Browsing by Subject "Transportation and Regional Growth Study"

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Case Studies of Development in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Region
(2004-09-01) Vandrasek, Barbara J.; Adams, John S.
This report brings together several aspects of land development dynamics that have been examined in previous reports of the Twin Cities Regional Dynamics section of the Transportation and Regional Growth Study, in a series of place-based case studies of Minor Civil Divisions (MCDs) and school districts within the Minneapolis- St. Paul metropolitan region. The report focuses on the local property tax as the locus of interaction between municipal revenue generation and service provision, and the K-12 education finance system in the State of Minnesota. The report finds that local units of government are vulnerable to larger spatial trends over which they have little control, and thus an absence of region-wide or statewide policies to equalize support for PreK-12 education funding and delivery of services will encourage competition for development dollars and uneven development across the region.
Development Impact Fees for Minnesota? A Review of Principles and National Practices
(1999-10-01) Adams, John S.; Cidell, Julie; Hansen, Laura J.; Jung, Hyun-Joo; Ryu, Yeon-Taek; Vandrasek, Barbara J.
Over the last two decades, local governments throughout the country have been looking for additional sources of revenue. Cuts in federal and state intergovernmental revenues, historically high interest rates, changes in tax-exempt bond markets, and voter resistance to increased taxes have forced governments to increase their reliance on fees and user charges. Local governments face a dilemma of escalating demands for public facilities and services caused by new development without having sufficient revenues to finance these demands. Existing residents are resistant to higher taxes and fees to fund the services and improvements required by new residents. In addition to problems of growth, many communities are struggling to finance backlog needs to bring aging or nonexistent systems of infrastructure up to modern standards. As a consequence of these problems, there is considerable interest in impact fees, which are charges to developers for off-site infrastructure improvements made necessary by the new development. Impact fees are viewed as a way for growth to "pay its way." In light of the economic pressures on local governments, it is clear why they have turned to impact fees. For growing jurisdictions, impact fees represent a vast store of potential revenue that can be tapped at less political cost than other sources. This practice does not mean, however, that impact fees are always the best solution or the wisest solution for infrastructure finance when taking account of social equity considerations and the need to maintain long-term community support for capital spending programs. Impact fees pose several considerations simultaneously: legal, economic, technical, administrative, policy, and financing alternatives. When faced with a proposed future fee scheme, builders, business people, property owners, and future home buyers should study all sides of the issue at once, not just the legal or economic questions. Impact fees raise fundamental social questions such as: Who really pays? How is the fee calculated? Where does the money go? How and where is the money spent? Who really benefits from the new or expanded public facilities? What is the impact of the fees on housing costs for new and for existing residents?
The Distribution of Transportation Costs in the Twin Cities Region
(2003-02-03) Anderson, David; McCullough, Gerard
The purpose of this report is to determine who bears the costs of transportation in the Twin Cities Region for 1998 and 2020. In a previous report, The Full Cost of Transportation in the Twin Cities Region, we determined the total social costs of transportation in the region. In this study we determine who bears the governmental, internal and external costs of transportation (i.e., who pays for or experiences these costs). We also determine who imposes or causes the marginal external costs of transportation. Most of the costs are caused and borne by residents of the region, but some are caused or borne by people who live outside the region. We analyze cost incidence for 78 sub-regions and for nine income/vehicle ownership groups. This report contains three appendices. The first appendix describes other studies of cost incidence. The second appendix defines the regions that we examine. The third appendix examines the efficiency and equity of a hypothetical improvement in express bus service. The purpose of the third appendix is to demonstrate ways that information on transportation costs can be used to help evaluate policy alternatives. It is not intended to reflect on the desirability of any actual projects.
