Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
CNT Research Director, Linda Young, at the Chicago press conference in Union Station.
March 11th marked Transportation Freedom Day for the Chicago area—the date on which a typical area household has earned enough income to cover its annual transportation costs. In the Chicago region, it takes the average household 70 days to make enough money to cover their transportation costs. That’s about $8,300 per year, though costs vary widely in the region. For example, in Chicago’s Roscoe Village, transportation costs are only about $7,000 annually, whereas in suburban West Dundee, costs increase to almost $11,800 annually. In contrast, residents of New York City only spend about $5,400 on transportation each year.
In transit-rich neighborhoods within walking distance to retail, schools and recreation such as Roscoe Village and the South Loop in Chicago, household transportation costs are lower, and residents spend 6-8 weeks of pay for annual transportation costs. In dispersed communities, far from jobs and with no access to transit, such as West Dundee and Sugar Grove, households spend up to 13 weeks of wages on annual transportation costs.
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Local Leaders Must do more to Save on Transportation Costs
Chicago, IL – On Thursday, Chicago residents celebrate Transportation Freedom Day, the date a typical area household has earned enough to cover its annual transportation costs. To mark the occasion, community and transit advocacy groups joined together at Union Station to push for better transportation. It is based on Census data includes gas, repairs, parking, vehicle depreciation and transit fares.
“Transportation Freedom Day is an eye opener,” stated Kate Lehman of Illinois PIRG. “It shows the need for greater investments in more efficient ways to get around, such as public transit. When government makes the right kind of transportation investments, citizens save a lot of money.”
Americans on average spend an astounding 19 percent of their annual income on transportation, far more than they pay for food, clothing, entertainment, income taxes or even health care. New findings released by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group (Illinois PIRG) show that a typical Chicago household shells out the equivalent of 19 percent, or 70 days of a typical annual salary to pay for transportation costs. In more walkable communities and better transit systems households spend less. In New York City, for instance, residents could expect to spend the equivalent of about 3 and a half fewer weeks of income to get around.
“Here in the Chicago region, average annual transportation costs can range from $7,034 for a household in Chicago’s Roscoe Village Neighborhood, to $11,783 in suburban West Dundee, a savings of more than $4,500 per year,” noted Scott Bernstein, President of the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
People may not recognize how much they pay for transportation. The average American household spent more than $8,000 per year on its vehicles in 2008 according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Americans who live in areas with good access to public transit generally spend less on transportation than those who are fully dependent on cars. Residents in transit-friendly areas tend to attain “Transportation Freedom” earlier in the year, but Chicago still lags behind other major cities. By highlighting these dates, Illinois PIRG, CNT, and Midwest HSR Association seek to raise awareness about how access to public transportation is a crucial for saving Americans money.
For example, while 70 days must pass before the income from a median-income household living in Chicago would cover their annual transportation bill. However, a typical household that would live in car-dependent Sugar Grove could expect to wait 93 days, equivalent to twelve weeks of income before their transportation costs are covered.
“Little Village is among the ten lowest-income community areas in Chicago. Transportation costs hit much harder for struggling families in these neighborhoods. Without our fair share of funding, the transit system cannot meet the transportation needs of our communities,” said Michael Pitula of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.
Advocacy groups are calling on Mayor Daley to push for better transit. Chicago is famous for its elevated and historic transportation system, but its past due for our city’s transportation to be known for efficiency and cost effectiveness for all Chicagoland residents.
Transportation Freedom Day data comes from the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, which is a leader in statistically based analysis of transportation and housing. Transportation costs are controlled for differences of income, family size, and number of working individuals in a household. Transportation demand is modeled using the most recent census data, and costs are calculated to include car ownership, maintenance, gas, and transit fares. A detailed description of their transportation cost methodology can be found at: http://htaindex.cnt.org/model_summary.
Transportation Freedom Day logo found at http://www.uspirg.org/transportation/freedom-day
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Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
"Chicago’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2000", copyright CNT, 2010.
When CNT set out to inventory Chicago’s greenhouse gas emissions, our goal was to give the Mayor’s Task Force on Climate Change the information it needed to better understand where Chicago’s emissions come from and to establish a baseline for comparison in future years. In addition to that, we created a portfolio of emissions reductions measures to better understand the scale and scope of actions that needed to be taken to meet the city’s emissions reduction targets.
Beyond the City-commissioned research, our broader goal is to make our climate change analysis transparent and available for cities around the world to take action on reducing their impact on climate change. Soon this research will be available in the Journal of Great Lakes Research and it is our belief that the valuable information in this peer-reviewed, scientific journal can serve as a useful tool for cities to use a model.
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 1:42 pm
CNT lost a cherished colleague and co-conspirator for the Common Good, Jan Metzger, who died after a two year battle with cancer on February 22, 2010. Jan joined CNT in 1995, bringing to CNT her smarts, community activism, and ability to make change from the local to the national levels.
