In Brief:
- A new report reveals where homes are most concentrated near transit service.
- Among states, California has the highest proportion of transit-adjacent homes and Mississippi has the lowest.
- Efforts to promote transit-oriented housing development are underway all over the country.
In the U.S., nearly every working-age adult relies on a personal vehicle to get around. That’s partly a matter of personal preference in a culture built around driving. It’s also a function of how few alternatives most Americans have.
According to a new analysis from the Urban Institute, only 10 percent of homes in the U.S. are within half a mile of frequent, reliable public transit service. But the picture is vastly different from city to city and state to state. New York City has by far the highest share of residents who live close to rail or other frequent transit, with other big, dense cities like Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia predictably ranking near the top as well. Residents of Atlanta, Houston and Dallas are the least likely to live near any transit at all, while only 1 percent of homes in Miami, Tampa and Detroit are located near frequent transit. At the state level, Mississippi has the smallest share of homes near any transit, at 10 percent, and California has the highest share, at 73.4 percent. Alaska, Arkansas, Maine, Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia have no homes at all within a half mile of frequent, reliable transit. Almost everyone in Washington, D.C., lives near frequent transit, and most live close to urban rail service.
Yonah Freemark, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute, says he built the data set because it was something he had frequently wished already existed to inform an ongoing policy debate. The analysis includes a tool that allows users to explore the transit-oriented housing rates in any area.
Planners and advocates have been pushing cities and states for years to promote greater housing density near transit service, with related goals of expanding transit ridership, reducing car dependence, limiting carbon emissions and slowing urban sprawl. Those efforts have started to pay off. States like California and Massachusetts have recently adopted new transit-oriented development policies, allowing taller, denser buildings in neighborhoods served by trains and buses. And according to the report, since the year 2000, every urban area in the country has concentrated more of its new housing near transit than in the decades prior.
“I think the politics on transit-oriented development is extremely positive right now,” Freemark says. “I’m seeing unanimity across the nation about the value of investing in housing near transit.”
Freemark notes that communities of different political stripes have increased their emphasis on transit-oriented development in recent years. Seattle and Salt Lake City have both more than doubled the number of housing units within a half-mile of a rail station since 1980, for example. It isn’t just because they’re pro-transit per se.
“Both Utah and Washington state have pretty strong growth management policies that say you have to concentrate growth to the degree possible in infill development. That has the side effect of concentrating growth near transit,” Freemark says.
Adopting the right zoning policies that allow dense housing near transit stops is a key step to promoting greater concentration, the report says. But so is investing in frequent transit — an uphill battle for many cities in the post-pandemic era. Other strategies include investing in quality-of-life improvements near transit stations, which helps attract housing development, and coordinating planning between housing officials and transportation authorities.
“I think it means being intentional about your investments,” Freemark says.
