Pugh Now "on board" with BRT

[Bham1982]

ParkGuy,

I want to recognize your strong argument here. I've never heard it put that way before. You are informing me.

""you are spending a quarter of your total income on a car to get around in a major metropolitan area, because that is just the way we do it here. That's one reason, by the way, that housing prices never hit the heights they did in other cities-- our income is dedicated to private transportation, and our taxes are dedicated to building and maintaining highways. A million bucks per lane per mile. Gas taxes only cover part of the cost of that-- not even close to fully paying for the roads. "

But it's a completely unsubstantiated claim.

The claim is that Metro Detroit property values lag because folks are paying a higher proportion of their salaries on auto-related expenses.

But there's no evidence that this is actually happening. Every U.S. Metro has an overwhelming proportion of households with at least one vehicle, and most U.S. households have at least two vehicles.

There's no evidence that vehicle ownership rates are higher in Metro Detroit, nor evidence that the relative costs of such ownership are higher locally than nationally.

[ghettopalmetto]

But it's a completely unsubstantiated claim.

The claim is that Metro Detroit property values lag because folks are paying a higher proportion of their salaries on auto-related expenses.

But there's no evidence that this is actually happening. Every U.S. Metro has an overwhelming proportion of households with at least one vehicle, and most U.S. households have at least two vehicles.

There's no evidence that vehicle ownership rates are higher in Metro Detroit, nor evidence that the relative costs of such ownership are higher locally than nationally.

Here's some of that "no evidence":

http://www.transact.org/library/repo...end_report.pdf


In 2003, Detroit was #3 of 28 in transportation spending as a percentage of household income, at 20.5% [[only Houston and Cleveland were higher). With the dramatic rise in gas prices in the nine years since, one can only imagine this percentage has grown.

For those curious but not inclined to read the report, the bottom 5 were [[in order):

Philadelphia [[15.9%), Washington, New York, Portland, and Baltimore [[14.0%).