at least by the standards of people living in most other metros of a comparable size or larger. But that doesn’t tell you whether there is a price premium for walkability in otherwise comparable neighborhoods in Cleveland. I suspect, without knowing, you would find that is true in Cleveland too.”

There is. Shaker Heights is still the toniest part of Cleveland.

By: Nathanael

Nathanael — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:49:45 +0000

“by and large, most Americans want open space around their homes. More people want that than want to live in a dense urban setting. I agree with him that this is a fact which is simple, obvious, and undisputable.”

Simply outright false. Check the studies. People want open space within walking distance of their homes (hence, Central Park in Manhattan); people who actually give a damn whether they personally have yards are a minority, albeit a large one.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:08:49 +0000

There’s one major advantage to 100% over 85%, and that’s the cost of owning a car. Unlike transit, cars incur most of their cost in depreciation; the marginal cost of driving is usually low.

Where the perfect really is the enemy of the good is in other issues. First, commuter-oriented transit, such as regional rail and some subway lines, tends to get a lot of riders who own cars and drive to non-work destinations (that’s why transit has a higher mode share for work trips than for non-work trips). And second, on the neighborhood or city level, 100% car-free is completely pointless; transit-oriented major cities in the world usually get to 30-50% car-free, and then try to extend the transit-oriented zone deeper into the inner suburbs.

By: The Urbanophile

The Urbanophile — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:35:40 +0000

Aaron, thanks for the comment. I could get around without a car, but why do it when I can drive easier for certain things? If I go to Target and stock up, I don’t want to haul back my booty on the L (assuming I physically even could for many things). Nor am I interested in an epic journey of over an hour to go to breakfast.

I don’t actually think 100% car free is of overriding importance. If can do 85% or so of what I need conveniently otherwise, causing extreme pain to get the other 15% probably isn’t necessary. To me it is about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

By: Aaron Brown

Aaron Brown — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:26:58 +0000

Off-topic a bit, but I’m really surprised that you find it so hard to live car-free in Chicago, Aaron. While I agree that the hub-and-spoke system makes getting around in Chicago more difficult, West Lake View is pretty well served by the Brown Line and countless buses, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get wherever you want to go. It’s definitely not as easy as New York, but I have no troubles doing it myself. Have you just become less patient in your old(er) age?

Also, good news is that you should be able to get to Target much more easily via transit, now that a new store has opened blocks away from the Wilson Red Line stop…

By: David

David — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:00:15 +0000

Aaron, I agree it’s a silly metric. Commute market share doesn’t measure the opportunity cost of not building transit.

That said, DC is an interesting case study, because many of the walkable neighborhoods everyone’s moving to, especially Georgetown, Logan Circle, Adams-Morgan, and the rapidly up and coming H Street NE, aren’t near Metro stops. What Metro did is stop the city from being paved over with highways that might have been necessary if there was no subway.

Also, look at Seattle. Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Ballard, West Seattle, U District – all very walkable, but no train service.

Transit helps when it stops freeways from killing urban neighborhoods, but its connection to walkability is overrated.

By: BrianTH

BrianTH — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:24:37 +0000

FYI, here is a study of the sort I was recalling:

http://atfiles.org/files/pdf/WalkingEconCEOsforCities.pdf

After performing the sort of regression analysis I was just outlining, they found a significant price premium for walkability (as measured by Walk Score) in 13 of the 15 markets they studied. It also contains a brief review of some other similar or at least strongly related studies.