Conscious Choice: Infill and Transit

February 2000

Infill and Transit — Made for Each Other

by Jonn Salovaara

You might think that infill developers in the city, or at least some of them, would practice the best principles of transit-oriented development. Condominiums or townhomes without any garage or parking spaces at all would be built next to stops on a vastly improved CTA line. Yet housing market demand, it seems, cries out for automobile accommodation. Even if it didn’t, a city ordinance requires an on-site parking space for every new unit constructed. (In my immediate neighborhood, where the lots are short as well as narrow, the requirement for a "parking pad" or garage has spelled the decline of the backyard.) The city wants to keep the residential street parking problem from getting any worse. But wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage development aimed at people who will take the pledge to live without a car, especially in developments near transit stops?

In some developments, according to architect Kevin Pierce of Farr Associates, the city’s parking space requirement may be negotiated. Still, it seems that the ordinance, as well as aspects of the building code that complicate seriously "green" development may need rehabbing themselves. Pierce also points out that outmoded financing procedures and the city’s zoning code can complicate the development of "mixed use" sites, sites that encourage pedestrian rather than auto trips.

Obviously, catering to the car in new construction does nothing to promote transit use and, thereby, to reduce auto emissions, noise, traffic, and, for that matter, fatalities, both pedestrian and passenger. In some infill developments the garage is literally front and center, a logistical reminder of this problem-plagued priority, with the human quarters perched above. Even when the garage is behind the house, in a dubious display of urban sensibility, the development can hardly be called transit-oriented.

Real urbanism would ditch the garage entirely and the car as well. But for many people, the size of the metropolitan area makes the thought of being carless, well, unthinkable.

Nevertheless, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is pioneering several projects to help reduce car dependence and encourage infill development at the same time. CNT advises the CTA on increasing ridership and was instrumental in getting the CTA to adopt the U-pass program. U is for university: college students pay up front for a pass and then have unlimited use of it. The more transit is used by these students, the safer and more attractive it will be to other riders. This in turn makes the city more attractive to residents.

Recently, the center has negotiated to get banks to change the formula by which they grant mortgages in cases where the property is close to transit. Without all the expense of a car, the argument goes, the applicant will have more money to spend on a mortgage. The revised formula makes it possible for some potential owners to get a mortgage they otherwise wouldn’t get. At the same time, it may mean more development near transit stops. The realization of this location-efficient mortgage was accomplished by getting Fannie Mae to agree to buy such mortgages on the secondary market, a necessary prerequisite for banks granting the mortgages.

Now the center is working on a car-sharing program, modeled on one in Portland, Oregon. The Chicago version may be in operation some time next year. Participants will pay a modest membership fee and then a very small hourly and per-mile rate when using a car from the program’s fleet. This will give people a way to get a car when necessary for long trips and heavy loads, without the huge expense of maintaining a car in the city. It will, at the same time, encourage people to use their feet or public transit whenever possible.

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