The Full Cost of Transportation in the Twin Cities Region
(2000-08-01) Anderson, David; McCullough, Gerard
The goal of this work is to calculate the full costs of transportation for autos, trucks, and buses in the Twin Cities region for the years 1998 and 2020. Our midrange estimate is that the costs were $27 billion in 1998, and the costs will grow to $42 billion in 2020 ($9,000 and $11,200 in per capita terms, respectively). These estimates include monetary and nonmonetary costs to individuals, firms, and units of government. Costs are divided into three main categories: governmental costs, internal costs, and external costs. Our midrange estimates were that 84 percent of full costs were internal, 9 percent were governmental, and 7 percent were external. Road construction and maintenance accounted for approximately 70 percent of governmental costs. Most time costs were nonmonetary and internal. The costs of travel time accounted for 40 percent of all costs and the costs of owning and operating vehicles also accounted for 40 percent. Approximately 98 percent of external costs were due to congestion, crashes, air pollution, and petroleum consumption. We project that most types of costs will increase at approximately the same rate as regional economic output between 1998 and 2020.
Highway Improvements and Land Development Patterns in the Greater Twin Cities Area, 1970-1997: Measuring the Connections
(2003-02-02) Smith, Laura J.; Adams, John S.; Cidell, Julie; Vandrasek, Barbara J.
This report uses statistical methods to measure the relationships between improvements in highway transportation and patterns of land development in suburban and exurban areas of the greater Twin Cities. The methods used measure the timing and levels of residential, commercial, industrial, and esidential land development as indicators of the strength and causality of those relationships. The report investigates the key question of leads and lags between highway improvement and land development. Findings of the report suggest that the impact of major highway improvements on land development patterns took one form in the 1970s, another in the 1980s, and still other forms in the 1990s. Findings also illustrate how the lead-lag relationships differ by development type. Although statistical relationships describing correlations of leads, lags, and contemporaneous change were found to be highly significant, the measures of those relationships seldom were constant. They changed from one time period to the next, from one type of development to another, and from one location to another within specific time periods.
House Price Changes and Capital Shifts in Real Estate Values in Twin Cities-Area Housing Submarkets
(2002-02-01) Adams, John S.; Cidell, Julie; Hansen, Laura J.; Vandrasek, Barbara J.
This report explores the movement of average prices and price changes for single-unit houses between 1970 and 1995 in three housing submarkets that radiate outward from downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul. The report investigates one way of measuring gains and losses in housing values that might be traced in part to processes of economic growth, tax policy, and the outward movement of jobs, incomes, and the capital represented by housing assets. The report theorizes that these capital shifts are the result of the capitalized value of tax expenditures and property tax differentials between city and suburb, the impacts of utility pricing schemes, and the nature of consumer demand for housing. Additional factors that drive flux in this general pattern of outward movement of capital include energy and consumer price fluctuations, general economic conditions, significant inmigration, and perceptions about both public safety and school quality in different parts of the metropolitan region. The result of this dynamic is that some households realize unearned capital gains simply by virtue of their location, while others find themselves holding a depreciating asset due to factors beyond their control.
Land Use and Travel Choices in the Twin Cities, 1958-1990
(2001-07-01) Barnes, Gary; Davis, Gary
This report examines the effects of land development patterns on travel choices by residents of the Twin Cities area. A historical analysis studies changes in travel behavior between 1958 and 1990, focusing in particular on total daily time spent traveling. The conclusion is that daily time per traveler changed only very slightly over this time, despite very significant changes in land use. The second major analysis in the report looks at travel choices in 1990 in greater detail. Again, the conclusion was that land use per se did not play a significant role in travel choices when other factors were controlled for. Dense central areas generated much less mileage per person, but this was almost entirely because of lower speeds, not because central city residents spent much less time driving. Overall, there was less than a 20% difference in average time spent driving per day between central city and outer suburbs, and this difference arose entirely from commute times. Non-work travel time showed no systematic variation by location, in contrast to expectations. The one area in which land use played a significant role was that large dense job locations attracted very high shares for non-auto modes.
Market Choices and Fair Prices: Research Suggests Surprising Answers to Regional Growth Dilemmas
(2003-05-01) Johnson, Curtis; Citistates Group
This "Synthesis" report offers an overview of the key findings from five years of research into the relationship between Transportation and Regional Growth. The study's sponsors see this body of research as a springboard for a wider public discussion about the policy alternatives facing this region. These research findings and implications should stimulate fresh coverage of the issues by the media and a better-informed debate among elected and appointed public officials at all levels. Advocacy groups will find no silver bullets with which to arm their push for preferred solutions, but every group interested in better transportation and land-use policy will find a body of facts and analysis that will change the way the region considers its future choices. This publications serves as a starting point for that discussion.
