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Current Issue | Previous Issues | Subscribe November 2005 - Vol. 3 No. 11

Policy & Planning

New mortgages aim to encourage transit-accessible home buying

As population growth puts increasing demands on the resources of automobile-dependent suburban communities, cities are searching for new policy options to encourage home ownership and decrease drive-alone travel. Mortgage products aimed at attracting low- and moderate-income home buyers to transit-rich urban areas are emerging as a new tool for policymakers to meet these goals. Kevin Krizek of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs examines these little-known policy tools in a new report sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Mortgages designed to encourage home buying in transit-friendly neighborhoods are available under a variety of names in a half-dozen U.S. metropolitan areas, including Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. The underlying idea behind such mortgages is that buying a home in an area well-served by public transportation or alternative modes (such as cycling or walking) reduces the household’s transportation costs; folding this cost reduction into the mortgage allows for a lower down payment from the borrower’s own funds and a higher mortgage-to-income qualifying ratio. The end result can be an increase of several thousand dollars in the mortgage amount for moving into a transit-rich neighborhood.

Krizek notes that this novel approach to lending is strongly linked to smart growth and anti-sprawl measures, and he draws on the literature surrounding these policies to inform his analysis of these mortgages. The approach is also showing itself to be closely linked with car-sharing programs in several cities, including Seattle (where the Flexcar program is more than two years old) and Chicago (where car-sharing is still in the planning stage). Krizek’s report also offers insight into car-sharing programs, which, he notes, have enjoyed considerable governmental support.

The eventual success or failure of this novel form of lending, the report points out, is tied to a wide variety of economic and political forces that the concept's originators cannot control or predict. But whatever their fate as regional growth management tools, these mortgage policies should also be examined for their effects on neighborhoods and individual households. In the struggle to address complex issues of urban growth and sprawl, new approaches to home mortgages may add another tool to the policy toolbox.

User Perspectives on Location Efficient Mortgages & Car Sharing (Mn/DOT 2005-24) is available from the Minnesota Department of Transportation Web site at www.research.dot.state.mn.us/detail.asp?productID=1989.

Enhancing land parcel data coordination in Minnesota

Governments need accurate cadastral (land parcel) information to carry out many activities, particularly those involving the construction, expansion, or relocation of transportation facilities. But when different levels of government—local, county, and state—need to coordinate their use of cadastral information, confusion often arises. University of Minnesota associate professor of geography Francis Harvey recently looked at how the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) works with cadastral information related to transportation rights-of-way. His work may lead to better cadastral information practices and more effective decision-making.

Minnesota’s Statewide Parcel Map Inventory (SPMI) is a comprehensive resource for parcel map information, completed in 2001 and available on the Web at www.lmic.state.mn.us/chouse/SPMI/Reporting/. The SPMI has become an important resource for Mn/DOT, and according to Harvey it could open the door to enhanced cooperation between Mn/DOT and local governments. This is an important issue because approximately 900 projects every year require coordinating data on land ownership and rights-of-way. Managing this data well helps highway projects go more smoothly.

Harvey conducted interviews with a number of Mn/DOT and local government officials to understand the issues facing them when sharing parcel data. These interviews uncovered different ways of working with parcel data, and pointed to the significance of the sharing and division of governmental responsibilities among different officials and workers as an important factor. The results of these interviews helped Harvey develop a survey questionnaire that was distributed to a larger number of respondents. Responses to this survey revealed differences between agencies using fully digital Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to manage cadastral information, and those that had not yet moved completely to GIS. Finally, a focus group meeting was organized to discuss the findings and explore obstacles to effective collaboration.

Communication emerged as the largest barrier to effective collaboration. While other challenges, such as limited access to technology and lack of funds, were identified as important, many participants in the research felt that these issues could be addressed effectively if good communication was present. Other findings highlighted the importance of organizational solutions to technical problems, particularly a willingness to make organizational changes to address technical needs.

Enhanced Coordination of Cadastral Information (Mn/DOT 2005-36) is available online at www.research.dot.state.mn.us/detail.asp?productID=1999.

Intelligent Transportation Systems

Deploying a driver-assistive system for rural snowplows

When researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Intelligent Vehicles Laboratory set out to build a better snowplow, they faced the challenge of integrating many different technologies into a single system that would make plow drivers’ jobs easier and safer. A pair of new research reports offers ITS professionals a valuable window into the design and eventual deployment of this system, from vehicle design through initial field testing to final operational use in two Minnesota counties.

The Minnesota team, led by IV Lab director Craig Shankwitz, designed its advanced snowplow to enable vehicle operation in white-out conditions by using a high-accuracy differentially corrected Global Positioning System receiver working in concert with high-resolution digital maps of plow routes. Knowing the exact position of the vehicle in relation to the road and surrounding landmarks enabled a variety of navigational assistance technologies, including a head-up display (HUD) unit to show road boundaries and obstacles projected over the driver’s view through the windshield. The HUD also integrated data from radar sensors, allowing the driver to see other vehicles around the plow. Steering feedback and a vibrating seat to warn of lane departure were also implemented based on the navigation system.

