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Adding transportation to housing costs
By adamg on Mon, 04/12/2010 - 3:52pm
The Boston Regional Challenge takes a look at transportation costs as a cost-of-living factor; basically concludes the farther out you live, the more you pay for transportation (darn cars). The site includes the complete report and a calculator into which you can type in your address and get basic figures (and then you can change some of the assumptions to more closely model your actual costs).
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Comments
Baloney
I live less than a mile from the commuter rail in Needham, and their calculator says I have no 'Transit Connectivity'. That's news to me, and all of the other people who crowd on the Needham line every day. They also aren't doing apples to apples comparisons. Comparing a mix of renters and owners yields a tale that Brookline housing costs are much lower than, say Needham's, which is entirely untrue unless you're looking to cram a family of four into a two bedroom apartment.
Walking distance
Their transit connectivity characterization is based on "within walking distance". Without downloading and reading the entire report, I'm going to guess "walking distance" is about half a mile. Beyond that, you're talking about 15-20 minutes of your time lost just walking.
You can also segregate out their data for owners and renters separately, as well as put how many people in the household and how many are workers looking to commute.
I will say that there are definitely still neighborhoods on the commuter rail that pay off. I have a coworker in a very similar life situation to me (renter, commutes to same office) who lives in Attleboro. We have similar salaries, etc. and yet he pays less in rent and transportation costs than I do because my rent is that much more higher than his that my savings in transportation are not enough. Sure, I get home in about 10-15 minutes by scooter and his train/subway ride can take up to an hour or so total, but by straight costs, he has me beat by a few percentage of income.
Yeah, some of the data is
Yeah, some of the data is just wrong, and some of the analysis is likewise wrong. For my address in Roslindale, it correctly notes that their are 10 "houses" per acre, but fails to note that more than half of those are multi-family, which means the density rating is incorrect. It also says my household has 3, rather than the actual 5, under counts household income by nearly 3 to 1, etc. One thing it does get right is that transit connectivity is "very high," which it is, but I suggest it could be even higher, if, for example, we had the Orange Line instead of the Needham Line. It's an interesting idea, but needs some work.
Apparently Arlington isn't in
Apparently Arlington isn't in the "Boston Region". At least, it won't let me use an Arlington address.
Also, "North Shore and Suburbs"? But South Shore isn't suburbs? What a bizarre set of regions.
And Cambridge is the largest city in the "128" region?
The cost of transportation is
The cost of transportation is the price people pay to get the hell out of the city.
There - you didn't need a calculator for that.
That's right. Exactly what is
That's right. Exactly what is the going rate on prefab new construction and living miles away from amenities? Should I just ask the Agrestic town council?
That's right. Exactly what is
Is that a Turing test?
Did you see the article at boston.com?
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art...
Comments section is pretty full of people calling this BS.
I didn't read the article, didn't try the ULI page, but the graphic that accompanies
the bdc article is garbage. Seems to be all apples and oranges.
I really would like what the ULI and article contents to be true, but if this is the best
the ULI can do we will be stuck not really knowing.
Maybe you should read the
Maybe you should read the article and try the calculator before determining that it's not true. What an odd comment.
I'll drive the extra 15 mins
out Boston so I no longer have to chase thieves away from my car, or listen to low rider civics blaring the latest in crap latin music.
Bet the suburban boy thought
Bet the suburban boy thought living in the big city would be fun after college, huh. There, there, the lawns and malls will keep you safe from the evil tinted people.
Not quite sparky...
I grew up in Boston and watched my neighborhood go to S**t. Wouldn't exactly call a kid from Mattapan suburban.
White flight
So you fled? Then you're not a "Mattapan kid." You're basically Philip Roth: Someone who drones on for years about how his old neighborhood deteriorated from its former "glory" without parting with so much as a penny to help it or actually living in said neighborhood. You ran with your tail between your legs when the area got too dark -- er, dangerous -- and now take pot shots at the people who stayed here from your little box on the hillside.
Hard to win!
Boy, it's hard to win around here. If folks move away, they're quitters. On the other hand, those of us who do stay in our neighborhoods are told that if we don't like roaming crowds of thugs beating up strangers, vandalizing cars, and holding riots called "parties" every weekend, we should move the hell out and let the kids have their so-called fun.
Can't speak for others
My guess is that the people telling you to move out will be doing so themselves once they either complete their degree or get kicked out by Dean Wormer. I side with the old woman who owned the house on Pratt Street where my sister and her husband had their first Boston apartment. When the noise gets too loud or your rearview windows get smashed, call the cops. When the same house disturbs the peace with parties on a regular basis, call the cops on a regular basis. When the neighbor's trash blow onto your lawn, throw it back. Judging by BU and BC's latest spate of dorm building, someone is listening. Judging by the newly established residency limits, someone is listening. If you love where you are and feel it's worth fighting for, keep fighting. JP did it, parts of Roxbury did it. I think you're on the winning side of the argument.
