Portland

The Drive-It-Yourself Taxi: A Smooth Ride?

Scott Le Vine — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 10:07:02 -0500

Despite a corporate sponsor that paid handsomely for the naming rights, Londoners stubbornly refer to our bikesharing system as ‘Boris Bikes’, in a nod to our colourful Mayor, Boris Johnson. But what will we call our new drive-it-yourself taxis? My suggestion: ‘Boris Cabs’ – and they are now a reality here, thanks to Daimler’s car2go service, if you happen to live in one of three small and separate sections of town. But why did a one-way carsharing system have to limp into London, when more than a dozen other cities have welcomed these arrangements with open arms? In the US, car2go first appeared in Austin, Texas, and since then has moved into Washington, D.C, Miami, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. It operates in Canada and, on the Continent, in Paris and Amsterdam, among other locations. So why no splashy launch across England's Capital, and no images of a smiling Boris cutting a ribbon?

First, roads in London are balkanised. Our regional transport agency (Transport for London) runs the main arteries, and they provide little on-street parking, the mother’s milk of one-way carsharing. That leaves the local streets in the the domain of the 33 boroughs that are each independent municipalities. Car2go is making a brave attempt to get off the ground here by starting with hundreds of cars (the press release reports 500; in practice,170 are in operation two weeks after the launch) in disconnected sections of town, something it has not resorted to anywhere else. Its standard practice is to strike a city-wide deal with whoever’s in charge of on-street parking, and no single agency fits that bill here. What’s the rush? Well, BMW is hot on their heels with its competing DriveNow system, with staff in London well into the advanced stages of planning.

Second, there is genuine uncertainty about the impacts". Will we take drive-it-yourself cabs to work, and avoid the crush on the Tube? It would be a very different experience than traditional carsharing — London is said to be Zipcar’s second-biggest market after NYC — which doesn’t work for the daily commute. In the Zipcar model (soon to be the 'Zipcar by Avis' model?) you take a car on a round-trip basis and pay by the hour, like filling a parking meter. The novelty of this new generation of drive-yourself cabs lies in their flexibility: as with a taxi meter, you pay by the minute for just the time it takes you to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’, then drop the car off and forget about it.

What does this mean for traffic congestion? CO2 emissions? What about the cute blue-and-white Smart Fortwo-model cars now parked in your neighbourhood – will they mean less parking for private car owners? Not bloody likely. The expectation is that, in time, enough private car owners will switch to using the fleet’s cars, meaning that on balance fewer cars will need to be parked. But try explaining this to car2go’s new neighbours who are not familiar with the subtleties and will be the ones dealing with the growing pains as we feel our way forward.

Transport is a long game, so it will be years until we properly understand the impacts of drive-yourself cabs. My research suggests that likely impacts are:

1) A much larger market than traditional carsharing (about four times as many subscribers)
2) A roughly 4% reduction in personal car ownership
3) About a 1% decrease in car driving vehicle miles travelled (including personal cars, traditional carsharing, and drive-yourself cabs)
4) About a 1% decrease in the number of public transport journeys

We can be reasonably certain that some surprising impacts will be revealed during field trials, and if at some future point London’s authorities are not happy with the knock-on effects there’s nothing to stop us from regulating the industry like any other. But for the moment we don’t understand it well enough to do anything other than let the operators experiment and keep tabs on what’s happening.

We just don’t know what the impacts on traffic levels and CO2 will turn out to be, and, frankly, it’s unfair to – as some suggest – hold the industry to a no-net-traffic/CO2 standard. We don’t do that to Black Cabs or [advance-booking-only] minicabs, or indeed to the automotive or urban transport sectors more broadly. A fairer standard, admittedly more complex to administer, would be to assess whether net value is created after accounting for effects on traffic levels, emissions and more. In other words: get the prices right, just like the economics textbooks say.

The question that needs thinking through is what would transport in London look like if drive-yourself taxi systems went viral and we came to depend on them. What happens, for instance, when instead of 500 of these cabs there are 50,000, and the necessary communication links go down? How would the transport system work if on-road congestion became replaced by virtual queuing to get access to a car? And what about times when the system is under stress, like when a hurricane is approaching, for instance. Is it OK to just flip the switch off on the whole fleet? Who would make this decision, and what guidelines would they follow?

If the history of the car in cities has taught us anything, it is that we need to be humble about our ability to forecast the future. So what is the way forward for Boris Cabs in London? Start with a small fleet and short-duration contracts. Be clear on the objectives and flexible on the implementation. Keep our options open. It will be an interesting ride.

Scott Le Vine, AICP is a research associate in transport systems at Imperial College London and a trustee of the shared-mobility NGO Carplus, which serves as the UK’s carsharing trade body. He authored the recent study Car Rental 2.0: Car club [carsharing] innovations and why they matter.

Flickr photo: Car 2 Go in the 1700 block of Q Street, NW, Washington DC on Easter Sunday, 8 April 2012 by Elvert Barnes Photography

A Look at Commuting Using the Latest Census Data

Aaron M. Renn — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:38:10 -0400

Continuing my exploration of the 2011 data from the American Community Survey, I want to look now at some aspects of commuting.

Public Transit

Public transit commuting remains overwhelmingly dominated by New York City, with a metro commute mode share for transit of 31.1%. There are an estimated 2,686,406 transit commuters in New York City. All other large metro areas (1M+ population) put together add up to 3,530,932 transit commuters. New York City metro accounts for 39% of all transit commuters in the United States.

If one were to guess the #2 city for transit commuting, another older, pre-auto, centralized city on the lines of New York (say Chicago) might be the obvious guess. It would also be wrong. It’s actually Washington, DC that has the second highest transit commute share among large metros at 14.8%. Here’s the complete top ten:

Rank	Metro Area	2011
1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	2,686,406 (31.1%)
2	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	439,194 (14.8%)
3	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	299,204 (14.6%)
4	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	503,535 (11.6%)
5	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	267,568 (11.6%)
6	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	251,285 (9.3%)
7	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	137,858 (8.1%)
8	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	66,619 (6.3%)
9	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	355,811 (6.2%)
10	Baltimore-Towson, MD	80,472 (6.1%)

Not only are New York and Washington top two cities for public transit commuting, they are also the two cities that have been dominant in increasing transit’s market share. Both cities showed material share gains since 2000, over three and a half percentage points each, for transit. Among large cities, Seattle was the only one that managed to post a share gain of even one percent.

Rank	Metro Area	2000	2011	Change in % of Workers Age 16 and Over
1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	2,181,093 (27.4%)	2,686,406 (31.1%)	3.74%
2	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	278,842 (11.2%)	439,194 (14.8%)	3.61%
3	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	106,784 (7.0%)	137,858 (8.1%)	1.17%
4	Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL	12,601 (1.6%)	24,901 (2.5%)	0.91%
5	Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT	15,755 (2.8%)	21,794 (3.7%)	0.91%
6	Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC	9,532 (1.4%)	19,227 (2.3%)	0.91%
7	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	278,207 (13.8%)	299,204 (14.6%)	0.81%
8	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	287,392 (5.6%)	355,811 (6.2%)	0.67%
9	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	67,685 (3.2%)	95,536 (3.8%)	0.61%
10	Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN	5,574 (0.8%)	10,705 (1.4%)	0.55%

Vaunted Portland only managed to eke out a share gain of 0.07%, which could be entirely statistical noise. Its performance lagged even auto-centric cities like Charlotte and Nashville.

Bicycling

Every city out there seems to be vying to be the bike friendliest city in the world. Yet bicycling has yet to make much of an impact on commuting. Only 7 out of 51 large metros even post 1% mode share for cycling:

Row	Geography	2011
1	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	23,941 (2.3%)
2	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	38,419 (1.9%)
3	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	16,013 (1.9%)
4	Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville, CA	15,804 (1.8%)
5	Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX	8,847 (1.0%)
6	New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA	5,307 (1.0%)
7	Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ	18,007 (1.0%)
8	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	15,949 (0.9%)
9	Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO	12,052 (0.9%)
10	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	50,080 (0.9%)

Portland grew bicycle mode share by 1.51% Perhaps this explains its poor transit performance. Cycling is canabalizing transit growth.

Walking

The low level of bicycling can perhaps best be illustrated by comparing it to walking. Even in Portland more people walk to work than ride bikes.

Rank	Metro Area	2011
1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	540,733 (6.3%)
2	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	121,537 (5.3%)
3	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	87,409 (4.3%)
4	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	101,107 (3.7%)
5	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	62,238 (3.7%)
6	Pittsburgh, PA	36,857 (3.4%)
7	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	35,242 (3.4%)
8	Rochester, NY	15,573 (3.2%)
9	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	94,698 (3.2%)
10	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	134,399 (3.1%)

Working from Home

Looking at telecommuting gives a much different list of top cities, this one dominated by “wired” metros like Austin and Raleigh. The share of telecommuters in these cities is bigger than walking or biking, or even transit in many cities. This is an oft-overlooked part of the green transport agenda. The most green commute possible is the one you never have to make.

Rank	Metro Area	2011
1	Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX	62,593 (7.1%)
2	Raleigh-Cary, NC	37,030 (6.6%)
3	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	67,223 (6.4%)
4	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	131,029 (6.4%)
5	San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA	89,547 (6.3%)
6	Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO	76,025 (5.9%)
7	Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, AZ	105,570 (5.8%)
8	Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville, CA	52,143 (5.8%)
9	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	132,979 (5.5%)
10	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	87,839 (5.2%)

Commute Times

Unsurprisingly, large cities – including New York and Washington again at the top – feature the longest average commute times. Larger cities tend to have worse congestion and feature longer commutes. As transit commutes are generally longer than driving, the high transit mode share helps to drive up commute times in those cities.

