OAK CREEK — Investing in public transit is a desirable alternative to the so-called “drive-till-you-qualify” real estate market, a national expert in urban development said Friday.

Scott Bernstein, president of the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology, said people often move farther away from city centers in a quest to find affordable housing.

In doing so, however, Bernstein said people lose sight of the cost of driving to and from their far-flung abodes, making their “affordable” homes unaffordable when transportation costs are considered.

“One economist I talked to said, ‘Well, I guess we’re ... squandering the nation’s wealth, building bigger and bigger houses, further and further away from one another,’” Bernstein said.

Bernstein spoke at Milwaukee Area Technical College in Oak Creek Friday, in a program sponsored by the South Suburban Chamber of Commerce and Transit NOW, proponents of the Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail proposal.

Noting the Milwaukee region’s slipping economic outlook, according to Moody’s Investors Service rankings, Bernstein urged the area to move forward with KRM — with an emphasis on the project’s potential effects on the economy.

“History shows that if you don’t pay attention to what the economic benefits are, you won’t have a sustained effort,” Bernstein said.

He said those benefits include property value growths of 10 percent to 167 percent in areas within walking distance of mass transit.

Bernstein highlighted Kenosha’s downtown streetcar as an example of “development oriented” transit.

He noted that property values near the streetcar increased by more than 2,300 percent after the tracks were laid — a figure Mayor Keith Bosman said was somewhat out of context, being that the streetcar’s installation coincided with the development of HarborPark, a major project that would have occurred regardless.

Bernstein said part of KRM’s success depends on the availability of mass transit connections to the commuter rail line, such as bus service.

“The more convenient it is, the more demand there is, the more it’s worth,” Bernstein said.

As proposed, KRM would use 33 miles of existing Union Pacific track to link downtown Milwaukee to Kenosha and existing Metra service to Chicago, with stops in Somers, Racine, Caledonia, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee, Cudahy/St. Francis and Milwaukee’s south side.

The project is expected to run $198 million, with federal funds covering the majority of the cost.

Local and state officials have failed, however, to reach a consensus on how to fund the local matching costs, expected to run about $4.2 million annually.

Ken Yunker, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, said a dedicated funding source, such as a sales tax, is needed to launch KRM while keeping other troubled local transit systems — particularly Milwaukee County’s — afloat.

Nearly every other metropolitan transit system levies a dedicated sales tax of 0.25 percent to 1 percent for transit, Yunker said.

“If you’re interested in preserving public transit ... then dedicated funding, approving that sales tax, is absolutely necessary,” Yunker said, adding that there is a sense of urgency, with state budget deliberations about to begin.

State lawmakers gave the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority’s sales tax recommendation a cold reception late last year.

Meanwhile, the Libertarian-aligned Reason Foundation released a study in December arguing that express bus service along Interstate 94 would be a more cost-effective alternative to KRM rail — a point Bernstein disputed Friday.

Kenosha Area Transit director Len Brandrup, the city’s designee on the regional transit authority board, said the question is whether residents want public transit to remain confined to 2 percent of the trips made in the region, or whether citizens want to take a more balanced approach.

“Do we want to make 10 percent or 15 percent a goal?” Brandrup asked. “If so, we need dedicated funding. It’s that simple.”