Bicycle Austin forum

tomwald

Moderator

From: 78722

Registered: 2008-05-27

Posts: 290

Housing and Transportation Affordability Index

I found this excellent mapping website that displays transportation info for U.S. metropolitan areas:
http://htaindex.cnt.org/mapping_tool.php?theme_menu=0
Yes, Austin is included.

There are numerous data comparisons available.  Click "Change" next to "Housing Costs - % Income" to try out more.

The primary/default point shown via the mapped data is that transportation affordability needs to be considered in combination with housing affordability.  I think this is something that most of us here have been aware of for a while.

I was tipped on the above website via a newsletter e-mail from Community Action Network: http://www.caction.org/

m1ek

Member

Registered: 2008-06-02

Posts: 153

Re: Housing and Transportation Affordability Index

As usual, these indices overpromote bus transportation and underpromote rail; as well as making the standard mistake wrt depreciation of cars. Yes, if you can somehow completely get rid of one car (as we did for a while), you save a lot of money; but you usually save nothing (in some cases even spend more) if you keep the car and leave it parked any given day.