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.