Improving transit access measures in affordable housing funding criteria
Robert W. Smitha, Kelly Bertolaccinib, Nicholas Lownesa✉
- aDepartment of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Connecticut, 261 Glenbrook Rd Unit 3037, Storrs, CT, 06268, United States
- bSchool of Engineering and Built Environment, Nathan Campus, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, QLD, 4111, Australia
- ✉Corresponding author
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Abstract
Abstract The location of affordable housing in the United States is greatly influenced by how it is funded, and current funding criteria do not typically use comprehensive transit accessibility metrics. To show the benefits of using a comprehensive accessibility metric to locate affordable housing, this paper compares one such metric, the Transit Opportunity Index, to a simpler measure of transit access currently used by a housing agency. In this case study, the comprehensive metric showed qualitative improvements over the simpler transit access measure. It is recommended that affordable housing agencies use more comprehensive transit access metrics to evaluate the transit accessibility of affordable housing sites. These comprehensive access metrics should be incorporated directly into funding criteria, preferably as part of an objective scoring system that prioritizes accessibility.
TL;DRIt is recommended that affordable housing agencies use more comprehensive transit access metrics to evaluate the transit accessibility of affordable housing sites, and one such metric, the Transit Opportunity Index, is compared to a simpler measure of transit access currently used by a housing agency. (Semantic Scholar)