Rank	Metro Area	2011
1	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	34.9
2	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	34.5
3	Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	31.0
4	Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI	30.9
5	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	30.6
6	Baltimore-Towson, MD	30.3
7	Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH	29.2
8	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	29.2
9	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	28.6
10	Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD	28.5

Whether New York might prefer a more auto-oriented layout in order to reduce commute times is a different matter. There’s no precedent for such a huge region having anything less than terrible congestion and commute times. And clearly New York would not be New York with such a radical change. The same forces that drive up commute times in places like New York and Washington are some of the same forces that sustain them as centers of elite economic production.

Note: An early version of this piece contained an incorrect version of "Working from Home" table.

Aaron M. Renn is an independent writer on urban affairs and the creator of Telestrian, a data analysis and mapping tool. He writes at The Urbanophile.

Light trails photo by Bigstock.

The Road Less Understood

Wendell Cox — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 01:38:13 -0400

The Economist confuses ends (objectives) and means in its current number examining the peaking of per capita automobile use in the West in two articles ("The http://www.economist.com/node/21563327" and "Seeing the Back of the Car"). In congratulating metropolitan areas for trying "to change the way people move around," The Economist reminds that Portland (Oregon) has developed light rail and that policy supports transit in Los Angeles. So much for the means, but what about the ends?

In Portland: Transit Loses Ground and a Skeptical Public: Portland, for example, has had anything but stellar performance. Transit has not kept up with growth, having lost 25 percent of its commuting (work trip) share since before the first light rail line was opened in 1986 (Note 1). With five new light rail lines, transit in Portland not only fell short of attracting its previous bus only share of commutes, but also sustained losses greater than the national rate (Figure 1).

The people of the Portland area may not share The Economist's ardor. Just last week, The Oregonian headlined "Clackamas County anti-rail measure passes comfortably; effect could resonate for decades," reporting on a 60-40 vote to require referenda for future rail expenditures. As if that were not enough, a similar measure passed by a similar margin in King City, a municipality in Washington County and Tigard, one of the area's largest municipalities, has placed the matter on the November ballot.

But Portland does have a substantial success missed by The Economist. Working at home is growing rapidly. From 1980 to 2011, working at home (mostly telecommuting) increased by 55,000. This is more than three times the growth in rail transit commuting (17,500). During the last decade, working at home passed transit as a work access mode in Portland, and with virtually no public expenditures (as opposed to the billions for new rail lines). There has been a 375,000 increase in car use by one-way commuters since 1980, and, not surprisingly, a quadrupling of excess travel time in peak period traffic (based upon Texas Transportation Institute data). In the end, Portland built an extensive rail system and the riders have not come. Portland didn't expand its highway system, and they came anyway (National 2010-2011 journey to work data is summarized here.).

In Los Angeles: Long on Rail Lines, Short on Passengers: The Economist rightly points out that Los Angeles has implemented policies to get people out of cars. Indeed, Los Angeles has been the poster child for transit development. In little more than two decades, 11 metro, light rail, and suburban rail lines have been opened. Probably no metropolitan area in the world has opened more miles of new rail service in that period. Matthew Yglesias, writing in Slate was so impressed that he called Los Angeles "America's next great mass transit city."

The results are less convincing. The total daily one-way commutes on the 11 rail lines is only 32,000, smaller than the number of people carried daily on a single lane of the San Diego Freeway (I-405) where it crosses over Wilshire Boulevard. Meanwhile, working at home has risen more than four times that of rail commuting since 1990 (Figure 2). Los Angeles may be better described as “America's next great telecommuting city." However, the auto is still king. From 1990 to 2011, solo automobile commuting increased 340,000, two percentage point gain, three times that of transit.

Younger People: Driving More to Work and Telecommuting More

The Economist also jumps on the "young people forsaking driving" bandwagon, a subject that has attracted the attention of others. But, young people are driving more, at least to work. Since 2000, the increase in driving alone to work by people aged 15 to 24 was nearly 260,000, compared to a 4,000 loss in transit commuting. Working at home was up almost as much as driving, at 200,000. Even so, with the declining size of the younger work force, transit's share was up. From 2000 to 2011, the share of 15-24 year old workers rose from 5.4 percent to 5.8 percent (Figure 3), virtually the same as the overall increase in transit market share of from 4.6 percent to 5.0 percent (Note 2). As with Portland and Los Angeles, the last 11 years saw a much larger increase in working at home, from 3.3 percent to 4.3 percent.

Further, to the extent working at home, social media and online shopping replace the need for driving among younger adults (and everyone), all the better.

The Fantastical Claim: 50,000 Passengers Per Hour

The Economist repeats the specious claim that rail lines can carry 50,000 passengers per hour in each direction. If your world is limited to Paris between Chatelet and Gare de Lyon and the handful of similar places, maybe so. But in most of the rest of the world, it is the stuff of fairy tales.

The 2011 data shows the extent of the illusion. The fantastical rail line carrying 50,000 per hour would carry the equal of all the daily rail commuters in Dallas or Miami in less than 20 minutes. It would take only about five minutes to handle the daily rail transit commuting volume in Minneapolis or Salt Lake City.

Further, some of the new systems have been manifestly unsuccessful in attracting commuters. For example, in Charlotte, there was a strong increase in transit commuting between 2000 and 2011, with transit's market share rising 64 percent. Yet, more than 60 percent of the new commuters were on buses, rather than on light rail, reflecting a long overdue increase in artificially low service levels. In Phoenix, 85 percent of the transit commuting increase was on buses, rather than the light rail line. The fantastical 50,000 per hour line would take only handle this load in about two minutes.

Where Rail Works and Why

None of this is to suggest that rail transit does not have its place. As I pointed out in a Hong Kong Apple Daily commentary, rail transit makes all the sense in the world where appropriate (see: "Hong Kong's Rail Expansion: Avoiding Western Pitfalls"). Appropriate circumstances include huge central business districts with high employment density and radial rail transit service from throughout the metropolitan area. American Community Survey data indicates that just six municipalities (not metropolitan areas) account for 93 percent of the nation's rail commuting destinations. The city of New York, alone is the destination of 65 percent of national rail commuters. Another 28 percent commute to the cities of Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and San Francisco. Within these six cities, the overwhelming share of transit commuting is to the downtowns (central business districts), which, combined, cover a land area less than half the size of Orlando's Disney World.

Why Driving Has Peaked

Alan Pisarski told us in 1999 "(Cars, Women and Minorities: The Democratization of Mobility in America") that the demand for driving would soon peak. Women were driving nearly as much as men and cars were becoming the dominant mode of transport for low income people. Cars already carry the overwhelming majority of low-income commuters. A "love affair with the automobile" mentality misled many who should have known better into believing that people would eventually drive 24 hours per day. In fact, the huge increase in driving to the 2000s was more about democratizing mobility and access, and as the Washington Times recently put it, prosperity (see "A world without cars:
The internal-combustion engine has freed mankind"). If home-based access can take up the slack, it would do more for the environment and people’s lives than all the expensive, largely ineffective rail system imagined by the media and the well-financed rail lobby.

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Note 1: The data in this article is largely taken from the journey to work reports of the US Census (1980, 1990 and 2000) and the American Community Survey (one year data 2011).

Note 2: The overall 5.0 percent transit market share figure may be high. The USDOT National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) indicates that people who commute by transit tend to use other modes (such as automobiles) often. NHTS data indicates that, overall transit accounted for 3.7 percent of commuters and an even lower 2.7% of commuting miles in 2009.

Photo: Harbor Freeway (I-110), Los Angeles (by author)

Major Metropolitan Commuting Trends: 2000-2010

Wendell Cox — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:38:33 -0400

As we indicated in the last article, solo automobile commuting reached an all time record in the United States in 2010, increasing by 7.8 million commuters. At the same time, huge losses were sustained by carpooling, while the largest gain was in working at home, which includes telecommuting. Transit and bicycling also added commuters. This continues many of the basic trends toward more personalized employment access that we have seen since 1960.

Solo Automobile Commuting: Among the nation’s 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million population, 38 experienced increases in solo automobile commuting between 2000 and 2010. More than 80% of commuting is by solo automobile in 25 of the 51 largest metropolitan areas, with the highest rates being in Birmingham, Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Kansas City. Another 28 metropolitan areas have single automobile commute shares of between 70% and 80%, with Boston, Washington and San Francisco between 60% and 70%. As would be expected, the lowest solo automobile commute share was in New York at 51%.

Car Pools: The national data also showed a nearly 2.4 million loss in carpool use. The losses were pervasive, occurring in all 51 metropolitan areas. Riverside-San Bernardino had the highest carpool market share at just under 15%, while all other major metropolitan areas were below 12%. Car pools have been losing market share for decades.

Work at Home (Includes Telecommuting): In what we have previously labeled as The Decade of the Telecommute, the nation experienced a 1.7 million increase in working at home over the past decade. The market share gains in working at home were as pervasive as the losses in carpooling, with all 51 metropolitan areas registering increases. Austin had the strongest work-at-home market share, at 7.3%, followed by Portland at 6.5%, San Francisco and Denver at 6.2%, Phoenix at 6.0%, with San Diego, Raleigh and Atlanta above 5.5%. Overall, working at home exceeded transit commuting in 37 major metropolitan areas out of 51 in 2010, up from 27 in 2000. Three metropolitan areas had work at home market shares of less than 3%, including Memphis, New Orleans and last place Buffalo.

Transit: As noted before, transit enjoyed its first 10 year gain since journey to work data was first collected by the Census Bureau 50 years ago. Overall, transit added 900,000 daily commuters, roughly half that for telecommuters. Transit's market share increased in 25 of the top 51 metropolitan areas. It is also notable that in a number of the metropolitan areas with the largest expenditures for new rail systems, there were either losses or commuting gains were concentrated in the more flexible bus services.

