Strib Editorial on Transit.

Transit makes homes more affordable
You veel take ze train!
Buying a home some distance from shopping and transit might seem cheaper and a better deal. But when you factor in driving for every trip, the costs quickly add up. Many "affordable" homes aren't quite what they appear.

This seems too obvious to warrant a newspaper article on the topic, The Strib needs to help out the rubes I guess. Let's see where they go with this.
The editorials solution?

A family of three living in auto-dependent Farmington with the primary earner working in downtown Minneapolis and earning $43,500 could, for example, save $8,200 a year by moving to south Minneapolis near the Hiawatha light-rail line, or $4,800 a year by moving to Fridley near the proposed Northstar commuter rail line, based on a combination of cheaper housing and cheaper commuting.

Now hold it right there Mr. Condescension. Who in their right mind moves to Farmington for a cheap house then commutes downtown to save money? People move to places like Farmington to escape urban life. Those families left the city so they could send their kids to a better school safely send those kids out to play and walk the neighborhood without getting mugged.
Daddy Boyd says: Save Money on commuting, leave that rural life, move to the ghetto! Or the other option, move to Fridley next to the fictional Northstar rail line, where prices in this editorials hypothetical world won’t shoot up next to the rail station if it’s ever built.

The point isn't to urge people to move, but rather to remind them how transportation and housing costs vary. People who are able to eliminate one family car and several long driving trips per day can divert thousands of dollars into other priorities.

For policymakers, the implications are just as clear. Every investment in transit makes housing potentially more affordable. Every job created in a dense job environment creates opportunities for transit and possible savings on housing. Any neighborhood designed to encourage walking for errands and riding transit to work cuts both costs and road congestion. Brookings' "affordability index" is a helpful model for consumers, developers, planners and politicians to consider.

Earth to editorial board: Spending billions of tax dollars and raising taxes to fund crackpot rail lines does not make housing more affordable. Rather than make it more affordable Rail lines drive housing prices up along the line and increases property sales and payroll taxes to pay for the rail lines. It also diverts transportation funds away from roads where the other 99% of commuters could benefit. Rail does virtually nothing to help traffic, as even the proponents must admit when pressed.

Smart growth plans have been hatching and failing in city after city for the last 40 years. At best they are a waste of taxes at worst a disaster to local road systems, cause housing shortages and sky-high home prices. Sustainable dense urban environments and their commuting schemes never work when socially engineered by the “smart people”. Markets and geography must drive those things. That’s why subways and dense urban growth go together in places like New York and San Francisco but fail miserably in places like Los Angeles. It’s the geography stupid.