Houston Strategies

HTX most diverse city in America, attracting millennials, congestion pricing, bus vs. rail, Tokyo's affordable housing supply

• An unfortunate Houston mention in Reason's most recent Surface Transportation Innovations newsletter:

"What’s frustrating is that the last 25 years have shown—in Los Angeles and other cities— that expanding bus service increases transit ridership while expanding rail service decreases transit ridership. Further, bus is almost always cheaper than rail. Even premium express bus and bus rapid transit services cost one-third to one-ninth as much as the most cost-efficient light rail lines. Yet L.A. leaders, who should know better, continue to push for rail. 

Unfortunately, this is true in many places across the country. When Houston built a multi-billion-dollar light-rail network, total transit ridership (including bus) declined. A few years ago, Houston redesigned its bus network for a minimal additional cost, which led to an increase in bus ridership. The redesign, which included adding service on weekends, helped transit-dependent riders reach jobs they could not previously access on weekends. Yet Houston politicians have responded by calling for more rail funding."

• Houston crowned most diverse city in America by new report
• Reason: NIMBYs Argue New Housing Supply Doesn’t Make Cities Affordable. They’re Wrong: Tokyo is a shining example of how free market housing regulations can keep even big, growing cities affordable.
• NYTimes: The Streets Were Never Free. Congestion Pricing Finally Makes That Plain:

"Congestion pricing is premised instead on the notion that public roads are a valuable and scarce resource. And we should pay in some places to use it not primarily to gin up revenue, but to help manage access for everyone.
...
In reality, the government is a monopoly provider of road space, and the government has largely chosen to give it away. It’s no surprise, then, that the vast majority of American commuters drive to work alone, or that all those lonely commuters (plus taxis, Ubers, buses and delivery trucks) cause congestion. 

When the government holds down the price of something people value, Mr. Manville said, we get shortages. And congestion is effectively a shortage of road — one that occurs at the peak times when people want to use it most. 

If we had that problem with other kinds of infrastructure or commodities, we’d charge people more for them. If airline tickets were particularly in demand, their prices would go up. If there were a run on avocados, grocers wouldn’t respond by keeping them as cheap as possible."

Hear, hear! 

• Where Are Millennials Moving?

"Meyers Research, which studies housing markets, asked Millennials where they wanted to move to. Their top five choices were Denver, Portland, Seattle, Washington, DC, and New York City 

Then Meyers asked where should Millennials want to live, based on the factors millennials said were most important: job opportunities, affordability, and lifestyle. The answers were Dallas, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, and Orlando. Although Denver and Seattle were both in the top ten, neither of the top-five lists had any cities in common. 

Perhaps a more pertinent question is: where are Millennials actually moving? According to a Brookings Institution analysis of American Community Survey data, the top seven destinations for millennials have been Houston, Denver, Dallas, Seattle, Austin, Charlotte, and Portland — which is more-or-less a combination of Meyers’ two lists.
...
Brookings also found that Millennials are leaving New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, and Miami. That pretty much kills the myth that Millennials prefer density, as those urban areas all have much higher than average densities (4,000 people per square mile and above). Numbers six and seven are Boston and Philadelphia, which also have very dense cores although their overall urban areas are less dense."

Labels: affordability, congestion pricing, density, growth, home affordability, identity, land-use regulation, Metro, mobility strategies, rail, rankings, transit, zoning

posted by Tory Gattis @ 8:26 PM