Jan was a committed, feisty, and strong woman who was a dedicated resident of Wicker Park – she was a long-time member of Association House board and recently retired as the President of Special Service Area #33. Under Jan’s leadership, the neighborhood developed a community plan that met the needs of new and old-time residents. Read the rest of this entry »
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Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 11:42 am
The Illinois Rain Garden Initiative grant program provides funds for the construction of a rain garden on public property. A rain garden is a depression, often near a downspout, that is planted with native wetland or aquatic vegetation. Rain gardens can be designed to flower throughout the summer and built to will hold stormwater runoff or snow melt, allowing the water to be absorbed slowly by the plants and the soil.
Rain gardens reduce stormwater runoff, improve water quality, allow for the recharge of groundwater supplies, increase wildlife habitat and often reduce the need for mowing and its associated costs and pollution. You’ll find the application forms at http://dnr.state.il.us/education/CLASSRM/RainGarden/applicationpage.htm. Teachers, not-for-profit organizations and community groups may apply. The maximum award is $1,000. Grant applications due by March 19, 2010. For more information, contact the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ (IDNR) Division of Education (dnr.teachkids@illinois.gov or 217-785-0973). The IDNR and Illinois Conservation Foundation administer this program. Funds are provided through a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
(Photo of St. Margaret Mary School and Church raingarden)
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Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Yesterday, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, Ray LaHood, announced the 51 projects—a mix of highways to boulevards projects, complete streets initiatives, streetcars and light-rail projects, and innovative highway funding—that will receive federal funding from the TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) program, which was funded by $1.5 billion included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). According to Sec. LaHood, awards went to “projects that create jobs, stimulate economic activity, and help develop livable communities.”
USDOT continues to affirm its commitment to fund innovative transportation projects that focus on multi-modal transport, reducing greenhouse gases and creating livable communities; simultaneously addressing economic, environmental and travel issues.
In particular, the Chicago region is poised to benefit greatly from a $100 million investment into the CREATE (Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency) program.
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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Through the end of 2009, investments by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in public transportation have created almost twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways – and the advantage is growing.
The most recent data from states, made available by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, shows that every billion dollars spent on public transportation produced 19,299 job-months, compared to 10,493 job-months for every billion spent on highway infrastructure. Public transportation projects create more jobs than road projects because they spend less money on land and more on labor, and because projects are often more complex, whether laying track or manufacturing vehicles.
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Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
State Jobs Data Show Growing Advantage from Stimulus Investments in Public Transportation
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Through the end of 2009, investments by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in public transportation have created almost twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways – and the advantage is growing. The most recent data from states shows that every billion dollars spent on public transportation produced 19,299 job-months, compared to 10,493 job-months for every billion spent on highway infrastructure. Public transportation projects create more jobs than road projects because they spend less money on land and more on labor, and because projects are often more complex, whether laying track or manufacturing vehicles.
The data were released by the US House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on February 9, 2010 and analyzed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America, and U.S. PIRG. The new data from the states add two months and several billion dollars to previously released data. The new data show public transportation’s job-production performance advantage widening.
“States have put more than $22.6 billion of transportation stimulus funds under contract,” said Geoff Anderson, President of Smart Growth America. “We’ve gotten a lot of vital projects for that money—and we’ve also learned a lot. Treasury Secretary Geithner just told Congress: “Our basic test should be: what’s going to add jobs?” At the stimulus’s one-year mark, we’ve learned that the answer is ‘more public transportation.’”
New data show public transportation’s job-production performance advantage widening
The number of jobs created or saved per billion stimulus dollars spent on transportation is rising over time for both public transportation and highways. The data shows public transportation creating, on average, 2,880 more job months per billion dollars than it had two months ago. Highway spending created 1,712 more job months per billion than two months ago. Thus, a billion dollars invested in public transportation produces 8,806 more job months than a billion dollars spent on highways. The difference is an increase from two months ago when the extra employment impact from investing in public transit was 7,638 more job months. The states are reporting updated job-creation numbers as they bring more projects under contract, and as the states correct earlier reports.
“Not only do public transportation investments create more jobs, more quickly than highways. We now see the advantage growing over time as the stimulus advances,” said Phineas Baxandall, Senior Analyst at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “If job creation was an Olympic event, public transportation would be laps ahead and gaining. At the one-year mark, it isn’t even close.”
Other recent data also confirm that ARRA investments in public transportation are superior job creators. Last month’s President’s Council of Economic Advisers Second Quarterly ARRA Economic Impact Report showed that public transportation was the top job generator among ARRA clean energy programs (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/100113-economic-impact-arra-second-quarterly-report.pdf, page 47, Table 13).
“The new data shows that the job productivity of transit is no fluke – transit not only maintained its job productivity advantage over highway investing over a longer period of time, in the fourth quarter it was the top job supporter of all clean energy investments in ARRA, according to the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors,” said Scott Bernstein, President of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. “Shifting as much of our transportation spending to the most job-creating investments as we can is essential. The Senate should pass companion legislation to the House’s Jobs for Main Street bill, and make it effective by giving transit spending parity with highways.”
The numbers
CNT, SGA, and US PIRG analyzed the data reported by states and posted by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee here: http://transportation.house.gov/singlepages/singlepages.aspx?NewsID=852
The results of the analysis (click on for larger version):
(The report by CNT, SGA, and US PIRG on the earlier data, “What We learned from the Stimulus, and how to use what we learned to speed job creation in the 2010 jobs bill”, is available at: http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/stimulus2009.html.)
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