New York: As so often has been the case, transit was largely a "New York story." More than one half of the new transit commuters were in the New York metropolitan area, more than 450,000 of the 900,000 increase. New York boasts by far the most extensive transit system in the nation, which serves the second largest central business district in the world and by far the nation’s most important. In 2000, New York had a transit work trip market share of 27.4%. By 2010, New York's transit work trip market share had risen to 30.7%, more than double that of any other metropolitan area. More than 70% of the new transit commuters in the New York area were on its subway (Metro), suburban rail and light rail systems.

San Francisco: San Francisco retained its position as the second strongest transit metropolitan area, with a 14.6% work trip market share in 2010. This is up from 13.8% in 2000.

Washington: Washington was the third strongest transit commuting market, with a 14.0% work trip market share in 2010. This modest increase from 13.4% nonetheless produced the second largest ridership increase in the nation, at more than 130,000. This reflects the strength of Washington's job market over the decade. Rail ridership accounted for 53% of this increase, while buses accounted for the other 47%.

Boston and Chicago: Boston passed Chicago to become the fourth strongest transit market, at 11.8% in 2010. This is an increase from 11.2% in 2000. Chicago ranked fifth at 11.2%, a small reduction from the 11.3% in 2000.

Los Angeles: Los Angeles had the third largest increase in transit commuting, adding 60,000 daily transit commuters. Approximately 75% of these new commuters were attracted by the region's extensive bus system as opposed to its very expensive but limited rail system. This increase placed Los Angeles in a virtual tie with Portland, with a work trip market share of 6.2%.

Portland: Portland continued to experience its now 30 year transit market share erosion, despite having added three new light rail lines between 2000 and 2010. Portland's transit work trip market share fell to 6.2% from 6.3% and now trails the work at home and telecommute market share of 6.5%.

Seattle:Seattle added 29,000 new transit commuters for the fourth strongest growth in the nation. Approximately 75% of the new commuters were on the metropolitan area's bus system.

Atlanta: Atlanta, which is home to the third largest postwar Metro system in the nation (MARTA) gained nearly 9000 new transit commuters, all of them on the bus, while losing more than 3000 rail commuters.

Miami:Miami added 16,000 new transit commuters, though more than 90% were attracted to the bus system, rather than the rail services.

Rail and Bus in Texas: Other metropolitan areas with new and expanded rail systems did not fare as well. In Dallas-Fort Worth, the light rail system was more than doubled in length, yet there was a reduction of more than 3000 daily transit commuters. The transit work trip market share in Dallas-Fort Worth dropped from 1.8% to 1.4%, approximately one quarter lower than that of any other major metropolitan area with a new light rail or Metro system. Houston, which built its first light rail line during the period, lost nearly 3000 daily transit commuters, with its transit work trip market share dropping by nearly one-third, from 3.2% to 2.3%. By contrast, the third largest metropolitan area in Texas, San Antonio, lost no commuters from its bus only transit system.

Other New Rail Metropolitan Areas: Other metropolitan areas with new rail systems experienced modest ridership increases, with 60 to 70 percent of the increase on the bus systems in Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Phoenix. Salt Lake City experienced a small decline in transit commuting.

Below 1 Percent: Four metropolitan areas had transit work trip market shares of less than 1%, including Indianapolis, Raleigh, Birmingham and last place Oklahoma City, with a market share of 0.4%.

Bicycles: It was also a good decade for bicycle commuting, with the national increase of nearly 250,000. The bicycle commuting market share rose in 45 of the 51 largest metropolitan areas. Portland had the highest bicycle market share at 2.2%, with three other metropolitan areas at 1.5% or above, Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose. The lowest bicycle commuting market shares were in San Antonio, Cincinnati, Birmingham and Memphis, all at 0.1 percent.

Walking: There was little change in walking among the nations major metropolitan areas. The largest shares were in New York (5.9%) and Boston (5.4%), with the smallest shares in Raleigh (1.1%), Orlando (1.1%) and Birmingham (1.0%).

Drifting Away from Shared Commuting: In some ways, the 2000s were different than previous decades, especially with the reversals in bicycle commuting and transit. However, overall, shared ride commuting (transit and car pools) lost share due to the precipitous decline in car pooling. Longer term share increase trends also continued in single-occupant automobile commuting and working at home. The bottom line: personal employment access (personal mobility plus working at home) continues to carve away at the smallish share still held by shared commuting.

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Data: The 2000 and 2010 commuting market shares by mode are shown in Tables 1 and 2 (2010 metropolitan area boundaries).

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Table 1
Work Trip Market Share: 2000
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population in 2010

Metropolitan Area	Car, Truck or Van: Alone	Car/Van Pool	Transit	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Work at Home (Includes Telecommute)

Atlanta	77.0%	13.7%	3.4%	0.1%	1.3%	1.1%	3.5%
Austin	76.5%	13.7%	2.5%	0.6%	2.1%	1.1%	3.6%
Baltimore	75.5%	11.5%	5.9%	0.2%	2.9%	0.9%	3.2%
Birmingham	83.3%	12.0%	0.7%	0.1%	1.2%	0.7%	2.1%
Boston	71.1%	8.6%	11.2%	0.5%	4.6%	0.8%	3.3%
Buffalo	81.7%	9.4%	3.3%	0.2%	2.7%	0.5%	2.1%
Charlotte	80.7%	12.8%	1.4%	0.1%	1.2%	0.8%	2.9%
Chicago	70.4%	11.0%	11.3%	0.3%	3.1%	1.0%	2.9%
Cincinnati	81.3%	10.1%	2.8%	0.1%	2.3%	0.6%	2.7%
Cleveland	81.3%	8.8%	4.1%	0.2%	2.2%	0.6%	2.7%
Columbus	82.1%	9.7%	2.1%	0.2%	2.3%	0.6%	3.0%
Dallas-Fort Worth	78.7%	13.9%	1.8%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%	3.0%
Denver	76.0%	11.7%	4.4%	0.4%	2.1%	0.8%	4.6%
Detroit	84.7%	9.2%	1.7%	0.1%	1.4%	0.6%	2.2%
Hartford	82.6%	8.7%	2.8%	0.2%	2.5%	0.6%	2.6%
Houston	77.0%	14.3%	3.2%	0.3%	1.6%	1.1%	2.5%
Indianapolis	82.8%	10.4%	1.3%	0.2%	1.7%	0.7%	3.0%
Jacksonville	80.3%	12.6%	1.3%	0.5%	1.7%	1.4%	2.3%
Kansas City	82.6%	10.6%	1.2%	0.1%	1.4%	0.7%	3.5%
Las Vegas	74.6%	14.7%	4.4%	0.5%	2.3%	1.3%	2.3%
Los Angeles	71.9%	14.6%	5.6%	0.7%	2.7%	1.0%	3.5%
Louisville	81.8%	11.2%	2.0%	0.2%	1.7%	0.7%	2.5%
Memphis	80.7%	13.3%	1.6%	0.1%	1.3%	0.9%	2.2%
Miami-West Palm Beach	77.3%	13.1%	3.2%	0.5%	1.7%	1.2%	3.1%
Milwaukee	79.7%	9.9%	4.2%	0.2%	2.9%	0.6%	2.6%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	78.3%	10.0%	4.4%	0.4%	2.4%	0.6%	3.8%
Nashville	80.5%	13.1%	0.8%	0.1%	1.5%	0.8%	3.2%
New Orleans	72.9%	14.6%	5.4%	0.6%	2.7%	1.3%	2.4%
New York	52.7%	9.3%	27.4%	0.3%	6.0%	1.5%	2.9%
Oklahoma City	81.6%	12.1%	0.5%	0.2%	1.7%	1.0%	2.9%
Orlando	80.6%	12.1%	1.6%	0.4%	1.3%	1.1%	2.9%
Philadelphia	73.1%	10.2%	8.9%	0.3%	3.9%	0.7%	2.9%
Phoenix	74.6%	15.3%	1.9%	0.9%	2.1%	1.4%	3.7%
Pittsburgh	77.5%	9.8%	5.9%	0.1%	3.6%	0.6%	2.5%
Portland	73.1%	11.5%	6.3%	0.8%	2.9%	0.8%	4.6%
Providence	80.7%	10.5%	2.4%	0.2%	3.3%	0.8%	2.2%
Raleigh	80.8%	12.1%	0.9%	0.2%	1.6%	1.0%	3.5%
Richmond	81.7%	10.9%	1.9%	0.2%	1.8%	0.8%	2.7%
Riverside-San Bernardino	73.5%	17.6%	1.6%	0.5%	2.2%	1.2%	3.5%
Rochester	81.7%	9.1%	2.0%	0.2%	3.5%	0.6%	2.9%
Sacramento	75.3%	13.5%	2.7%	1.4%	2.2%	0.9%	4.0%
Salt Lake City	76.0%	13.4%	3.3%	0.5%	2.1%	0.7%	4.0%
San Antonio	76.2%	14.9%	2.7%	0.1%	2.4%	1.2%	2.6%
San Diego	73.9%	13.0%	3.3%	0.6%	3.4%	1.4%	4.4%
San Francisco-Oakland	62.8%	12.7%	13.8%	1.1%	3.9%	1.3%	4.3%
San Jose	77.2%	12.4%	3.4%	1.2%	1.8%	0.9%	3.1%
Seattle	71.6%	12.7%	7.0%	0.6%	3.1%	0.8%	4.2%
St. Louis	82.5%	10.0%	2.2%	0.1%	1.7%	0.6%	2.9%
Tampa-St. Petersburg	79.7%	12.4%	1.3%	0.6%	1.7%	1.2%	3.1%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk	78.8%	12.1%	1.7%	0.3%	2.7%	1.6%	2.7%
Washington	67.5%	13.4%	11.2%	0.3%	3.0%	0.9%	3.7%
Top 51 Metropolitan Areas	73.2%	11.8%	7.5%	0.4%	2.9%	1.0%	3.2%