Road Finance Alternatives: An Analysis of Metro Area Road Taxes
(2002-03-01) Ryan, Barry; Stinson, Thomas
The average Twin Cities household paid about $500 in state and local taxes for roads in 1996. The total tax burden for the region was nearly $1 billion, with two-thirds coming from revenues that are fixed or hidden from the traveler's perspective. Tax alternatives that favor use-related charges can send travelers a clear price signal, ultimately encouraging more efficient travel behavior. Tax policy might have an effect on housing location decisions at the rural-urban fringe, where farmland development premiums are still small. Road tax policy will need to change in order to keep pace with higher construction costs.
The Role of Housing Markets, Regulatory Frameworks, and Local Government Finance
(1998-05-01) Adams, John S.; Bjelland, Mark D.; Hansen, Laura J.; Laaken, Lena L.; Vandrasek, Barbara J.
This report examines the land use/transportation dynamic and its influence on metropolitan development in postwar U.S.; changes in housing supply, housing demand, and residential price movements between 1970 and 1990 in minor civil divisions (MCDs) within the seven-county metropolitan area and adjacent counties; a classification of state and local regulations that promote low-density development on the built-up metropolitan edge and beyond and that raise obstacles for cost-effective redevelopment in older settled areas near the cores of Minnesota's major urban centers; and, the changing profiles of taxation, intergovernmental revenue transfers, and expenditures by function for counties and MCDs within the Twin Cities region.
Synthesizing Highway Transportation, Land Development, Municipal and School Finance in the Greater Twin Cities Area, 1970-1997
(2000-05) Adams, John S.; Cidell, Julie L.; Hansen, Laura J.; Van Drasek, Barbara J.
As the Twin Cities emerged as capital of the Upper Midwest region, the pre-World War II highway system serving the Twin Cities linked the area with its region, and provided direction to suburban expansion. Residential development in greenfield areas initially enjoys low local property taxes, but soon the newly arriving households expect and demand a full range of municipal services that must be supplied and paid for, either by the newcomers themselves, or by shifting some portion of incremental capital and operating costs to current residents, which can lead to political tension. The resources available to school districts from local tax sources depend upon the tax capacity supplied by local development, a process that is regulated by local units of government. Major highway infrastructure and improvements have both led and lagged the development process. The location of major routes influences developer decisions on where to place new housing. Major office developments cluster at major transportation nodes, but many important nodes support little or no office development. Industrial development appears to be tied closely to transportation routes in the earlier periods, but in later years the close connection appears to fade. The benefits of land development and transportation improvements accumulate disproportionately within one set of geographical areas, while many of the costs are imposed through time and space on others.
A Systems Thinking Perspective on the Transportation and Regional Growth Study
(2003-01-01) Ward, Edward
This report integrates the findings of several individual reports from the Transportation and Regional Growth Study (TRGS) into a comprehensive "systems thinking perspective" on the Twin Cities' transportation and land use system. The document explores the findings and rationale in TRGS reports by principal investigators John Adams, Gary Barnes, Gary Davis, David Anderson, Gerard McCullough, Barry Ryan, Thomas F. Stinson, Lance Neckar, Barbara Lukermann, and Thomas Scott. The purpose of this report is to generate new insights that are valuable to policy makers and to surface the systemic assumptions underlying the research of the principal investigators. The results of the principal investigators' reports are summarized in three pages of nuggets, while the author of this document suggests several of his own key findings, principally the recommendation that all of the key variables in the Twin Cities land use and transportation system should be measured, monitored, and routinely communicated to the public and governmental policy makers. This integration report shows what those key variables are and presents a rich hypothesis on how they are causally related to each other.
