Land-use regulations that make it more time-consuming — and more expensive — to build housing subdivisions were another major factor behind San Jose’s meteoric rise in home prices, according to the study.
“Today, a five-year-old, two-bedroom house that would be considered a ‘starter home’ in most cities sells for around $400,000 in San Jose,” the report says. “In October, 2002, the average sale price of a single-family detached home in Santa Clara County was $641,000, while the average condo or townhouse sold for $372,000.
San Jose’s misbegotten growth boundaries have also snarled traffic, according to the study.
And the city’s solution — a light rail system initiated in the early 1980s — hasn’t been much help. Today, that system suffers from chronically low ridership. The system carries 1,749 passengers per day per route mile, compared to San Francisco’s BART, which carries 17,074. The San Jose Freeway carries 29,950 passengers per day per lane mile.
“Very few people can both live and work on a single thin line drawn by a planner for a light rail route,” according to the report’s author, Randal O’Toole. “Very few people are willing to take a bus to the train, the train to a bus, the bus to work, and vice versa on the way home.”
As a result of poor transportation planning, the average San Jose commuter today spends three times as much time in traffic as two decades ago, the report finds.
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