Infrastructure is the top issue facing the real estate industry. As traffic gets worse, the most valuable real estate appears to be closest to rapid transit. In Boston, over the last two years, 80% of the office and land leases over 100,000 sq ft have been signed for buildings within a five-minute walk of a train station. Clearly, there is not an infrastructure surplus. It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, economic issues metro areas are facing according to the Ohio Economic Development Organization.
Austin, Texas officials have made multiple attempts for improved transit in their city, which is ranked one of the worst cities in the United States for traffic. The two attempts have failed. It appears that everything we do in transit is slow, inefficient, and does not take advantage of the latest technologies. Citizens seem to be looking at the inefficiency of government and saying, “why would we approve this mess?”
Lengthy planning and approval processes in the United States drive up costs enormously when compared to transit systems abroad. Remember that most in the U.S. look to Europe as leaders in reduction of pollution. Recent light rail systems in cities like Houston, Dallas, and Portland cost between $100 million and $200 million per mile while French light rail networks cost between $40 and $100 million a mile, according to CityLab. Approval processes in the U.S. are killing transit opportunities and killing opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint.
However, Transit Oriented Development along the Blue Line in Charlotte, North Carolina fueled $3 billion in new development between the year the transit line began service to the end of 2018, according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Census estimates show that the percentage of the workforce working from home most of the week grew from 3.3% in 2000 to 5.3% in 2018 and is growing. From 2008 to 2017 the number of commuters working from home increased from 5.7% to 7.3%. These changes in telecommuting need to be factored into trip generation and parking demand. These changes in parking demand will result in a decrease in traffic volumes. Inrex has indicated that a 2% to 3% decrease in traffic volumes could be associated with a 30% decline in traffic congestion. The more people work at home, the less use of transit and fewer parking spaces are needed.