Passenger Trains > Can High-Speed Rail Make Housing Affordable?

"UCLA management professor Jerry Nickerson thinks he has found a solution to California’s housing affordability problems: high-speed rail. Based on years of data, he has concluded that some Japanese who work in Tokyo and other expensive cities make long commutes on high-speed trains to more affordable cities elsewhere in the country...."

http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=15492

The rest of the article refers to the California High Speed Commuter project.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/19 11:04 by Duna.

In 20 years maybe. We are so far away from that at this point in the US. The other question is affordability of a monthly pass. Again not likely at Acela prices.
 

Housing in California is not unafordable due to lack of transportation infrastructure. It's unaffordable due to the massive influx of illegal immigrants and also due to ridiculous obstacles developers have to face today in order to build anything. HSR will solve neither of these issues unless they build routes into Nevada.

hilarious......

66

Maybe on the fringe, as people who can afford and need the high rent, transit accessible locations near the new stations move away.

Flyer92122 Wrote:
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> In 20 years maybe. We are so far away from that at
> this point in the US. The other question is
> affordability of a monthly pass. Again not likely
> at Acela prices.
>  

Bay Area needs their peasant cooks, gardeners, and cleaners. CAHSC is the way. Need to bump up the current $11 minimum wage ($15 in 'Frisco) and raise taxes on what's left of the middle class.

As Speaker Pelosi said, "Not one step back!"

"Come on everybody, let's go!" As said by Peter Pan, as he Flys out the window.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Housing in California is not unafordable due to
> lack of transportation infrastructure. It's
> unaffordable due to the massive influx of illegal
> immigrants and also due to ridiculous obstacles
> developers have to face today in order to build
> anything.

U see, and I didnt event think that DJT was reading TO!

Personally, I hate developers.  Always trying to build some monstrosity  and make a mess in someone elses neighborhood.  Tell ya what.  I'd go along with lower fees if all developers are required to build houses next door to their own house.

As for as this research paper is concerned.....
1. You've got to present papers to get that fellowship, or keep that university job.
2. Most of these papers start with the conclusion, and work backwards with justification...IMHO, of course...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/19 11:37 by pdt.

In Silicon Valley, more towards San Jose than SF, I keep running into people with two jobs, like at a Grocery store, or retail store and a fast food restaurant job of some sort. They live in the distant less pricey areas near the Central Valley, but the traffic between the home and the work is gridlocked. so they find jobs that are off peak hours then drive back and forth with nap time in their car between jobs. They seem to be hoping to put money away, kinda like working the job market while it lasts. But they don't fit into the mass transit routes as their job or job location changes

Skilled people, Health Care types or 4 year degrees don't want to expose themselves to mass transit options like BART specifically due to violent crime and extensive schedule disruptions. CalTrain is getting the schedule disruption rap. Many of them go out of their way to find a feeder bus for the first few miles from the job site, like across the bridge or across the coastal hills that have poor road capacity and then drive or use the ACE train to get further east. The job needs to have some sort of flexible hours to accommodate the transit time variables, no flexibility means they leave home very early and drive.

The big degrees and Management types insist on the flexibility and privacy of driving. An interesting variation is weekly commuting by small airplane group charters, the job often has Hotel perks, or they hook up with many people in a house as they did in College, or simply work at the site for a couple days and then work from home after that. The new Governor has talked about stubbing the CaHSR to effectively use it as a commute route into the Silicon Valley, which is great until the next Techno-bust.

The housing is the area is stupendously priced, many times more than one generation of a family is living in the structure. The idea is to invest in the house and cash out when the times comes. Which doesn't work in the case of another 'dot com' bust.

The classic is the very skilled 'coders' or very skilled Engineer/Operators that wind up bringing their family RV into the area to spend a few nights in. Either finding a RV park, some go to the State parks, or an overnight spot on the street. I also worked with $100K level Contractors who rented a couch in a nearby home, bathroom rights included but no shower rights for $500 a month. Choosing between the tent in the yard or the couch in the hallway. They clean up in the company lunch time excercise showers, then head home when the work slows down. No monthly pass required.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/19 11:54 by TCnR.

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Personally, I hate developers.  Always trying to
> build some monstrosity  and make a mess in
> someone elses neighborhood.  Tell ya what.  I'd
> go along with lower fees if all developers are
> required to build houses next door to their own
> house.

In San Francisco, it has little to do with money and everything to do with "anti-development activists" such as Latino cultural district "Calle 24", which, ironically, has also complained about the lack of affordable housing there.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/27/developer-of-historic-laundromat-in-san

"...The idea is to invest in the house and cash out when the times comes. Which doesn't work in the case of another 'dot com' bust..."
 