Calculated from Census Bureau data
Metropolitan areas as defined in 2010

Table 2
Work Trip Market Share: 2010
Metropolitan Areas Over 1,000,000 Population in 2010

	Car, Truck or Van: Alone	Car/Van Pool	Transit	Bicycle	Walk	Other	Work at Home (Includes Telecommute)

Atlanta	77.6%	10.3%	3.4%	0.2%	1.3%	1.5%	5.8%
Austin	75.6%	10.5%	2.3%	0.6%	1.9%	1.8%	7.3%
Baltimore	76.5%	9.6%	6.0%	0.2%	2.6%	1.0%	4.1%
Birmingham	84.8%	10.0%	0.6%	0.1%	1.0%	0.5%	3.1%
Boston	69.5%	7.5%	11.8%	0.7%	5.4%	0.8%	4.4%
Buffalo	82.0%	7.5%	3.8%	0.3%	3.0%	1.1%	2.3%
Charlotte	80.6%	10.0%	2.0%	0.2%	1.5%	0.6%	5.1%
Chicago	71.0%	8.5%	11.2%	0.6%	3.1%	1.0%	4.5%
Cincinnati	84.1%	7.9%	2.1%	0.1%	2.0%	0.4%	3.4%
Cleveland	82.3%	7.2%	3.6%	0.3%	2.2%	0.7%	3.7%
Columbus	82.4%	8.0%	1.7%	0.5%	2.3%	0.6%	4.6%
Dallas-Fort Worth	81.3%	10.1%	1.4%	0.2%	1.2%	1.4%	4.6%
Denver	76.3%	9.6%	4.1%	0.8%	1.9%	1.1%	6.2%
Detroit	84.6%	8.5%	1.5%	0.2%	1.4%	0.8%	3.0%
Hartford	81.5%	7.9%	3.1%	0.3%	3.0%	1.0%	3.2%
Houston	79.4%	11.5%	2.3%	0.3%	1.4%	1.7%	3.4%
Indianapolis	83.9%	8.2%	0.9%	0.3%	1.5%	0.8%	4.3%
Jacksonville	82.5%	8.9%	1.0%	0.5%	1.4%	1.2%	4.5%
Kansas City	83.7%	8.5%	1.2%	0.2%	1.4%	0.9%	4.1%
Las Vegas	78.9%	10.5%	3.8%	0.6%	1.6%	1.3%	3.3%
Los Angeles	73.5%	10.7%	6.2%	0.9%	2.6%	1.2%	5.0%
Louisville	83.5%	9.2%	1.9%	0.2%	1.3%	0.9%	3.1%
Memphis	83.6%	10.3%	1.0%	0.1%	1.5%	0.9%	2.7%
Miami-West Palm Beach	78.8%	9.4%	3.5%	0.6%	2.0%	1.4%	4.4%
Milwaukee	80.1%	9.3%	3.4%	0.5%	2.6%	0.7%	3.4%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	78.3%	7.9%	4.8%	0.7%	2.4%	0.9%	4.9%
Nashville	81.3%	10.7%	1.0%	0.2%	1.2%	1.0%	4.6%
New Orleans	78.1%	11.0%	3.2%	0.7%	2.6%	1.9%	2.5%
New York	50.5%	6.8%	30.7%	0.5%	5.9%	1.6%	3.9%
Oklahoma City	82.7%	10.6%	0.5%	0.3%	1.6%	1.0%	3.4%
Orlando	82.1%	9.2%	1.6%	0.3%	1.1%	1.4%	4.4%
Philadelphia	73.9%	8.0%	9.6%	0.5%	3.5%	0.8%	3.8%
Phoenix	76.7%	11.8%	2.0%	0.6%	1.5%	1.5%	6.0%
Pittsburgh	77.0%	8.9%	5.6%	0.3%	3.7%	0.9%	3.5%
Portland	72.1%	8.8%	6.2%	2.2%	3.3%	0.9%	6.5%
Providence	81.3%	8.3%	2.6%	0.5%	3.2%	0.9%	3.2%
Raleigh	82.0%	8.7%	0.9%	0.3%	1.1%	1.1%	5.9%
Richmond	81.2%	10.1%	1.8%	0.4%	1.2%	0.7%	4.6%
Riverside-San Bernardino	76.1%	14.8%	1.7%	0.4%	1.8%	1.4%	3.8%
Rochester	82.6%	7.1%	1.8%	0.4%	3.9%	0.7%	3.6%
Sacramento	75.6%	11.2%	2.9%	1.7%	1.9%	1.1%	5.5%
Salt Lake City	77.7%	11.3%	2.9%	0.8%	2.3%	1.0%	4.0%
San Antonio	79.5%	11.5%	2.1%	0.1%	2.0%	1.4%	3.3%
San Diego	76.2%	10.1%	3.3%	0.8%	2.8%	1.0%	5.9%
San Francisco-Oakland	61.5%	10.6%	14.6%	1.7%	4.2%	1.2%	6.2%
San Jose	77.5%	10.3%	2.9%	1.6%	1.8%	0.9%	5.1%
Seattle	70.5%	10.2%	8.2%	1.1%	3.5%	1.0%	5.5%
St. Louis	83.0%	7.7%	2.6%	0.2%	1.9%	0.8%	3.7%
Tampa-St. Petersburg	80.3%	9.5%	1.6%	0.8%	1.4%	1.4%	5.0%
Virginia Beach-Norfolk	80.9%	9.4%	1.8%	0.5%	3.3%	0.9%	3.1%
Washington	65.6%	10.6%	14.0%	0.5%	3.5%	1.0%	4.9%
Top 51 Metropolitan Areas	73.7%	9.4%	7.9%	0.6%	2.8%	1.2%	4.4%

Calculated from Census Bureau data
Metropolitan areas as defined in 2010

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Photo: Manhattan (New York), with the Woolworth Building in the distance (by author)

"Art, Design, Portland" District Offers Opportunities To Work, Play, and Profit in Portland’s New Economy

Ilie Mitaru — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 01:38:19 -0400

In a dreary economy, with record numbers of Portlanders unemployed and underemployed, the shared work space is hoping to tap into the city’s DIY sensibility to foster innovation, creativity and a new connection to work. But similar projects have tried here before --- and failed. Will ADX’s new approach pencil out?

Located on the edge of Portland’s eastside industrial district, ADX (Art Design Portland) occupies a 10,000-square-foot warehouse once filled by Apex Manufacturing. The warehouse has since been gutted and renovated, with the letters ADX printed across its façade.

Inside, the bright space smells of new paint and freshly cut wood. “It’s our first day” says founder Kelley Roy as we walk to the makeshift interview area — three wooden chairs set in front of the company’s gallery space. A slow-moving Labrador trails us and lies down at Kelley’s feet.

Kelley ticks through her professional history as if one gig could only have led to the next: Program Manager for Metro, green building developer, founder of food source and prep company Get Fresh NYC, author of Cartopia: Portland’s Food Cart Revolution, and now founder of ADX. “Everything I’ve done is about bringing people together over something I cared about,” she says. “Bringing people back together and giving them a place to work, to make their own jobs, do meaningful work. It’s just important to me.”

Her business partner, Eric Black, joins us a minute later. Trained as an architect, Eric spent the past seven years at the architecture firm Yost Grube Hall in downtown Portland. From there he moved on to found the first iteration of ADX, located in a 3,000-square-foot building on southeast 9^th avenue. This first version of ADX was a shared workspace and shop for architects, with 1,000 square feet of gallery space.

The pair met when Kelly needed space to show work for a visiting artist friend, and ended up leasing the ADX gallery. It was then that they began re-envisioning ADX as a true cross-disciplinary work space. “We started to prototype the idea of what it could really mean within that space,” says Eric. “It was a nice test.”

The pair secured a $145,000 loan from Albina Opportunities Corporation and Mercy Corps Northwest to lease, renovate and equip their new building. The nonprofit lenders stepped in to support ADX because they saw its potential as a jobs catalyst, an objective not lost on Kelley: “We’d really feel that sense of success in what we’re trying to create if those jobs really thrive here in Portland. Take the bad economy and the lack of jobs and turn it into an opportunity.”

Shared builder spaces have popped up around the country throughout the last decade. 3^rd Ward, a shared work space in New York’s Williamsburg’s neighborhood, was founded in 2006 by Jason Goodman and Jeremy Lovitt as a response to the city’s prohibitively expensive artist studio rates. The company has more than doubled membership in the past year, reaching1,250 members and bringing in over 200 instructors to teach everything from studio lighting to welding. It employs 20 full and part-time staff. 3^rd Ward is currently expanding to the second floor of their building, adding 10,000 square feet of classrooms, a wood shop, tech and photo studios and more shared work space. The company has been growing throughout the recession, wrote Jessica Tom, director of marketing, “As people lose their jobs, we pick them up as freelancers who use our space as their company structure."

***

Early interest in ADX, to the pairs’ surprise, came largely from local creative firms, as opposed to the casual hobbyist. The firms signed up for ADX membership include The Official Manufacturing Company, Factory North, Hand Eye Supply, Build Design and Kate Bingaman Burt.

The success of these firms largely hinges on the fact that they actually make what they design. “I think people are so tired of the plastic nature of the way things are made” says Eric, “they want something better, and they see it can be better if people actually put their hand to it than if a machine makes it.”