Transportation, Urban Design, and the Environment: Highway 61/Red Rock Corridor
(2003-02) Neckar, Lance M
This report is a combination of two reports (Task 1 and Task 2 and 3) on the Highway 61/Red Rock Commuter Rail Corridor. The Task 1 portion describes the baseline conditions related to subdivision-scaled growth in the corridor, with particular concentration on Cottage Grove, one of the station sites. Also considered are current plans for the downtown St. Paul Union Depot. The Task 2 and 3 portion focuses on issues relating to the relationship between transportation and the environment. An important issue in this study, therefore, is the design and institutional integration of objectives across investments in transit services at a regional scale, public space, and the long-term value of developed private space, especially in suburbia. The report offers designs for new, alternative patterns of regional growth, both urban and suburban, in broad corridors served by commuter rail service. The study also demonstrates the designs' effects on two principal problems of sprawl embodied in the street and highway network that is the bones and circulatory system of growth: 1. Unstratified, single-mode transportation infrastructure designed for peak demand, and 2. Degradation of environmental resources, especially water, the state's namesake resource and a central article of its competitive advantages.
Understanding Urban Travel Demand: Problems, Solutions, and the Role of Forecasting
(1999-08-01) Barnes, Gary; Davis, Gary
This report is a general examination and critique of transportation policy making, focusing on the role of traffic and land use forecasting. There are four major components: 1. Current, historical, and projected travel behavior in the Twin Cities. 2. The standard travel forecasting model, and some of its shortcomings. 3. The potential application of integrated land use and transportation models. 4. Specific transportation problems and proposed policies in the Twin Cities. The most important result is that the standard traffic forecasting model in its current form is not well suited for evaluating many of the policies of greatest current interest, in particular, those that seek to reduce the overall amount of travel through changes in land use or travel behavior. This model was developed to predict road capacity needs, taking the quantity of travel as more or less uninfluenced by policy. However, currently available improvements, including integrated transportation and land use models, often add little value because they are not based on a well-established theoretical and empirical understanding of travel behavior. The most urgent need in forecasting is not for more complex models, but for a better understanding of the real world processes that the models are attempting to capture.
Urban Design, Transportation, Environment and Urban Growth: Transit-Supportive Urban Design Impacts on Suburban Land Use and Transportation Planning.
(2003-03-01) Swenson, Joel; Dock, Frederick
This report summarizes the development and utilization of enhancements to the regional transportation model to measure the individual and accumulative impacts of transit-supportive urban design strategies. The report has three main sections: 1) urban design analysis of four transit-supportive development proposals; 2) development of model enhancements in the form of a subarea model; and 3) use of the subarea model to analyze a subregional transit-supportive growth scenario. The urban design analysis demonstrated that transit-supportive development principles are adaptable to suburban settings and that use of the principles does improve land use mixes and walkability. It also confirmed that guidelines for transit-supportive development can be used to create a network of suburban sites that meets city and regional goals. The subarea transportation model proved sufficiently sensitive to detect changes in tripmaking patterns at the site and subregional scales. Two types of tripmaking contributed to these changes: short-distance trips between transit-supportive developments and walk or bicycle trips within developments. Results from the subregional analyses most clearly demonstrated the benefits of transit-supportive development strategies. At the subregional scale, the model tracked travel interactions between transit supportive development sites, which revealed the accumulative benefits. If the entire region were modeled accordingly, it is expected that benefit indicators would show even greater improvements.
Urbanization of the Minnesota Countryside: Population Change and Low-Density Development Near Minnesota's Regional Centers, 1970-2000
(2003-01-01) Adams, John S.; Koepp, Joel A.; VanDrasek, Barbara J.
Today's Minnesota settlement pattern and economy were almost completely transformed during the past three decades. "Urbanization of the countryside" is under way in functional terms, and the settlement system is catching up with the economic and social transformation that has been proceeding since World War II. Like the greater Twin Cities area, which spreads over more than 24 counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Minnesota's regional centers have been doing the same, whether or not their populations are increasing. Towns, villages and hamlets within highway commuting ranges of regional job centers are becoming bedroom suburbs, and incomes brought home from those jobs brings new vitality to Main Street. Meanwhile, in unincorporated townships surrounding the regional centers and around the state's lakes, new houses are going up for retirees, weekenders, and commuters - especially along major and minor highways and country roads that provide access to nearby malls. The report describes these trends playing out around 24 regional centers in rural Minnesota.

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