CNT Helps Knoxville Pinpoint Ideal Places for Transit and Freight Investments

Friday, May 11th, 2012 at 2:25 pm

Eastern Tennessee is a region graced with natural environmental beauty, a relatively low cost of housing, and a growing trade-based economy.  Dispersed housing patterns mean that residents spend nearly 34 percent of household income on transportation, and only 1 percent of regional commuters take public transit to work, based on 2009 data.  The high cost of local transportation threatens sustained regional affordability.  To address this concern, mayors from each county and municipality within Anderson, Blount, Knox, Loudon, and Union counties have joined with planning agencies to draft Plan Eastern Tennessee (PlanET), a 30-year vision plan to enhance regional livability through sustainable development, job creation, and improved infrastructure. CNT was asked to join PlanET’s consulting team to analyze the Knoxville metropolitan region’s potential for strategic investment around transit and freight nodes.

Knoxville region - from the PlanET "Project Information Sheet"

Transit currently exists in Knoxville in the form of underutilized bus lines due to dispersed patterns of housing and retail development.  The majority of the population lives in suburban and exurban communities that are not easily accessed by bus, which makes driving the default way to get around. As part of PlanET, Knoxville hopes to build a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that will improve public transit efficiency and encourage residents to leave their cars at home some of the time.

Proposed BRT system in Knoxville - from a presentation by the Knoxville-Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization entitled "Regional Transit Corridors Study: Building a Sustainable Region"

Before BRT can be successfully implemented, however, housing and retail density must increase near transit stops.  CNT conducted a market analysis of selected Knoxville area locations to assess the potential for transit-oriented development (TOD).  CNT measured aggregate income, location efficiency, and demographics to identify areas where TODs can unlock pent up market potential. TODs are characterized by compact development, mixed uses, and amenities built around transit stations. Our analysis showed that prioritizing investment in underused lots in the neighborhoods surrounding the University of Tennessee, Market Square, and other locations in the city of Knoxville and several suburbs with mixed-use, mixed-income development would provide Knoxville with a solid foundation for sustainable, affordable, urban growth.

Transportation costs in the Knoxville region

In addition to providing a TOD analysis, CNT studied areas that were ideal for investing in cargo-oriented development (COD). The freight equivalent of TOD, CODs bring industrial and logistics firms to communities with freight infrastructure to support them and the workforce to fill new jobs. Developing industrial areas in a compact COD pattern creates efficiencies for businesses and workers alike, while improving the environment by reducing truck freight traffic and long auto commutes by workers. Metropolitan Knoxville is located on a major trade route through the Appalachian Mountains and is within a day’s drive of 70 percent of US markets, giving the region a prominent role in transferring cargo throughout the country.  Capturing the region’s logistics opportunities will compliment efforts to expand high-tech manufacturing linked to the research capabilities of the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

CNT identified 20 sites within Knoxville that have COD potential based on the combined assets of rail service, expressway connections, commodity transload facilities, existing concentrations of industrial businesses and workers, and, in some cases, airport access or river port facilities. Several of these locations also have the capability to host an intermodal container terminal—a facility where goods packed in international shipping containers are shifted between trains and trucks. The development of a modern intermodal terminal is an essential step for East Tennessee in realizing its potential as a logistics and manufacturing hub.  The current and potential COD areas identified in CNT’s analysis all lie in priority corridors that form a  “T” pattern along the joint I-40/75 expressway as it extends west from downtown Knoxville and I-140 as it runs north-south between Oak Ridge and the Alcoa-Maryville-Airport district.  Concentrating new industrial development within these corridors would allow workers to get to work without driving a car, minimize truck traffic, offer good-paying jobs, and attract new, economy-boosting businesses.

CNT identified 20 sites within Knoxville that have COD potential, forming a “T” pattern along the joint I-40/75 expressway.

The research, planning, and community outreach needed to create the final version of PlanET is funded by a combination of local support and a $4.3 million Regional Planning Grant for Sustainable Development (RPSD) provided by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  PlanET will enable the counties of eastern Tennessee to prioritize goals for regional development and craft a process for implementing these goals based on data and community support. By implementing CNT’s TOD and COD recommendations, Knoxville will be able increase its density, improve its affordability, enhance its economy, and ensure its cost of living remains low for decades to come.

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Helping Housing Counselors Prepare Clients for the Hidden Cost of Homeownership: Transportation

Monday, April 2nd, 2012 at 2:52 pm

Housing counselors know that their clients need to be prepared for the full cost of owning a home, which includes taxes, utilities, maintenance costs, and other expenses in addition to the mortgage payment. However, some may not have considered the impact that transportation costs have on a family budget, or how these costs are related to where that family lives. Transportation costs represent the second-largest and fastest-growing expense for the typical American family, and they can vary widely based on the location of a home, the size of the household, household income, and other factors.