The Official Manufacturing Company was in the process of tooling up their own shop when they stumbled across ADX and decided to lease the attached office. For Official Manufacturing, the access to space and tools made sense. “If we weren’t subleasing from them we definitely would have a business membership, and use the tools we wouldn’t be able to afford on our own,” says founder Fritz Mesenbrink.

For the weekend hobbyist or entrepreneur needing a little help realizing his or her concept, ADX has assembled a cohort of experts — designers, videographers, architects — dubbed the “Gang of Ten.” This group of experts pays for desks and access, and offers their consulting services at a 10 percent discount to other members.

The model has allowed ADX to diversity revenue streams: one third from memberships, one third from classes and workshops, and one third from the Gang of Ten fees. Once the space has a healthy community of builders, says Kelley, they’ll begin selling pieces from individual members under the ADX label. “Sort of like Ikea,” she laughs.

The numbers haven’t always penciled out for similar operations, however. TechShop, founded out of the Bay Area in 2006, opened several franchises across the country. One of these locations on the outskirts of Portland, in Beaverton, was forced to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2010 after low membership turnout.

But, Kelley notes, TechShop was in the wrong location (suburban Beaverton) and with memberships starting at $99 a month, was too expensive for the casual hobbyist. Kelley hopes ADX, with its multiple revenue streams, central location and affordable rates (starting at $25 a month) can be profitable within a year.

Rather than franchising, says Kelley, ADX is interested in partnering with existing maker spaces like 3rd Ward. “They did a lot of research to figure out what their community needs were, and they’re serving the needs of their community — that’s what we did here.”

In a dreary economic climate, the community seems to be responding well: ADX’s open houses enjoyed healthy turnouts, and Kelley and Eric report they are on track to meet their yearly subscription goals. “I don’t know if it’s tied to the recession, but I do think that people are getting over modernism, from a design standpoint,” says Eric “People are actually recognizing high craft.”

Kelley relates the rising consciousness around manufacturing to the organic and local food movement: “I think it’s the same thing with objects. It’s not mainstream yet, but there’s a certain sector of people who care, and care about the people who are making and designing things.”

“Think about it,” says Eric “A hundred and fifty years ago, everything in your life was made by somebody that you knew; that wasn’t that long ago.”

Written by Ilie Mitaru for Stake, a new business magazine set to launch this fall. You can read more and support thepremier issue here.

Perspectives on Urban Cores and Suburbs

Wendell Cox — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:06:02 -0400

Our virtually instant analysis of 2000 census trends in metropolitan areas has the generated wide interest. The principal purpose is to chronicle the change in metropolitan area population and the extent to which that change occurred in the urban core as opposed to suburban areas.

From a policy perspective, this is especially timely because of the recurring report that suburbanites have been moving to the urban core over the last decade. We have dealt with this issue extensively, noting the lack of data for any such interpretation. As of this writing, with data for more than half of the major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) in, there remains virtually no evidence that people are "moving back to the city" (actually, most suburban growth came from outside metropolitan areas, not from the "cities").

The Policy Context: Urban Cores and Suburbs

This discussion is not new, and generally pits anti-automobile interests – including much of the urban planning community – who favor the urban development patterns of prewar America (generally the urban planning community) against those who would prefer allowing people to make their own choices about where they live or work..

Over the past 60 or more years, the data indicates that consumers have nearly exclusively chosen less dense and more suburban areas. This is not to suggest, however that many of us, including this author, automatically favor suburbs over urban cores. Indeed, I have enjoyed years of alternating between living in suburban America and the urban core of the (inner) ville de Paris (arrondissements I, II, V, VII and XI). But if you have a taste for urban living, that does not mean high-density cities are inherently superior to suburban living. People, after all, have different preferences.

Urban areas include both urban cores and suburbs. The delineation of urban cores and suburbs is subjective. There was for example a time – say around 1820 – when development to the north of New York’s Houston Street would have been considered suburban. More than two thirds of the present ville de Paris was suburban before the city limits were expanded in the 1860s. Now, no one would consider, for example, Washington Square or Herald Square to be suburban and the suburbs of Paris now extended to more than 80 times the land area of the 1860s ville de Paris.

One overlooked way to approach the current debate would be to look not at municipal boundaries but forms of development. Around 1950 we began the breakneck expansion of automobile oriented suburbanization which had proceeded more modestly for two or more decades before.

The Urban Core:

This analysis defines the urban core consistent with the criteria of the US Bureau of the Census in 1950. Metropolitan areas are organized around urban areas (urbanized areas). We use the "central cities" of the core urban areas in 1950 as the urban core in the analysis. Those portions outside the 1950 urban core are thus considered suburban. Where an urban area did not exist in 1950 (such as in Las Vegas and Tucson), the urban core is the central city of the urban area when it was first established.

No existing specification of the urban core is ideal, though the present one is appropriate for the policy purpose stated above. Clearly, the urban core would be far better defined at the census tract or even census block level based upon the characteristics of an urban core. This would include factors such as high residential population density, high transit usage, walkability and a high percentage of multiple unit residential buildings.

Such an ideal definition of the urban core cannot be measured with municipal boundaries. Yet, municipal boundaries have routinely been used by researchers to delineate the urban core, not least because the data is readily available. However there three notable difficulties with the use of municipal boundaries to define the urban core.

First; some areas with urban core characteristics are outside the core municipalities. As The Infrastructurist notes, municipalities like Jersey City or Hoboken have the characteristics of urban cores. However, since they are not a part of the core municipality (city of New York), they are classified as suburbs in our analysis. It is well to remember that both Hoboken and Jersey City represented suburban development, during their period of greatest growth, before 1930.

Second, other areas with postwar suburban characteristics are inside the core municipalities. For example, Richmond County (Staten Island), a part of the city of New York is principally suburban. Much of it was developed well after 1950 and consists largely of single family homes. The median construction date of owner occupied housing in Staten Island is 1970, which compares to 1965 in adjacent Middlesex County, New Jersey. It is newer than in Morris County New Jersey (1965), much of which is outside the urban area (all median house construction years from the 2000 census). Major portions of core municipalities such as Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Portland, Seattle, Denver and others are also postwar suburban.

Third, in a number of core municipalities, there is little, if any urban core, at least from a residential perspective. For example, one would be hard-pressed to identify an urban core in municipalities such as Phoenix or San Jose (despite the fact that the San Jose urban area is more dense than New York urban area). In metropolitan areas such as these, it might be preferable to define virtually all growth as suburban, though our analysis still defines these municipalities as the urban core.

Based upon the early results from the census it seems that if the more ideal census tract-based urban core definition were used, the urban cores would be shown to be capturing an even smaller share of growth, while suburban areas would be capturing more. But this analysis will have to wait until all the numbers are in.

Historical Core Municipality

The term "historical core municipality" is used to denote the urban cores using municipal boundaries. The term "city" is avoided because of its multiple definitions. Cities can be municipalities (such as in the city of New York), urban areas (such as the New York urban area), metropolitan areas (such as the New York metropolitan area) or multi-county regions or prefectures of countries like China (such as Wuhan or Shenyang).

This lack of clarity can be routinely seen in media reports that indiscriminately (and without comprehension) make comparisons between cities, using differing definitions. This can even extend even to more technical literature (see pages 12-14 of Urban Transportation Policy Requires Factual Foundations).

Principal Cities: Starting in 2003, the Census Bureau substituted the term "principal city" for the previous "central city" term. The use of principal city designations and the largest municipality as the principal name of a metropolitan area are appropriate for the purposes intended by the Census Bureau.

In its State of Metropolitan America, the Brookings Institution uses up to the three largest principal cities (which it calls "primary cities") and consider other parts of metropolitan areas as suburbs.

Neither approach, however, is appropriate in analyzing postwar suburbanization. Any municipality in a metropolitan area with more than 250,000 population is considered a principal city, regardless of its urban form. Any municipality with more than 50,000 population but which also has more jobs than resident workers is also a principal city, regardless of its actual on the ground reality.

This leads to a situation in which, for example, Los Angeles has 26 principal cities. Any postwar urban form definition would classify nearly all as suburban (and much of the historical core municipality of Los Angeles, notably the San Fernando Valley, itself is suburban). For example, the suburban city of Cerritos is a principal city, yet was largely filled by dairy farms well into the 1950s and was called Dairy Valley.

Other principal cities hardly existed in 1950. Virginia Beach has become the largest municipality in its metropolitan area, having displaced Norfolk. Yet, in 1950 Virginia Beach had a population of only 5,400, well below the 50,000 threshold that was required of central cities (smaller than Ponchatoula, Louisiana, doubtless an unfamiliar municipality to most readers). Arlington, Texas, the third municipality in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area, had a population of 7,700 in 1950, again well below the central city threshold. Arlington is not an urban core, it is a suburban jurisdiction.

Virginia Beach is a good example of a suburban area that has become the largest municipality in a metropolitan area. Its greater size, however, does not make Virginia Beach the urban core. Otherwise, Contra Costa County in California could, by consolidating with its constituent municipalities (God forbid), replace San Francisco as the metropolitan area's urban core.

Perhaps the ultimate example of the problem of principal cities being confused with urban cores is Hemet, California, a principal city of the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area that is, in fact an exurb and not in the primary urban area.

Toward the Future

An eventual more precise analysis of urban cores and suburban trends will be welcome. Yet, as our analysis of trends in New Jersey indicated, even the growth in more urban core oriented municipalities was minuscule compared to the state's suburban growth. Further, much of the urban core growth in the nation came from areas that, although formally located within “city limits” actually were on the suburban fringe. This was true, for example, in Kansas City, Oklahoma City and even Portland. This suggests that the small share of growth reported in urban cores would be even less if it were based on census tract data; and suburbanization, as a way of life, may indeed be even more prevalent than this year’s numbers suggest.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Photo by urbanfeel

What The Census Tells Us About America’s Future

Joel Kotkin — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:59:55 -0500

With the release of results for over 20 states, the 2010 Census has provided some strong indicators as to the real evolution of the country’s demography. In short, they reveal that Americans are continuing to disperse, becoming more ethnically diverse and leaning toward to what might be called “opportunity” regions.

