Abogo: the latest transportation and sustainability tool

Type an address into Abogo, a new website created by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) in Chicago, and you get transportation costs and carbon emissions per month per household. The site is powered by CNT's Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which covers metro areas about 80 percent of the US population.

This is an amazing tool. Abogo works through actual driving data and transit use in census tracts, which are influenced by urban form and density.

"We estimate total transportation costs for an average household from your region living in your neighborhood, including commuting, errands, and all the other trips around town," according to Abogo. "We count money spent on car ownership and use, as well as public transit use.  For CO2 emissions, we count car use only."

The website adds: "With this information, you can measure the true cost and impact of where you live." The name Abogo comes from "abode" and "go."

Streetsblog points out that this website is really a consumer-friendly version of the afformentioned H+T Index, which is more likely to be used by planners and other professionals. As such, it adds to the web-based tools like Walkscore that are focused on walkability of US locations. One advantage of Abogo is that it dramatically demonstrates the economic and environmental benefits of compact, mixed-use locations. An address in downtown Philadelphia shows transportation costs that are 58 percent of the regional average. The carbon emissions are only 14 percent of the regional average.

One downside is the tool doesn't measure carbon emissions from transit. These, however, are a relative drop in the bucket compared to automobile-generated CO2.

Streetsblog also notes that Walkscore is close to changing its method to reflect actual walking routes as opposed to as-the-crow-flies distances. That will be a significant improvement. "Next up: Abogo/Walkscore mashup?" Streetsblog asks.