Starting today, when you visit Walk Score you’ll also get information about nearby transit options, commuting details, and the expected cost of housing plus transportation. Some of the new features:

• A Transit Score for the 40+ cities that provide open transit data. See the list of cities here
• By entering a work and home address, you can get custom commute reports for all cities showing hills on your route for biking or walking, nearby transit lines, and travel times and directions based on mode. Select walking, biking, transit or driving and see the route update dynamically. (See example below)
• They’ve also joined with the Center for Neighborhood Technology to allow users to calculate their expected transportation costs to give a fuller picture of the cost of a home.
• They’re partnering with the real estate site ZipRealty to have this provided with all of ZipRealty’s home listings. So anyone looking for a home on their site will get exposed to these ideas on a regular basis.

Together with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Walk Score and CNT have done more than almost anyone to help raise the visibility of the issue of housing and transportation costs in the minds of consumers and adding transit to the mix is the next obvious step. After all, you may live in a neighborhood with a 75 Walk Score but you’re a five minute walk away from a bus or train that can take you to a neighborhood with a 100 Walk Score in just a few more minutes. Being able to walk to and use a variety of of other transportation options expands your “walkshed” — something that Walk Score doesn’t recognize on its own.

When you search for the Walk Score now, you also get a Transit Score. And if you live in one of the 40 cities with open transit data, you can enter a second address and get a commute report, complete with directions. As an example, here’s a commute from a neighborhood north of downtown D.C and the T4 America office., where some of our staff live and ride their bikes to work. Click on the bike commute, and it shows you the profile of the hills, the time and mileage, and the route on a map:

These commute reports will be available for all cities, though the transit data will be left off for cities without open data.

Now I know what you’re thinking: only 40 cities with transit data? Indeed, Transit Score unfortunately only has access to a limited set of open transit data, because not all agencies have chosen to open up this publicly-owned data as a public resource. But there’s hope. You can petition your local transit agency to release their data publicly to make exciting tools like this and others possible. Visit www.citygoround.org to see a list of the 695 agencies with no open data and find information on how to request your local agency provide that data. (Read our post about the release of CityGoRound.)

Transit Score was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, and had this to say in the official press release this morning:

“The Rockefeller Foundation’s transportation initiative is committed to helping Americans re-think our transportation future as a way to expand economic opportunity, and we are excited about the potential impact Transit Score will have in helping Americans make more informed decisions about where they will live and work,” said Benjamin de la Pena, Associate Director at The Rockefeller Foundation. “Transportation costs are often the second highest expense for working Americans and Transit Score will give families more control over their household budgets by providing them with information about their transit choices.”

The housing+transportation calculator is cool, but at the risk of going on too long on a Monday morning, if you really want to dive into finding out more about housing and transportation costs today, you need to check out Abogo from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. Type in an address, and it gives you the cost you can expect to pay for transportation at that address and an estimate on emissions. With one glance at the color, you can see where transportation costs are low, and where they are higher, helping to make a more informed decision.

These kinds of tools are certainly important for helping consumers make more informed decisions when purchasing a house, but the greatest value is really what they do to help shatter the myth that the cost of a home is the only major cost of a home. With multiple trips taken each day to all the places we need to go, the locations of our homes have profound impacts on our pocketbooks, wallets and time. We applaud Walk Score, Transit Score and CNT for working hard to make the case that we need more walkable, transit-accessible places in our communities — and that the market is demanding them.

The transportation challenges for rural America have more to do with factors like access and opportunity than congestion and traffic. With volatile energy prices and longer distances between employment, groceries and health services, transportation choices are essential. More than 1.6 million rural households do not have access to a car, making routine trips a strain on a family’s time and budget. For those who do drive, high gas prices take a big chunk out of monthly incomes. Rural residents with cars drive about 17 percent more miles each year than their urban counterparts.

CNT’s analysis finds rural residents feeling squeezed in every corner of America, from Alaska to Alabama. In the areas near Billings, Montana, average annual household gas expenses have reached $5,300 per year, up from just $2000 per year just a decade ago. Costs shot up $3,200 between 2000 and 2008 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the rural pockets surrounding Las Cruces, New Mexico, costs were up $3,100. In the image below, turquoise  indicates Billings-area communities where yearly housing and transportation costs exceed the 45 percent threshold.

The CNT formula defines true affordability as less than 45 percent of household income going toward housing and transportation costs combined.

The website features profiles of communities in both rural and metro areas alike.

CNT’s three recommendations for inclusion in a new transportation bill are: 1) making transportation costs as transparent as possible; 2) using a similar yardstick as the true affordability in future policies and funding priorities for transportation; and 3) increasing incentives for projects that increase transit options and proximity to employment and housing. Support for passenger rail and intercity buses — both heavily-relied upon in sparser parts of the country —can and should fit under these policy umbrellas.