Below is a summary of the most significant findings to date, followed by an assessment of what this all might mean for the coming decade.

Point One: America is becoming more suburban.

For much of the past decade, there has been a constant media drumbeat about the “return to the cities.” Urban real estate interests, environmentalists and planners have widely promoted this idea, and it has been central to the ideology of the Obama administration, the most big-city dominated in at least a half century. “We’ve reached the limits of suburban development,” Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan opined last February, “People are beginning to vote with their feet and come back to the central cities.”

Donavan and others cite such things as the energy price spike in the mid-aughts as well as the mortgage crisis as contributing to the “back to the city” trend. Yet in reality the actual numbers suggest that Donavan and his cronies may need a serious reality check. The Census reveals that, contrary to the “back to the city” rhetoric, suburban growth continues to dominate in most regions of the country, constituting between 80% and 100% of all growth in all but three of the 16 metropolitan areas reporting.

This includes sprawling regions like Houston, “smart growth“ areas like Seattle and Portland (where suburbs accounted for more than 80% of all growth over the decade) and Midwestern regions like St. Louis, which like Chicago saw a sharp decline in the urban population. The only exceptions have been Oklahoma City, Austin or San Antonio, with vast expanses still allowing for much of new development to take place within the city limits.

To be sure, no one should pretend that urban fortunes have sunk to their 1970s nadir. Yet overall, central cities, which accounted for a 11% of metropolitan growth in the 1990s, constituted barely 4% of the growth in the last decade. Some core cities, notably Chicago, have shrunk after making gains in the ’90s. Indeed Chicago — the president’s adopted hometown and the poster child of the urban “comeback” — took what analyst Aaron Renn humorously dubbed “a Census shellacking,” losing some 200,000 people, while the outer suburban ring continued to grow and diversify their populations. The Windy City’s population is now down to the lowest level since the 1910 Census.

Point Two: America is becoming more diverse, and the diversity is spreading.

The racial reordering of America is proceeding apace. Nowhere is this more clear than in Texas, where Hispanic and Asian populations have driven much of the state’s demographic growth. Latinos alone now account for roughly 38% of all Texans. Immigration rates in Dallas and Houston are now higher than for Chicago, Washington, Seattle and Atlanta. Texas, notes long-time observer Candace Evans, is becoming the country’s premier laboratory for promoting a successful diversity.

There are other major shifts in ethnic demographics. For one thing, minorities continue to head to the suburban rings around most major cities. African-Americans and even Latinos may be fleeing places like Chicago, but they continue to move in large numbers to suburban locales in surrounding Illinois counties. , especially south of the city. Others appear to have headed to places like the traditional black-opportunity magnet of Atlanta and or other southern hubs, such as Nashville.

Another trend appears to be the migration of ethnic minorities to areas that, in the past, have been primarily white. This is clear in the thriving Indianapolis area, where the African-American population grew by 28% and the Hispanic population by 161%, or some 56,000 souls. Look for more minority growth in such areas which have the advantage of affordable housing, robust economies and better than average job growth.

3. The Shift to “Opportunity Regions”

As the economy slid in the last years of the decade, population growth slowed, particularly in some Sun Belt states, such as Florida and Nevada, that thrived during the bubble. In contrast newcomers flocked to places, notably in the Texas cities, that offered better prospects. Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas-Ft. Worth regions all grew by 20% or more over the decade.

The key here seems to be affordability and jobs. As economist Mark Sharpe has illustrated, Texas private sector job growth last year was 2.7%, compared with 1% nationally. Unfortunately, unemployment remains over 8%, since of this growth was absorbed by newcomers. In contrast, places with the slowest, or negative growth, tend also to be losing jobs. For example, although the residential population of Chicago’s loop tripled in the past decade to 20,000,the famed business district lost almost 65,000 jobs.

But it’s not just Sun Belt cities that are gaining on places like Chicago. Indianapolis has emerged as a different kind of “opportunity region.” It lacks the dynamism and diversity of the Texas cities, but it has continued to attract people from all over the country, including the surrounding rural or old Rust Belt parts of the state. Overall the Indianapolis region grew nearly 15% over the decade, roughly 50% higher than the national average, as much as Portland and more than Seattle.

In contrast, growth seems to be slowing in some formerly hot areas. Population increases for Seattle, Portland and Denver were around 14%, about half the rate of the previous decade. Part of this may have to do with high unemployment, particularly in Oregon, and high housing prices. Still, these three areas continue to grow much faster than regions such as Chicago, St. Louis or Baltimore where growth struggled in the single digits

Possible Long-term Implications

These shifts suggest that the Obama administration might want to rethink its high-density and urban-oriented strategy. Despite all the media focus on an imagined “back to the city” movement, Americans continue to disperse to “opportunity regions” and toward the suburbs. As a result, expect generally conservative-leaning suburbs and exurbs to gain more power after reapportionment and core city influence to decline further.

Yet the Census numbers also have some unsettling aspects for Republicans. The increasing minority population even in heartland states such as Indiana, not to mention Texas, could undermine GOP gains, particularly if the party listens to its strong nativist wing. Diversification in the suburbs could ultimately turn some of these areas to the center or even left.

The new American generation arising in the census will be increasingly diverse. A growing portion will consist of the children of immigrants, and they will be predominately English-speaking. This suggests a more active and engaged minority population, perhaps susceptible to a pro-growth GOP message and the economy of “opportunity regions” but likely hostile to overtly anti-immigrants posturing.

Whatever your politics or economic interests, the Census suggests that the country is changing in dramatic way– if not always in the ways often predicted by pundits, planners or the media. It usually makes more sense to study the actual numbers, than follow the wishful thinking of largely urban-centric, big-city-based and often quite biased analysts.

This piece originally appeared at Forbes.com

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and an adjunct fellow of the Legatum Institute in London. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

Indianapolis Photo by IndySawmill

The Overdue Debate: Smart Growth Versus Housing Affordability

Wendell Cox — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:45:56 -0500

American households face daunting financial challenges. Even those lucky enough not to have suffered huge savings and retirement fund losses in the Great Recession seem likely to pay more of their incomes in taxes in the years to come, as governments attempt pay bills beyond their reasonable financial ability. Beyond that, America's declining international competitiveness and the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve Board could well set off inflation that could discount further the wealth of households.

In this environment, the last thing governments need do is to raise the cost of anything. It is bad enough that taxes may have to rise and that a dollar will probably buy less. America's standard of living could stagnate or it could even decline.

The Choice: Smart Growth or Affordability

The Washington Examiner, however, succinctly put the choices that face the nation, states and localities with respect to the largest element of household expenditure --- housing. In an editorial entitled "Take Your Pick: Smart Growth or Affordable Housing," the Examiner noted:

"No matter how much local politicians yammer about how much they support affordable housing, they are the principal cause of the problem via their land use restrictions, such as the urban growth boundary in Montgomery County and large-lot zoning in Loudoun County."

The editorial was in response to our Demographia Residential Land & Regulation Cost Index, which estimated the extent to which the land to construction ratio had risen in metropolitan regions. The principal finding was that the share of land and regulatory costs to new house prices had risen only with the impostion of more restrictive land use policies. This is principally because strategies such as urban growth boundaries, suburban large lot zoning and geographical growth steering (such as allowing state financial assistance only in areas meeting smart growth criteria) makes land for housing unnecessarily scarce, raising its price just as surely as OPEC's oil rationing raises the price of gasoline.

Urban planner and mayor of Ventura, California Bill Fulton objected to our attributing these increases to land and regulation, instead suggesting that smart growth increases homes prices much less than we claimed although, he admits, “at least a little“ . The pro-smart growth study Costs of Sprawl --- 2000 concedes that a number of smart growth strategies can increase house prices (See Table 15-4). Thus, the debate is not about whether more restrictive land use policies raise the price of housing, but rather by how much.

More often, however, proponents of more restrictive land use regulations have avoided and even denied that the inconvenient truth linking their policies with higher housing costs. Rarely, if ever, have proponents of such policies fully disclosed to elected or appointed officials that more restrictive land use policies would lead to higher house prices. It is doubtful that any urban planning department ever sent representatives to an NAACP chapter to explain how fewer African-Americans would be able to own their own homes, despite already having a one-third lower home ownership rate than non-Hispanic whites. Similarly, the planners probably never told La Raza chapters that Hispanic households, also with a one third less home ownership rate, would find home ownership more costly. Nor was the message delivered to the religious organizations concerned with improving the standard of living for lower income households.

Pervasive Evidence

Yet the evidence that smart growth boost prices substantially seems incontrovertible. An early 1970s research effort led by renowned urbanologist Peter Hall quantified the impacts of the restrictive Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, which brought smart growth measures to England. The result, The Containment of Urban England revealed how strict regulations on development had driven the price of land for development from five to ten times the value of comparable on which development was not permitted, but might be permitted in the future. More recently, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker, was commissioned by the Blair Labour government to review housing affordability and land regulation. She attributed England's more steeply rising house prices relative to continental Europe to its more restrictive land use regulations.

The same effect is evident in the United States. Dartmouth's William Fischel noted that California house prices were similar to those in the rest of the nation as late as 1970. By 1990, however, California house prices had escalated well ahead of the nation. Fischel found that the higher prices could not be explained by higher construction cost increases, demand, the quality of life, amenities, the property tax reform initiative (Proposition 13), land supply or water issues. His conclusion was that the expansion of land use restrictions were the culprit.

