I wouldn't compare mass-transit costs in Asia with the U.S. For a wide variety of reasons I haven't even quite figured out (probably labor), laying new track in China, Japan and Korea is some incredibly small fraction of what it runs in the U.S.
For example, Phase 1 of Line 9 in Seoul cost around $875m or $52m per mile. This is in one of the densest urban environments on the planet.
That's 1/5th the cost of the per-mile system cost that I linked to earlier. Which was built on open and reserved right-of-way, all above ground, and didn't require massive infrastructure rerouting or other kinds of issues you might face doing the same work in a dense urban environment.
If a developer was putting up 1,500 housing units, I'd bet they could afford to split the cost of the mile of mass transit rail running by their development if it ran ~$50m per mile.
Some back of the envelope math.
Wholesale costs on new housing is around $80-90/sq ft. So a 3,000 sq ft. home costs the developer ~$250,000.
A quarter acre of property (fairly standard these days for new suburban development) in an undeveloped or rural area runs around $5-20k. So we're probably looking at a per unit cost of $300,000.
Financing construction of 1,600 units like this is $450m.
400 acres is under a square mile, but let's add in roads and green space and things and this development would easily be 1 square mile.
Let's say we want to put a subway stop right in the middle of this and run the track right on through in exchange for zoning the development.
In Korea, that'd be $50m.
In the U.S. that'd be $250m.
The developer isn't going to eat that, so they build it into their per-unit cost.
In Korea, that's a $31,250 additional per-unit cost. So my housing costs are about $330,000 per unit.
In the U.S. that's $156,250 per-unit. My housing costs are now $456,250 per unit.
The going price for single family homes in this area is $600,000. I can make a 45% ROI in Korea, while in the U.S. I'm only making 24%. My goal was to try to make 50% ROI.
24% is a pretty slim markup. Even if I boost the sale price of the houses
(advertising easy access to the subway as justification), I'd have to hit $870,000 sale prices to hit 45% ROI and $900,000 sale prices to hit my target 50% in the U.S.
Are there enough buyers for that? Maybe. But it increases the developer risk substantially such that they may not bother at all.
Absolutely true. In a place where the going home price is $1m. This is a no brainer. In places where the going home price is $450k, it's just not going to happen.
Where can you find .25 acre of land in a development for $5000? Locally for me, in a more rural part of Pennsylvania it's like $20,000 to $40,000 for a .25 acre parcel.
Not individual .25 acre lots, but a committed developer can probably get it rezoned however they need.
It rises rapidly the closer in towards major cities.
If you're a large scale developer (of the sort that the county would hit up to help with transit development), you're probably going to buy a few hundred to a few thousand undeveloped/agricultural acres and get it rezoned.
This is a little better, $500/.25 acre and only slightly further than an hour from Pittsburgh. That's commuting distance for many people.
For example, Phase 1 of Line 9 in Seoul cost around $875m or $52m per mile. This is in one of the densest urban environments on the planet.
That's 1/5th the cost of the per-mile system cost that I linked to earlier. Which was built on open and reserved right-of-way, all above ground, and didn't require massive infrastructure rerouting or other kinds of issues you might face doing the same work in a dense urban environment.
If a developer was putting up 1,500 housing units, I'd bet they could afford to split the cost of the mile of mass transit rail running by their development if it ran ~$50m per mile.
Some back of the envelope math.
Wholesale costs on new housing is around $80-90/sq ft. So a 3,000 sq ft. home costs the developer ~$250,000.
A quarter acre of property (fairly standard these days for new suburban development) in an undeveloped or rural area runs around $5-20k. So we're probably looking at a per unit cost of $300,000.
Financing construction of 1,600 units like this is $450m.
400 acres is under a square mile, but let's add in roads and green space and things and this development would easily be 1 square mile.
Let's say we want to put a subway stop right in the middle of this and run the track right on through in exchange for zoning the development.
In Korea, that'd be $50m.
In the U.S. that'd be $250m.
The developer isn't going to eat that, so they build it into their per-unit cost.
In Korea, that's a $31,250 additional per-unit cost. So my housing costs are about $330,000 per unit.
In the U.S. that's $156,250 per-unit. My housing costs are now $456,250 per unit.
The going price for single family homes in this area is $600,000. I can make a 45% ROI in Korea, while in the U.S. I'm only making 24%. My goal was to try to make 50% ROI.
24% is a pretty slim markup. Even if I boost the sale price of the houses (advertising easy access to the subway as justification), I'd have to hit $870,000 sale prices to hit 45% ROI and $900,000 sale prices to hit my target 50% in the U.S.
Are there enough buyers for that? Maybe. But it increases the developer risk substantially such that they may not bother at all.