But rural livability is much more than just a discussion topic in Washington D.C.  Stephen Lee Davis of Smart Growth America (and a Transportation for America colleague,) recently wrote about his experience living in Bentonville, Arkansas, a medium-sized town known best as the world headquarters for Wal-Mart Stores. In a two-part series on the Smart Growth America blog, Steve questioned the political figures who see livability as disconnected from America’s rural areas and small towns:

…for me and my wife and many others living in the older part of the city [street grid] in those weeks [in 2005] with astronomical gas prices, a pretty normal life was still possible, even while trying to cut back driving significantly to save money. Several weekends in a row, we parked our cars entirely, and managed to do our grocery shopping, go to church, visit friends, or listen to bluegrass in the square on a Friday night without having to get in either of our two cars. We walked 5 minutes to the grocery store. We biked to Walmart a handful of times — receiving many strange looks in the process. We went to eat at a new restaurant on the square. We went hiking on a short trail in the woods right on the edge of downtown. We went to the library.

Sounds pretty “livable,” right?

…and explained how current transportation policy has failed the residents of towns like Bentonville.

People who live in classic American small towns like Bentonville know a thing or two about livability. There’s nothing “livable” about being stuck in your subdivision that got built too far from town, work or school when gas prices get too high. Nor is it “livable” to have the federal government incentivizing (through money to the State DOT) the widening of highways into the county to encourage more sprawl outside of town even as the city is clamoring for more investment inside of it.

Like their urban counterparts, many residents in rural areas and small towns hope to preserve what they love about their way of life while making it easier to get by — and get around. CNT’s work helps to bring those challenges to light and move policy in a direction that produces results.

New research from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, turns the conventional wisdom about affordable housing on its head. Rather than considering solely housing prices as a measure of affordability, CNT computed a formula that factors in transportation costs, yielding a very different portrait of affordability. They redefine true affordability as less than 45 percent of income for housing and transportation costs combined. (Typical affordability falls around 30 percent or less of income.) By this expanded measure, 48,000 communities deemed affordable by conventional metrics are actually unaffordable. The percentage of affordable communities drops from almost 70 percent by traditional measurements to just below 40 percent.

This release expands CNT’s previous work on this tool from just the biggest 52 metro areas to 337 metropolitan statistical areas across the U.S. So what does “location efficiency” mean?

While the concept of energy efficiency is a familiar term, locations can be efficient too. Compact neighborhoods with walkable streets, access to transit, and a wide variety of stores and services have high location efficiency. They require less time, money, and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel requirements.

The contrast between two communities – the Mt. Washington neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Southern California suburb of Palmdale – provides a telling snapshot of affordability and “location efficiency.”

In Mt. Washington, perched above downtown Pittsburgh across the river, residents enjoy walkable streets, ample open space, a vibrant business district and close proximity to schools. Transit ridership is above average for the region, with 23 percent of workers using transit for the daily commute, and residents spend an average of $474 a month on transportation. The average combined housing and transportation cost, according to CNT’s formula, was 39 percent of income. In low-density Palmdale, the fastest growing city in Los Angeles County in 2009 but miles from the heart of L.A., only 4 percent of workers use public transportation for their daily commute and average transportation costs per month are nearly $900. According to CNT’s formula, average housing and transportation costs require 54 percent of income.

Palmdale, California, left, and Mt. Washington pictured with the blue areas showing places where housing + transportation costs total more than 45%. Screenshots from CNT.

Penny-wise and pound-foolish (or pound-fuelish) is how the report’s describes many Americans’ approach to affordability. So how can we increase people’s options, raise awareness of hidden transportation costs and encourage a broader view perspective on affordable housing?

CNT has three suggestions.

First, transportation costs should be as transparent as possible. A bill sponsored by Congressman Earl Blumenauer would do just that by requiring transportation costs to be disclosed in real estate transactions.

Second, future policies and investments in transportation should measure true affordability with this new yardstick. The Livable Communities Act, sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, would move us in that direction.

And third, federal transportation law ought to provide more funding and incentives to increase transportation options and greater proximity between housing, transit and jobs. These changes must be included in the next reauthorization of the transportation bill, which Congress just extended to the end of 2010.

With low-income and impoverished residents increasingly concentrating outside of central cities in areas where transportation costs are much higher, we need to invest in the kinds of transportation options that will keep them from getting stranded when gas prices go up.

The good news is that many public officials get it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has expressed his desire to broaden the criteria for transportation projects, and a new partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency, DOT and Housing and Urban Development is included in President Obama’s 2011 budget. As Elana Schor said on Streetsblog this morning, this data is “aimed at encouraging the Obama administration to update its measurement of affordability, a goal embraced by the heads of the three agencies participating in the inter-agency sustainability work.”

Ron Sims, deputy secretary at HUD, said the Center’s report “demands that we address the issue of transportation costs and the built environment so people can make a better decision about where they live and what they can afford.”

We echo that demand.

This week, Americans from around the country will speak to their representatives, seeking to emphasize those links. The “health fly-in” will commence Thursday and is sponsored by Transportation for America, the American Public Health Association, the Complete Streets campaign and PolicyLink, a research institute specializing in social equity.

The U.S. transportation system – our roads, bridges and highways, as well as bicycle and pedestrian paths – propels our social and economic lives. Unfortunately, the system we have takes a significant toll on our health and safety.