Let Them Eat Cake?

The disregard at least some smart growth proponents show about house prices may be characterized, for example, in a comment on the Planetizen website:

"... smart growth can lead to more expensive housing. So what? At least it's REAL value, generated by a higher quality of life, easier commutes, more transit options, walkability and a more enriched cultural experience..." (emphasis in original)

Perhaps it never occurred to the proponents of more restrictive land use policies that not all households have the benefit of incomes typical of urban planners or new urbanist architects. One has to question the "REAL values" of smart growth since most housing consumers place their highest emphasis on things like privacy, security and good schools, not always available at a decent price in urban areas.

In fact, higher priced housing reduces the discretionary income that is crucial to an acceptable standard of living to many households. Millions of households will not be in the market for "a more enriched cultural experience" until they can afford the housing they desire.

Housing Affordability and the Cost of Living

It is not accidental that the cost of living is higher (both in nominal terms and relative to incomes) in metropolitan regions where land use regulation is the strongest, such as San Diego, Washington-Baltimore, Seattle or Boston. Nor is it accidental that house prices have escalated to 40 percent above historic norms in Portland, Oregon, where planners have skimped on geographical urban growth boundary expansions, choosing instead to look skyward, seeking higher densities. California's aspiration under Senate Bill 375 for new housing at 20 units to the acre offers a more than Jakarta level of density (residential densities above 30,000 per square mile) that could escalate the unprecedented exodus of people and businesses.

Higher Housing Costs: The Poverty Connection

The acknowledged relationship between more restrictive land use regulation and higher house prices also applies to standards of living, which are sent lower, and poverty rates, which must inevitably be pushed higher. This constitutes a second inconvenient truth: as discretionary income drops, more households fall into poverty. This creates a difficulty for proponents of more restrictive land use regulation, because there is no constituency for increasing poverty. It is no wonder they have generally discounted, ignored or even denied the nexus between smart growth and higher housing costs.

Considering the financial uncertainty American households face, it is long past time that the choice between smart growth and housing affordability be seriously debated.

----

Photograph: "Low density" smart growth development adjacent to the urban growth boundary (Hillsboro) in suburban Portland (by author)

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Portland's Runaway Debt Train

Wendell Cox — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:38:31 -0400

Tri-Met, the operator of Portland's (Oregon) bus and light rail system has been in the news lately, and in less than auspicious ways. For decades, the Portland area’s media – as well as much of the national press – has been filled with stories about the national model that Tri-Met has created, especially with its five light rail lines.

The reality is less impressive. After spending an extra $5 billion over the past quarter century, public transit's share of work trip travel in Portland is less than it was before. Moreover, the Portland has now become the 38th of the major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) in which more people work at home (such as telecommuting) than ride transit to work.

Tri-Met's more recent notoriety also reveals some serious concerns about financial management . Auditors recently finished their annual report, and it indicates that that Tri-Met has run up some rather large bills that it may be hard-pressed to pay.

Unfunded Pension Liabilities: Unfunded liabilities on Tri-met’s employee pension funds have grown to more than $260 million. This deficit has developed because Tri-Met can not meet its obligation to pay into the pension funds on a current basis. Indeed, at the rate Tri-Met paid the pension funds for fiscal year 2010 (ended June 30), they would be more than eight years delinquent. Overall, the pension funds are nearly 50 percent under funded.

Other Post-Employee Benefits: "Other Post-Employee Benefits" (OPEB), made up principally of retiree health care, pose a much bigger problem. As of the end of the fiscal year, the unfunded liability for these benefits was $817 million, up $185 million in just one year. Underfunding is an even greater problem. The retiree benefits are 100 percent under funded. Tri-Met has simply put no money aside for these benefits. Tri-Met has achieved world class status in underfunding its OPEB. The Los Angeles MTA, which carries nearly five times as much travel volume as Tri-Met had unfunded OPEB liabilities of only $730 million (still a huge figure) in 2009, which is the last data available.

When challenged on the huge unfunded liability and its growth, Tri-Met General Manager Neil McFarlane responded to KATU-TV: "That’s adding apples, oranges and grapefruits together to get a completely unreasonable number." One wonders what kind of complications the chief executive office of a publicly traded Fortune 500 company would face for similarly dismissing inconvenient data in its annual report (whether from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the board of directors or the stockholders).

The auditor, Moss-Adams, LLP appended a standard opinion, to the effect that "... the financial statements ... present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the District as of June 30, 2010..." At another point the auditors note their obligation to perform the audit to "obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement." As far as McFarlane is concerned, there may be some disagreement on whether the financial statements are "free of material misstatement, "given that they include a "completely unreasonable number."

A Train of Debt: Other Tri-Met woes come from its frequent bonds issues, which to date have been approved with little oppostion. The present bonded indebtedness is more than $250 million. The agency is asking the electorate for approval of another $125 million in bonds at the November 2 election. The Oregonian, which has been a friend to nearly everything Tri-Met has done, is recommending a "no" vote on the bonds, pointing out that they would not be necessary if Tri-Met had saved sufficiently for vehicle replacement. Further, Tri-Met is searching hard for more money to fund a deficit in its proposed light rail line to suburban Milwaukie in Clackamas County, which seems a questionable project given the agency's inability to keep fares under control and maintain service levels.

Bloated Benefits: John Charles, President of the Cascade Policy Institute raised eyebrows when he noted that Tri-Met's employee benefits expense is by far the highest in the nation. Charles looked at 20 large transit agencies and found that employee benefits were equal to 152 percent of the wage bill, approaching double that of the next highest, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit District and Washington's Metropolitan Transit Authority. With their above 80 percent employer-paid benefits ratios, albeit lower than Tri-Met's 152 percent, these agencies have nothing to be proud of. In the private sector, employer-paid benefits tend to be less than 25 percent of wages. Tri-Met's 152 percent is six times that.

Bloated Compensation: With a benefits ratio of 152 percent, payroll expense per employee is a stratospheric $115,000 annually (assumes the 2008 staffing ratio, later data not identified). In contrast, the average private sector employee in the Portland metropolitan area is compensated at approximately $55,000 annually, which includes wages and a 22 percent extra for benefits (Figure 1).

Employees Ahead of Customers: Tri-Met implemented a fare increase in September and reduced bus service by 5.8 percent and light rail service by 3.5 percent. In the last 10 years, the basic bus fare has risen 71 percent, well above the 27 percent inflation rate (Figure 2). The fare increases and service cuts are imposing substantial hardship on many Tri-Met riders, who have limited incomes and no access to cars. The above inflationary fare increases represent a financial management failure of fundamental proportions.

Yet while it was raising fares, Tri-Met also increased union employee compensation by three percent and covered increases of 7.5 percent to 22.5 percent on two employee health care programs. Tri-Met has admitted that these increases were not legal obligations (could this be a gift of public funds?). The cost of the non-obligatory wage increase was more than double the amount Tri-Met expects to raise from the September fare increase. Some discontinued service could have been financed with the rest of the wage increase money and the non-obligatory health care premium increases.

Rising Costs: The question for Portland and Tri-Met remains whether this financial house of cards is sustainable. Operating and capital costs have, not surprisingly, skyrocketed. In fiscal year 2010, it is estimated that costs per passenger mile rose to more than $1.35. This is a full 40 percent above the the national transit average. This is more than five times the per passenger mile – full cost of cars and sport utility vehicles including all user costs and the portion of road expenditures (principally local streets) paid for by taxes – of less than $0.25.

Fiscal Imprudence: Past and Future: There is some too-little, too-late good news for riders. Tri-Met has told the union that it will not cover health care benefits increases in 2011, nor will there be another non-obligatory wage increase. In its editorial opposing approval of the bond issue The Oregonian spoke of "past fiscal imprudence." In appears that the mecca of transit is becoming less a role model and more a cautionary tale.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Photo: Mount Hood in exurban Portland (by author)

Decade of the Telecommute

Wendell Cox — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:38:21 -0400

The rise in telecommuting is the unmistakable message of the just released 2009 American Community Survey data. The technical term is working at home, however the strong growth in this market is likely driven by telecommuting, as people use information technology and communications technology to perform jobs that used to require being in the office.

In 2009, 1.7 million more employees worked at home than in 2000. This represents a 31% increases in market share, from 3.3 percent to 4.3 percent of all employment. Transit also rose, from 4.6% to 5.0%, an increase of 9% (Note). Even so, single occupant automobile commuting also rose, from 75.7% to 76.1%, despite the huge increase in gasoline prices. The one means of transport that continued to decline was car pooling, which saw its share decline from 12.1% in 2000 to 10.0% in 2009.

The increase in working at home was pervasive in scope. The share of employees working at home rose in every major metropolitan area (over 1,000,000 population), with an average increase of 38%. The largest increase was in Charlotte – ironically a metropolitan area with large scale office development in its urban core – with an 88% increase in the work at home market share. In five metropolitan areas, the increase was between 70% and 80% (Richmond, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Raleigh, Jacksonville and Orlando). Only five metropolitan areas experienced market share increases less than 20% (New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Rochester, Buffalo and Oklahoma City). Nonetheless, the rate of increase in the work at home market share exceeded that of transit in 49 of the 52 major metropolitan areas. Transit's increase was greater only in Washington, Seattle and Nashville (where the transit market share is miniscule).

The working at home market share increase was also strong outside the major metropolitan areas, rising 23%.

