Map Wire: Land Uses in 5 Transit Corridors

Back in 2008 we finished a report called Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit.  It was one of the first times that HUD and FTA had worked together and was a starting point for those agencies eventually working together as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities along with the EPA.  You can see many of the recommendations for FTA and HUD to work together in this action plan from 2008 presented to congress.

But in the Realizing the Potential report, we looked at the affordable housing situations of five different rail corridors. I did 5 maps for each line looking at land use and housing data. The map below represents the different land uses on those corridors in Boston along the Fairmount Line, the Denver West Corridor which was recently completed, the Portland Streetcar, the Charlotte South Corridor, and Minneapolis' Hiawatha Line.  Each map individually can be found in the report or in the map room.  I believe this was put together for a powerpoint.

 

[Full Size PDF]

The interesting part is the huge difference in developable land on each line.  While Boston is a built out corridor, Charlotte has a lot of industrial properties and large parcels that could be changed to housing.  This was a fun map to make, but I must say the Boston parcel data was not fun to work with.

Podcast: Tanya Snyder Joins to Talk Earthquakes and City Kids, Not In That Order

This week we're joined by Talking Headways alum Tanya Snyder to discuss a whole bunch of issues including single family zoning in Seattle, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, folks leaving the cities they love and kids in cities.  Join us for a fun half hour of chit chat about this and that.

Map Wire: High Speed Rail Flashback

I'm starting a new series of posts based on maps I've made in the past.  Today's maps are from 2011 and feature the big hopes for the United States high speed rail program.  Due to continued lack of funding after the stimulus and blockages from Congress, plans outside of California and Texas have been slowly moving along without much fanfare.  There's been lots of talk about the Northeast Corridor but as I tweeted recently, I wonder how many New York Times articles it would take to get it going. 

It's fun to take a look back at what we were thinking about in the past.  Perhaps at some point it could be our future.

You can find the originals here [Investment Levels] + [ Project Pipeline]

Podcast: The Freeway That Never Was

This week on the podcast we chat with Brendan Wittstruck about I-755 in St. Louis, a freeway that was never built.

Podcast: High Speed Rail Lessons for California from France and Germany

Eric Eidlin joins the podcast to talk about his German Marshall Fund research on High Speed Rail in France and Germany.  Definitely check it out as there are lots of great discussions about station land uses, station locations, and last mile connections.