Agreed
I think WhoDat falls into the camp of urban masochists who believe that the only acceptable philosphy of city dwelling is "the struggle" where one must both stay in their neighborhood regardless of its class trajectory and accept that newcommers with significantly different values (whether yuppies or imigrants) must be embraced. Only by doing so can one earn the right to claim to be a true urbanite. I, for one, see nothing wrong with people who chose to use their means as a way of relocating or with people who chose to stay in their neighbohood under the assumption that newcommers will obey the laws and social norms of their newly adopted environment.
Oh no, other people!!!
Yes, I'm one of those "masochists" who enjoys meeting new people and seeing what their backgrounds and ideals bring to the community. It's such a "struggle" to meet "immigrants" and "yuppies" (sometimes the same person!) and watch them add their own touches to the neighborhood, keep it vibrant and drive my grandmother to church. You're right, I don't know why I don't expect them to conform to "social norms" and the "class trajectory" of their existing, aging surroundings. Maybe it's because I'm too much of an "urbanite" to wrap my mind around "using one's means" to escape to a place with no character of its own or to play suburbanite in an urban borough just because it doesn't have a T stop. Maybe that interaction and sense of community has blinded me to the merits of sameness, the honor in homogeny and the beauty of the bland. Why can't "they" just be more like "us?"
Help the neighborhood?
Whatever this last white guy would have done "to help" would not have any effect on the neighborhood. The nice yard we had became littered with the trash of our new "neighbors"; the nice house we kept broken into once about every other year or more.
The "glory" was houses that were cared for, neighbors who gave a shit about their surroundings, parents caring about what their kids were out doing.
You think not wanting your house broken into, or not wanting to live around people who could care less about their community is running with my tail between my legs?
FYI my "little box on the hillside" is JP.
spit out my coffee
hahah i literally spit out my coffee laughing at this post!!
It's a choice
People choose where they want to live, city or suburbs, based on a number of factors, of which transportation cost is one. A lot of people are willing to spend more for transportation because the other factors are more important to them. Again, it's a choice, the kind of choice we make all the time: If we do A, then we can't do B.
The article seems to assume that everybody works in Boston, and it also seems to have an agenda. I live and work in the burbs with a 10-minute commute, so living in the city wouldn't make a lot of sense. It's also where I want to live based on the things I like to do, i.e. Life.
I have a feeling this thread is going to get out of hand.... ;-)
yeah, i put in my address way out in the burbs...
but within the circle it mentions, and it tells me that i commute 28 minutes to work for an annual cost of over $16K. but in reality, i commute 9 minutes to work, for an average cost of almost nothing. i left the city because, among other reasons, my job was outside the city.
i'm not knocking the study, but if it's pretending to examine transportation costs to and from work, perhaps it shouldn't make some bold assumptions about where i work?
and let me say, when i did do this commute (in reverse - city to burbs) it took a hell of a lot longer than 28 minutes. it averaged about 60 - 70 minutes. half of that was just getting in and out of somerville ;)
The calculator reflects choices poorly
It refuses to understand that I can ... and do ... use public transit. It keeps insisting that I drive to work, and magically do so in 15 minutes (at midnight, yeah, I can do that). It has no "bike to work" options or even "bike to transit" options in the lexicon. It also insists that there are 4 households per acre in my community ... bwhahahah! 88th most dense in the nation INCLUDING upper mystic lake and the fells.
All kinds of wrong here. It also had trouble understanding my numbers for what I really pay for housing - which is not a lot because I bought in 1998.
Customize
If you don't drive at all, then set the annual mileage to 0. You could also list the number of drivers at 0.
You can all also set your work's zipcode if you think that working outside the city somehow makes this website invalid. It's part of the # of workers editable link, I believe.
So far, every single "omg, apples -> oranges" or "whatever, I'm so exclusive it doesn't apply to me" special snowflake message on here has been customizable by their calculator.
The Problem
I can customize all I want, but then it really isn't telling me anything I don't already know. What's worse, it isn't offering me the chance to explore any options that I haven't already thought of if it doesn't even acknowledge that I live two blocks from one bus stop and half a mile from a whole selection of buses or even less than a mile from a commuter rail stop.
You and I are transit and alternative transport literate. A lot of people who are looking for options, who just moved to the area, or are thinking of ditching their car will learn nothing from this exercise. That is the real problem here - the problem is NOT that I'm a special snowflake who expects a custom bot to validate my choices, but that this calculator isn't offering up valid information for those who want to see if they really can save a bundle by getting rid of their car and walking or biking to the train station or express bus instead.