Working at home is fast closing the gap with transit. In part driven by the surge in energy prices since earlier in the decade, transit experienced its first increase since data was first collected by the Bureau of the Census in 1960. Yet working at home is growing more rapidly, and closing the gap, from 1.7 million fewer workers than transit in 2000 to only 1.0 million fewer in 2009. At the current rate, more people could be working at home than riding transit by 2017. This is already the case in much of the country outside the New York metropolitan area, which represents a remarkable 39 percent of the nation’s transit commuters. Taking New York out of the picture, 31% more people (1.35 million) worked at home than traveled by transit, more than 4 times the 7% difference in 2000 (Table 1, click for additional information).

Table 1
Transit & Work at Home Share of Commuting
Major Metropolitan Areas: 2000 & 2009

	Transit			Work at Home
Metropolitan Area	2000	2009	2000-2009	2000	2009	2000-2009
New York	27.4%	30.5%	11.4%	2.9%	3.9%	32.6%
Los Angeles	5.6%	6.2%	11.6%	3.5%	4.8%	35.3%
Chicago	11.3%	11.5%	2.0%	2.9%	4.0%	37.1%
Dallas-Fort Worth	1.8%	1.5%	-13.3%	3.0%	4.1%	37.0%
Philadelphia	8.9%	9.3%	3.7%	2.9%	3.9%	35.0%
Houston	3.2%	2.2%	-29.2%	2.5%	3.4%	37.4%
Miami-West Palm Beach	3.2%	3.5%	9.7%	3.1%	4.5%	48.0%
Atlanta	3.4%	3.7%	8.7%	3.5%	5.6%	59.9%
Washington	11.2%	14.1%	26.6%	3.7%	4.5%	22.7%
Boston	11.2%	12.2%	9.8%	3.3%	4.3%	31.9%
Detroit	1.7%	1.6%	-4.7%	2.2%	3.1%	40.1%
Phoenix	1.9%	2.3%	17.5%	3.7%	5.3%	44.3%
San Francisco-Oakland	13.8%	14.6%	6.0%	4.3%	6.0%	40.5%
Riverside	1.6%	1.8%	9.0%	3.5%	4.6%	32.6%
Seattle	7.0%	8.7%	25.0%	4.2%	5.1%	23.6%
Minneapolis-St. Paul	4.4%	4.7%	6.4%	3.8%	4.6%	20.6%
San Diego	3.3%	3.1%	-7.0%	4.4%	6.6%	50.2%
St. Louis	2.2%	2.5%	14.2%	2.9%	3.5%	22.5%
Tampa-St. Petersburg	1.3%	1.4%	11.0%	3.1%	5.5%	75.7%
Baltimore	5.9%	6.2%	5.8%	3.2%	3.9%	23.2%
Denver	4.4%	4.6%	4.3%	4.6%	6.2%	36.4%
Pittsburgh	5.9%	5.8%	-2.9%	2.5%	3.2%	28.5%
Portland	6.3%	6.1%	-3.0%	4.6%	6.1%	32.9%
Cincinnati	2.8%	2.4%	-13.4%	2.7%	3.8%	40.3%
Sacramento	2.7%	2.7%	0.8%	4.0%	5.4%	33.1%
Cleveland	4.1%	3.8%	-8.1%	2.7%	3.4%	25.0%
Orlando	1.6%	1.8%	15.4%	2.9%	4.9%	71.4%
San Antonio	2.7%	2.3%	-12.5%	2.6%	3.4%	29.0%
Kansas City	1.2%	1.2%	4.6%	3.5%	4.3%	24.7%
Las Vegas	4.4%	3.2%	-26.8%	2.3%	3.3%	45.1%
San Jose	3.4%	3.1%	-9.6%	3.1%	4.5%	44.4%
Columbus	2.1%	1.4%	-35.0%	3.0%	4.1%	36.7%
Charlotte	1.4%	1.9%	32.2%	2.9%	5.4%	88.1%
Indianapolis	1.3%	1.0%	-22.2%	3.0%	3.7%	24.7%
Austin	2.5%	2.8%	11.7%	3.6%	5.9%	64.6%
Norfolk	1.7%	1.4%	-17.7%	2.7%	3.4%	27.9%
Providence	2.4%	2.7%	12.8%	2.2%	3.6%	64.5%
Nashville	0.8%	1.2%	38.5%	3.2%	4.3%	34.6%
Milwaukee	4.2%	3.7%	-12.5%	2.6%	3.2%	25.3%
Jacksonville	1.3%	1.2%	-9.1%	2.3%	4.0%	73.8%
Memphis	1.6%	1.5%	-8.1%	2.2%	3.1%	41.3%
Louisville	2.0%	2.4%	20.2%	2.5%	3.1%	22.9%
Richmond	1.9%	2.0%	6.5%	2.7%	4.7%	76.8%
Oklahoma City	0.5%	0.4%	-13.0%	2.9%	3.1%	4.7%
Hartford	2.8%	2.8%	-1.3%	2.6%	4.0%	53.6%
New Orleans	5.4%	2.7%	-50.3%	2.4%	2.9%	19.2%
Birmingham	0.7%	0.7%	-2.3%	2.1%	2.7%	29.5%
Salt Lake City	3.3%	3.0%	-10.1%	4.0%	4.7%	17.8%
Raleigh	0.9%	1.0%	10.7%	3.5%	6.0%	74.4%
Buffalo	3.3%	3.6%	7.9%	2.1%	2.3%	8.3%
Rochester	2.0%	1.9%	-4.3%	2.9%	3.3%	13.7%
Tucson	2.5%	2.5%	1.8%	3.6%	5.0%	36.3%
Total	7.5%	8.0%	6.4%	3.2%	4.4%	37.7%

Other	1.0%	1.2%	12.3%	3.4%	4.2%	23.0%

National Total	4.6%	5.0%	9.2%	3.3%	4.3%	30.9%

Major metropolitan areas: Over 1,000,000 population in 2009
Metropolitan Area definitions as of 2009
Data from 2000 Census and 2009 American Community Survey

The rise of working at home is illustrated by the number of major metropolitan areas in which it now leads transit in market share. In 2000, working at home had a larger market share than transit in 28 of the present 52 major metropolitan areas. By 2009, working at home led transit in 38 major metropolitan areas, up 10 from 2000. Between 2000 and 2009, the working at home market share increased nearly 6 times as much as the transit share in the major metropolitan areas (38.4% compared to 6.4%).

Working at Home Leaps Above Transit In Portland and Elsewhere: Perhaps most surprising is the fact that Portland now has more people working at home than riding transit to work. This is a significant development. Portland is a model "smart growth" having spent at least $5 billion additional on light rail and bus expansions over the last 25 years. Portland was joined by other metropolitan areas Houston, Miami-West Palm Beach, New Orleans and San Jose, all of which have spent heavily on urban rail systems. Working at home also passed transit in Cincinnati, Hartford, Las Vegas, Raleigh and San Antonio (Table 2).

Table 2
Work at Home Share Greater than Transit
Major Metropolitan Areas

Atlanta	Houston	Norfolk	Sacramento
Austin	Indianapolis	Oklahoma City	Salt Lake City
Birmingham	Jacksonville	Orlando	San Antonio
Charlotte	Kansas City	Phoenix	San Digo
Cincinnati	Las Vegas	Portland	San Jose
Columbus	Louisville	Providence	St. Louis
Dallas-Fort Worth	Memphis	Raleigh	Tampa-St. Petersburg
Denver	Miami-West Palm Beach	Richmond	Tucson
Detroit	Nashville	Riverside
Hartford	New Orleans	Rochester

Indicates working at home passed transit between 2000 and 2009

Further, the shares are close enough at this point that working at home could surpass n transit in Milwaukee, Cleveland and Minneapolis-St. Paul in the next few years.

Transit: About New York and Downtown

As noted above, transit also has gained during this decade. However, the gains have not been pervasive. Out of the 52 major metropolitan areas, transit gained market share in 29 and lost in 23. As usual, transit was a New York story, as the New York metropolitan area saw its transit work trip market share rise from 27.4% to 30.5%. New York accounted for 47% of the increase in transit use, despite representing only 37% in 2000. New York added nearly 500,000 new transit commuters. This is nearly five times the increase in working at home (106,000). Washington also did well, adding 125,000 transit commuters, followed by Los Angeles at 73,000 and Seattle at 41,000.

Transit's downtown orientation was evident again. This is illustrated by the fact that more than 90% of the increased use in the major metropolitan areas occurred in those metropolitan areas with the 10 largest downtown areas (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle). Among these, only Houston experienced a decline in transit commuting.

Implications

Working at home has been the fastest growing component of commuting for nearly three decades. In 1980, working at home accounted for just 2.3% of commuting, a figure that has nearly doubled to 4.3% in 2009. This has been accomplished with virtually no public investment. Moreover, this seems to have happened without any loss of productivity. Companies like IBM, Jet Blue and many others have switched large numbers of their employees to working at home. These firms, which necessarily seek to provide the best return on their investment for stockholders and owners would not have made these changes if it had interfered with their productivity.

Over the same period, and despite the recent increases, transit's market share has fallen from 6.4% of commuting in 1980 to 5.0% in 2009. At the same time, gross spending over the period rose more than $325 billion (inflation and ridership adjusted) from 1980 levels. Inflation adjusted expenditures per passenger mile have more than doubled since that time.

Given the remarkable rise of telecommuting, its low cost and effectiveness as a means to reduce energy use, perhaps it’s time to apply at least some of our public policy attention to working in cyberspace. It presents a great opportunity, perhaps far greater and far more cost-effective than the current emphasis on new rail transit systems.

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Note: Work trip market share reflects transit in its strongest market, trips to and from work. Transit's overall impact, measured by total roadway and transit travel (passenger miles) is approximately 1%, compared to the national work trip market share of 5%.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Photograph: DDFic