Dot-com could bust, again, only if the Chinese stopped buying iPhones - Oops!
 

Housing will be unaffordable as long as people block any new housing development (just look at San Francisco). On the other hand, I'm not that big of a believer that building luxury townhomes will lower housing prices for everyone. 

We can look at Minneapolis to see what they're doing, such as eliminating mandatory parking requirements and eliminating single family zoning: 
​https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/12/12/minneapolis-moves-to-eliminate-mandatory-parking/

At the end of the day, it is in the best interest of the land owner to see housing values go up. This is in direct conflict with working class people who can barely make rent payments, or younger millennials who are looking to make their first home purchase and are realizing they’re completely priced out of the market (me).  
 

The question should be:  Will more affordable housing be available with high speed rail?  Of course it will.  Housing in areas that are not commutable by car would become feasible with rail in place.  That, in turn, would take pressure off real estate that is commutable, thereby bringing prices more in line with availability.

It's rather interesting reading about this.  Look at historical photos of steam powered commuter trains throughout the country bringing people to work (or shop) in the cities, when people started moving away from the city, which was partially because housing out there was more affordable than in the city where demand was higher.  Then came a second automobile (or one per person) and interstates, improved roads and those commuter trains disappeared.  Then comes higher gas prices and gridlock on those roads, and the demand for commuter rail returned. Now housing anywhere near a job center is unaffordable to most, so we are back to moving farther away from work and wanting rail service.  Kinda like coming full circle.

pdt Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Personally, I hate developers.  Always trying to
> build some monstrosity  and make a mess in
> someone elses neighborhood.  Tell ya what.  I'd
> go along with lower fees if all developers are
> required to build houses next door to their own
> house.

I did some research for an argument over a similar situation in my area. The developers want to rezone for apartments in a modest single family neighborhood "because density is needed for transit." They speculate, buying properties, lobbying for rezone, and in the process jacking up "values" until the folks in the little houses can't aford the taxes on their "valuable" property. However, I identified over a hundred acres of parking lots open to the sky. That's about 1000 typical (around here) residential lots. The developers don't want to touch that.I didn't count the acres of strip malls that are open to the sky above the ground floor. They don't want to touch that either. They want middle class houses and retired folks houses.

> 2. Most of these papers start with the conclusion,
> and work backwards with justification

...like so many consulting gigs.

TAW

a737flyer Wrote:
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> The question should be:  Will more affordable
> housing be available with high speed rail?  Of
> course it will. 

i disagree.  i think that the people who still have to commute 2-3hrs a day on hsr and feeder routes to get to work will still pay top dollar for housing closer to work that will eliminate their commute.  as long as people have a desire to live in places closer to their employement for whatever reasons, i don't see housing prices staying resonable.......

>Housing in areas that are not
> commutable by car would become feasible with rail
> in place.  That, in turn, would take pressure off
> real estate that is commutable, thereby bringing
> prices more in line with availability.

the population in california is going to do nothing but INCREASE (for various reasons) and i don't see how that will take any pressure off of real estate prices and the subsequent commutes.........

66

trainjunkie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Housing in California is not unafordable due to
> lack of transportation infrastructure. It's
> unaffordable due to the massive influx of illegal
> immigrants and also due to ridiculous obstacles
> developers have to face today in order to build
> anything. HSR will solve neither of these issues
> unless they build routes into Nevada.

2018 was one of the lower recnet years for migrants coming to California.  

RRBaron Wrote:
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> 2018 was one of the lower recnet years for
> migrants coming to California.  

BFD, it's been going on for decades. Stopping or slowing it now is too little, too late.

RRBaron Wrote:
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> trainjunkie Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Housing in California is not unafordable due to
> > lack of transportation infrastructure. It's
> > unaffordable due to the massive influx of
> illegal
> > immigrants and also due to ridiculous obstacles
> > developers have to face today in order to build
> > anything. HSR will solve neither of these
> issues
> > unless they build routes into Nevada.
>
> 2018 was one of the lower recnet years for
> migrants coming to California.  

do ALL migrants dutifully register that they have entered california for an accurate count?

no they don't..........

66

 

Think about this for a minute. The first two planned stops for California High speed rail in the Central Valley are to be downtown Madera and downtown Fresno! Now all these people wishing to commute to San Jose and San Francisco for work are going to have to drive from the Valley stations (big parking structures) to homes some where and hopefully close to the stations. Any new housing near Fresno or Madera is going to eat up more valuable farm land that we need for growing the country’s food. Housing has already taken a bunch of farm land as it is. So tell what am I not seeing here?

Valleyman