The advanced snowplow was tested by plow operators in two Minnesota counties featuring very different geography and snow conditions. St. Louis County, near Lake Superior, experiences heavy lake-effect snowfalls and is heavily wooded, with thick conifer forests near the highway on which the plow was operated. Polk County, on the other hand, experiences less snowfall but lies on the heavily cultivated plains and has few forests, contributing to frequent blowing snow that reduces visibility. In the final analysis, these geographic differences proved significant, as the Polk County testers found the system more useful than the St. Louis County testers, who chose to abandon the system after a year of testing. Polk County subsequently requested the St. Louis County unit and put it to use on its roads.

Feedback from plow drivers using the system in the field proved to be an invaluable resource for the research team. The experienced plow drivers weren’t afraid to tell the researchers exactly what was and wasn’t working for them, and their input led to changes in the way digital mapping was carried out.

The creation of high-resolution digital maps was a crucial component of the project, and the research team developed efficient techniques for mapping relevant features of the roads and surroundings. The second of the two reports gives extensive background on this part of the project, and describes the system developed by the research team to carry out the mapping of rural roads.

Driver Assistive Systems for Rural Applications, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 are available from the Minnesota Department of Transportation Web site at www.research.dot.state.mn.us/detail.asp?productID=1995 and www.research.dot.state.mn.us/detail.asp?productID=1996.

Transportation Infrastructure

Evaluating enzymes as soil stabilizers

Engineers in search of an effective way to stabilize soil for road construction could borrow a trick from ants and termites, a new report suggests. The authors evaluated commercially available enzyme solutions designed for soil stabilization to understand their potential applicability to road construction. Such products are becoming more widely available due to improved manufacturing and relatively low cost, but the use of enzymes to stabilize soils is old news to insects, which have been using similar chemicals to build durable structures for millions of years.

Associate professors Mihai Marasteanu and Ray Hozalski, research assistant Raul Velasquez, and graduate student Timothy Clyne of the Civil Engineering department tested two commercial products in the laboratory, hoping to gain insight into the products’ performance under controlled conditions. While the field performance of commonly used stabilizers can be reliably predicted based on laboratory tests, no such tests yet exist for enzymes and other non-traditional stabilizers. As a result, decisions about the use of enzymatic stabilizers are often based on empirical guidelines, and the potential benefits of these chemicals remain unclear.

Soils, the report authors note, are not inert materials. In fact, they are complex chemical substances that will interact with other chemicals under the right conditions, leading to changes in the soils’ mechanical properties. In order to effectively stabilize roadbed soils, engineers have to find a stabilizer that works well with that kind of soil. Enzymes—organic compounds that act as catalysts to encourage certain chemical reactions—are one member of a group of substances the report authors call “non-standard stabilizers” (as opposed to traditional portland cement, lime, and bitumen).

The researchers evaluated two commercial products, both non-biological enzymes supplied in liquid form. Mechanical testing was carried out to examine the products’ effects on soil properties such as compressive strength, compaction effort, soil density, and water permeability. Researchers also conducted chemical tests on one product, but were unable to determine the specific enzymatic action of the product. Resilient modulus and shear strength of treated soil samples were also tested.

Preliminary Laboratory Investigation of Enzyme Solutions as a Soil Stabilizer (Mn/DOT 2005-25) is available online from the Minnesota Department of Transportation at www.research.dot.state.mn.us/detail.asp?productID=1990.

Transit & Alternative Modes

TCRP research publications available online

The federal Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP), administered by the Transportation Research Board, provides practical transit research to address technical and operational issues. TCRP emphasizes putting research results into the hands of organizations and individuals that can use them to solve problems. TRCP publications may be viewed at www4.trb.org/trb/onlinepubs.nsf/web/crp.

Recent TCRP publications include:

• Analyzing the Effectiveness of Commuter Benefits Programs (TCRP Report 107)
• The Case for Searches on Public Transportation (TCRP Legal Research Digest 22)
• Continuity of Operations (COOP) Planning Guidelines for Transportation Agencies (TCRP Report 86, vol. 8)

Upcoming Events

Here are selected events related to transportation research. Visit the CTS Web site, www.cts.umn.edu/events, for more comprehensive event information. You may also subscribe to e-mail event announcements using our subscription form.

December 2, 2005
CTS Freight and Logistics Symposium, Minneapolis. Visit www.cts.umn.edu/events/logsymposium/index.html or contact Katie Kjeseth, 612-624-3708, conferences5@cce.umn.edu.

February 16, 2006
Minnesota Pavement Conference, St. Paul. Contact Teresa Washington at 612-624-3745 or e-mail twashing@cce.umn.edu.

May 24-25, 2006
17th Annual CTS Transportation Research Conference, RiverCentre, St. Paul.