By building neighborhoods, towns and cities that require a car trip for nearly every move we make, we have literally engineered physical activity out of our daily lives. In many sprawling communities, driving is the only option for getting to school, work and recreation, and new road projects tend to favor speeding cars over the people who cross the street.

Poor air quality resulting from pollution contributes between $40 billion and $60 billion to U.S. health care costs annually. Each hour spent in the car increases the risk of obesity. And further, the lack of emphasis on transit, walking and biking lowers mobility for disadvantaged Americans and makes our streets less safe for people both behind the wheel and on foot.

Transportation policy can no longer be viewed in isolation. That is why groups like the American Public Health Association are educating people about the links between the built environment and our personal well-being and organizations from different policy arenas that never saw the need to work with each other before are joining hands.

This week has been all about making the health and transportation link more concrete, and there is more to come.

• Gas prices reach an eight-month high. (USA Today)

• The Energy Information Administration projects a steep drop in oil output around the world. (Grist)

• Transportation and housing costs for families can’t be disentangled. (Arizona Daily Star)

Our third webinar took place last week, and almost 300 people attended the session to hear from development experts on the connections between transportation policy, real estate development, and affordable housing.

• Policy Brief: Transportation and Housing (pdf)
• Policy Brief: Transportation and Development (pdf)
• Audio and video recording of the entire webinar
• Podcast audio file (.mp3)
  
• Podcast video file (.mp4)
• Sign up for more sessions on the webinars page

With economic crisis putting jobs in jeopardy, homes in foreclosure and entire communities in peril, Americans are facing extraordinary challenges in finding affordable and accessible housing options. Now more than ever, we need federal leadership to help make the critical link between our housing and transportation policies and creating revitalized communities where people can find good places to live and convenient ways to get around.

Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit Oriented Development moderated the discussion and provided an overview of the Transportation for America Campaign.

Christopher Leinberger, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Partner of Arcadia Land Company; discussed the benefits of walkable urbanism and the linkages between land value and transportation systems. Ann Norton, Senior Staff Attorney at the Housing Preservation Project, provided a snapshot of Blueprint planning from the Minneapolis / St. Paul Metropolitan Area that links up transportation and land-use planning. Finally, John McIlwain, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute discussed policy options for locating housing around transportation nodes and creating compact, mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods.

There are still more webinars on tap. The next session is April 30 on Transportation, Public Health and Safety.

Sign up on the webinars page.

With the economic crisis putting jobs in jeopardy, homes in foreclosure and entire communities in peril, Americans are facing extraordinary challenges in finding affordable and accessible housing options. Now more than ever, we need federal leadership to help make the critical link between our housing and transportation policies and create revitalized communities where people can find affordable places to live and convenient ways to get around.

In this webinar, real estate development professionals and affordable housing advocates will explore the linkages between transportation and housing development, the shift in housing and real estate preferences and value, and the creation of affordable mixed-use development near jobs and transit.

Panelists will include:

Shelley Poticha, President and CEO of Reconnecting America and the Center for Transit Oriented Development; John McIlwain, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute and J. Ronald Terwilliger Chair for Housing at the Urban Land Institute; Christopher Leinberger, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Partner of Arcadia Land Company; and Director of the Graduate Real East Development Program at the University of Michigan; and Ann Norton, Senior Staff Attorney at the Housing Preservation Project.

Registration is free, so sign up today for this great session at t4america.org/webinars.

If you’re not reading Worldchanging on a regular basis, you’re definitely missing one of the most positive, encouraging, and exciting daily blasts of news from the world of sustainability and innovation. Alex Steffen and his team have been tirelessly working to point the way to a brighter future for America and the world that contrasts powerfully to the most dire predictions of energy shortages and global warming if we do nothing.

Sometimes when we’re so focused on innovation, there can be a blind trust in some mystery technology, not yet created, that will solve our energy problems. This is especially apparent with regard to our automotive fleet that will “one day soon” run on banana peels or solar power. Alex and Worldchanging, to their credit, have looked around and seen obvious, ready-to-go solutions to curb our energy thirst and cut emissions, while still getting us where we need to go, outlined in a wonderful essay from a year ago, entitled “My Other Car is a Bright Green City.”

We bring up Worldchanging also to point you to a short piece written by Transportation For America communications director David Goldberg on the connection between the current housing crisis and the old development model based on inexpensive fuel.

An excerpt:

In truth, the phenomenon of sending people ever farther into the countryside to find houses that they (barely) qualified to purchase played no small role in the current global financial crisis. The epicenter of the U.S. foreclosure crisis can be found on the metro fringes. The buyers who stretched and took on variable-rate or interest-only mortgages, along with punishing commutes, to get into houses on the edge found themselves caught in a double bind.

As gas prices and commute costs rose, their “cheap” houses became ever more costly, even as mortgage payments adjusted along with rising interest rates. But when they went to sell, they found the bottom had dropped out of that market, thanks not only to higher gas prices, but also to demographic and cultural changes that were leading more households to look for homes in more convenient locations.

Read the full article at Worldchanging, and bookmark them for return visits. Our thanks to Alex and Worldchanging for the space.