So I'm slowly getting more rigorous about house searching. Two of our biggest criteria are transit accessibility and minimizing my wife's automotive commute time. BRT should help on the latter, but that's at least a decade away. However, in my experiments on both Redfin and [Zillow], I haven't found any way to add that sort of filter. I'd ideally like a partnership with some mapping/GIS site that made traffic estimates, but even just a road distance check would help.
This isn't just a thing that would help people obsessed with urbanism or transit. As Alex Tabarrok notes, "behavioral economics tells us that we quickly get used to big houses but we never get used to commuting. So when you have a choice, go for the smaller house closer to work" (h/t Kevin Drum).
In any event, I'm going to try to start narrowing things by zip codes and finding some nice detailed maps that I can mark up. Alternately, I may see if UMD will allow me access to a GIS lab with all of the bells and whistles subscription so I can do this myself. I do have a copy of GIS that will let me do road length analysis and I can add walk distance from existing and future rail stations. Anyone have any tricks or tips to recommend?
Update: Realized I had two of of the real estate sites mixed up.]
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