Robert McCartney (01:10):

Of course with people returning to work, that means our area's notorious traffic congestion also has returned. But even as the pandemic recedes, our experience with it will have long-lasting impacts. One of the biggest changes is likely to be an increase in people doing more of their work from home. That would significantly affect not only how people work, but also where they choose to live, and where companies locate jobs. Here are Tim Canan and then Paul DesJardin, two planners at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, or COG, with decades of experience.

Timothy Canan (01:11):

We're really trying to better understand how much of our culture has changed due to teleworking.

Paul DesJardin (01:18):

I think the litmus test for us will be, what is the comfort level of employers around this region? Will managers and directors really want more and more face-to-face contact as time unfolds, as Tim says, as we get to whatever the new normal is? But on a parallel path, a job is what you do, it's not where you go. So it does open up that possibility of more remote work from a home that may be farther away than you might have otherwise planned to have.

Robert McCartney (01:53):

This is Think Regionally, a monthly podcast sponsored by COG about issues and policy in the Washington area. I'm your host, Robert McCartney. In this episode I'll be talking to Canan and DesJardin about how COVID is affecting trends and forecasts for how our region will grow in coming years. At COG, the two men help local governments make critical plans for where jobs will be located and where people will live, and what kind of housing and transportation options they'll have. Canan directs COG's Planning Data and Research Program, while DesJardin is head of Community Planning Services.

Robert McCartney (02:34):

They've recently begun preparing a forecast of regional trends for the next 25 years, a major update that COG has been conducting every five years since 1975. Incidentally, last month COG celebrated its 65th birthday. The updated forecasts will weigh economic and demographic factors as always, but now they have to account for COVID's fallout as well. The good news is planners are hearing from local public health experts, whom COG convenes, that the virus does not appear to pose a serious threat in the foreseeable future. Here's DesJardin.

Paul DesJardin (03:14):

So every week when we do our departmental staff meeting I always ask and the short answer is, currently there doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon as far as a new variant that would be anywhere near as devastating as Omicron or the initial COVID, particularly among people who are fully vaxxed.

Robert McCartney (03:37):

The planners don't see any reason yet to assume that the pandemic will alter their forecast of continued steady population growth in the region. They expect the area will add 1.3 million people by 2045, an increase of 23% from 5.7 million in 2020.

Paul DesJardin (03:57):

Part of it is our relative competitiveness. All the great plans that our local governments have done in places like the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, the District, Alexandria, even in some of the more suburban jurisdictions near Largo, the vision plans that our member jurisdictions have put into place have really made us a cooler and edgier destination. And when we looked at the data, we have continued to attract some of the brightest and best workers from across the country. We have some of the highest labor force participation rates among women. But we also have one of the best educated workforces in the entire country.

Robert McCartney (04:38):

The question for planners is, where will more than a million new residents live and work? That's where the rising appeal of telework has created uncertainty. According to a Transportation Planning Board survey of residents who teleworked during the pandemic only 9% want to return to their work location full time, 26% hope to telework full time, and 65% want to telework and at least some of the time. That could mean less need for commercial office buildings than we've had in the past.

Paul DesJardin (05:12):

It's kind of an open-ended question about if a tenant's going to resign at some point to space, are they going to say, "Well, my workers are only going to be back X percent of the time. Maybe I need a smaller footprint."

Robert McCartney (05:25):

More telework also could mean more people choose to live further out from the center of the region where housing is cheaper since they would be commuting less often. It could even mean people employed in the region choose not to live here at all, but instead telework from elsewhere in the country or the world. We're already seeing some signs of such trends. Office buildings are less occupied throughout the region. Traffic has returned to pre-pandemic levels in the outer suburbs, but not yet in the center of the region. That probably indicates that fewer people are commuting downtown to work. Canan said planners are considering three different scenarios for the future.

Timothy Canan (06:08):

Well, what's the region going to look like once this is over? The first scenario was, everything's just going to return back to pre-pandemic conditions. We're just going to go back to the way things were. The second one was that land use and travel patterns might change, but the overall long-term growth trajectory of the region will still remain the same. What that would mean is that teleworking may influence decisions and travel patterns of where people live, where employers are located, and what those inherent land use changes might be to accommodate that. But the overarching trajectory, again, would be unchanged.

Timothy Canan (06:46):

Then the third scenario was that teleworking will cause such a huge paradigm shift, both in this region as well as in society as a whole, that people would feel free to "move about the country" and move out of the region while continuing to just hold a job here in this region. For each one of these times that we vetted these scenarios there's pretty clear consensus that that middle one was probably the most reasonable. That it's not necessarily going to go back to the way things were before the pandemic. I think that ship has sailed and that we're not going to go back to those days the way they were. At the same time, just based on the data that we have or can't yet get our hands on, we also don't feel that it's going to be as drastic as everybody moving away either.

Robert McCartney (07:33):

The last few years have not only created uncertainty about where housing should be located, they also have seen a slowing of construction of new housing overall. That has set back further the region's efforts to increase housing production.

Paul DesJardin (07:48):

So in 2019 COG board set housing targets. We want to do about 32,000 units per year. For the last six, seven, eight years, we have really only been producing about 22,000, 23,000 units per year measured by permits that are being issued. In short, COVID with supply chain problems and all sorts of associated logistical challenges, housing production is still pretty flat below what our targets are by a fair bit.

Robert McCartney (08:23):

One of COG's main responsibilities is overseeing the region's transportation planning. Where should new investments be made in rail and bus transit, in roads and bridges? I asked the planners what the expected increase in telework would mean for the future of commuting. Based on what you know now, would you think that the greatest emphasis in the next couple of decades would be on expanding heavy rail, or expanding bus service, or adding more roadway?

Timothy Canan (08:55):

I think all of the above. Our policy is really focused on mobility and accessibility of our region's residents and workers to support our healthy economy. So we want choices to be available. We don't want an overreliance on a single mode.

Paul DesJardin (09:13):

We really want to focus future growth near high-capacity transit and activity centers. The good news is, that is where the majority of new growth is actually forecast.

Robert McCartney (09:24):

Given all that, it's no wonder that the planners say it will take some time and study to make reliable forecasts to guide local governments' decisions. Now is the time when I share some of my own thoughts. It so happens that greater reliance on telework potentially poses some serious challenges for the Washington metro region's overall development strategy. For years now, the area's local governments have been committed to creating more transit-oriented communities by concentrating new housing and jobs around public transit, especially Metrorail lines, commuter rail, and express bus routes. One purpose is to get people out of cars.

Robert McCartney (10:06):

Another is to create livable walkable neighborhoods with a mix of homes, workplaces, amenities, and more. But if telework means a lot of people decide they can live further away from where they work, that becomes a hurdle for the entire strategy. DesJardin and Canan said they haven't seen signs of such a trend so far. As DesJardin said, most growth is still planned near high-capacity transit. Also, building permit requests are still high in the District in the center of the region. But the planners acknowledge that there's an unusually high degree of uncertainty about future trends right now. It will take many months or even a couple of years before we can judge telework's impact.

Robert McCartney (10:50):

By reducing the need to commute, telework can be a boon for people's quality of life and the environment. But we mustn't let it undermine the undeniable advantages of building mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented communities, which have the potential to advance so many other priorities in the region. The next two episodes of Think Regionally will take a closer look at the future of the region's transit system, and its economy, and how these sectors are adapting and contributing to the region's comeback. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. We welcome your feedback. Please email comments to thinkregionally@mwcog.org. This podcast is produced by Megan Goodman and Janele Partman. Until next month this is your host, Robert McCartney, urging everyone to think regionally.