CNT created the Housing and Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index to reveal what it costs to get around in neighborhoods across the country. The Index shows that transportation costs vary between and within regions depending on neighborhood characteristics. People who live in location-efficient neighborhoods—compact, mixed-use areas with convenient access to jobs, services, transit, and amenities—tend to have lower transportation costs. People who live in location inefficient places that require automobiles for most trips are more likely to have high transportation costs.

The differences from one location to another can make a big difference in a family’s ability to service a mortgage. The left map below shows that 7 in 10 neighborhoods (69%) in the Chicago region are considered affordable for the region’s typical household when using the conventional measure. On the right, affordability shrinks to 4 in 10 neighborhoods (42%) when using the expanded view of affordability. This produces a net loss of 1,718 neighborhoods where that typical regional family could afford to live.

CNT created an easy-to-use tool called Abogo to put this information in the hands of individuals seeking to make a decision about where to live. Now when families are evaluating their options, they can take into account not only the amount of the rent or mortgage payments and the number of bedrooms they need, but also the impact of the neighborhood on their transportation costs.

Abogo helps clients discover what it costs a typical family in a particular neighborhood to get around—not just for the commute to work, but for all those little trips that make up the bulk of our time in the car: shopping runs, picking up the kids, medical appointments, and so on. You can also use Abogo to compare the estimated transportation cost at an address to the regional average and to find the estimated carbon impact from driving.

CNT recommends that housing counselors use these tools to give clients a full understanding of the costs associated with living at a particular address. You can use Abogo to compare the average transportation costs at different addresses and determine a combined housing and transportation cost estimate for a client, making sure that a home is truly affordable and sustainable for a family. Figuring out transportation costs is a key part of assessing the total cost of owning a home.

CNT also offers a training guide to housing counselors on how to use the H+T Index in their work. It offers the tools and knowledge to help first-time homebuyers and other clients consider how they can control transportation costs while saving for a home, as part of their home-buying decision and to help them stay in their home over the long term. The guide includes talking points for use in one-on-one meetings, a take-home handout for clients, and two slides that can be used in workshop settings. We have collaborated with The Housing Trust of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the City of El Paso, Texas, to develop these materials, and are currently working to make the guide available in more areas (for more information, contact Stefanie Shull at sshull@cnt.org)

CNT is committed to creating cities that use resources wisely and are affordable for all. Working with housing counselors to provide families the information they need to understand the transportation cost implications of where they choose to live is a key strategy in meeting that commitment.

(Post originally appears as a guest post on Metropolitan Planning Council’s blog)

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Updated and Expanded H+T Index Reveals Combined Housing and Transportation Affordability Has Declined Since 2000

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 at 11:51 am

CNT’s H+T Index reveals the high cost of transportation in nearly 900 regions across the country

CNT has just released the latest version of the Housing + Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index, using the most up-to-date Census data. While this is exciting news for those who have used the Index in the past, the news on affordability isn’t so bright.

Most places are unaffordable when it comes to combined housing and transportation costs. 72% of American communities are unaffordable for typical regional households when transportation costs—the second largest expense in a family budget—are considered along with housing costs. Under the traditional definition of housing affordability, where a rent or mortgage payment consumes no more than 30 percent of household income, three out of four (76 percent) US communities are considered “affordable” to the regional typical household making their area’s median income. However, under an expanded definition of affordability, where housing and transportation costs consume no more than 45 percent of income, the number of affordable communities decreases to 28 percent, resulting in a loss of 86,000 neighborhoods that are within reach for a typical family.

Transportation costs have risen 39%; much more than income. The analysis also shows that it is much more difficult for the typical household to find a truly affordable place to live today than it was a decade ago, with incomes having increased roughly half as much as transportation and housing costs since 2000. Median housing costs, as reported by the US Census, have increased by nearly 37 percent nationwide, while the national median income has only increased by approximately 22 percent. Average transportation costs in the geographies covered by both Indexes increased by more than 39 percent or $318 per month.

People living in walkable, transit-accessible places are better off. Despite the increase in transportation costs from 2000 to 2009, the Index shows that people living in location efficient neighborhoods—characterized by access to transit, jobs, and amenities—experienced a smaller increase than those living in car-dependent places. The typical family living in a location efficient neighborhood in 2000 (where transportation costs were less than 15 percent of the national median income), saw average transportation costs increase by approximately $1,400 annually. Meanwhile, families living in inefficient neighborhoods (where 2000 transportation costs were greater than 15 percent of the national median income), had average transportation costs increase by more than twice as much, or slightly over $3,900 annually. The difference between these two numbers, $3,900 and $1400 per year, is a benefit of $200 per month “less exposure” to the rising cost of gas during the decade.

CNT used the Index to rank the metropolitan areas that had the highest and lowest average monthly transportation costs for a typical family earning the national median income. Be sure to check out the Index and create your own custom comparisons.

See the rankings of metropolitan areas that had the highest and lowest average monthly transportation costs ››
Read the full press release ››
Use the H+T Affordability Index ››
Listen to the H+T webinar ››

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