For young people in Boston, transit trumps parking: survey

What do millennials want? Public transit.

That was the finding of a survey released Monday of 660 young professionals who work in Greater Boston.

No surprises there: we all want better transit. But the college-educated 20-37-year-olds surveyed by MassINC and the Urban Land Institute were especially bus and train-focused, MassINC’s lead pollster told Metro.

“You tend to hear about parking wars: cars versus bikes and so forth. But to see so much interest in transit was something that caught my eye,” said Steve Koczela, president of the nonprofit Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth.

When it comes to housing, 80 percent of survey respondents said transit is very important. Just 25 percent said access to a parking space was a top priority. Price, though, was the biggest concern for renters and home-buyers: 88 percent ranked price it as “very important.”

Transit is also guiding the jobs millennials take, the survey found: 78 percent said having an office close to a T stop was “very important” to work satisfaction, compared with 30 percent saying parking ranked as high priority.

Just about half of respondents said they commute to work on the subway, 26 percent said they drive alone and 6 percent said they drive with others. Just shy of a quarter, 22 percent, said they bike.

“This is a relatively affluent group of people who could theoretically afford to drive but are choosing to take the MBTA,” Koczela said. “It’s not a mode of last resort, it’s something people value highly.”

Other interesting findings:

84 percent said they had used a taxi to get around, while 88 percent said they had used a taxi. Lyft gave rides to 24 percent of those surveyed.
About two-thirds of the 20-37-year-olds surveyed rent, while 32 percent own houses. Nearly all said they planned to own a home eventually, with 45 percent saying they wanted to buy a house in the next five years.
About half said they plan on living in Greater Boston in 10 years. One-third said they don’t ever want to move to the suburbs and 72 percent said they were “planning or open to” having kids.