Transit Oriented Development

Most North American cities offer only basic public transit service, with limited coverage and frequency, modest speeds, unattractive waiting areas, poor land use integration, and few amenities. Such service is used primarily by people who lack alternatives. In such communities, riders tend to abandon public transit as soon as feasible.

As planners, one of our roles is to help stretch the scope of what is considered possible. For example, between 1950 and 2000 most development was highly automobile-dependent, based on the assumption that almost all travel would be by personal automobile and other modes were relatively unimportant. This pattern is so well established that many people have difficulty imagining anything different. It is useful to help people understand the full range of options available, from automobile dependency to carfree communities.

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) refers to communities with high quality public transit services, good walkability, and compact, mixed land use. This allows people to choose the best option for each trip: walking and cycling for local errands, convenient and comfortable public transit for travel along major urban corridors, and automobile travel to more dispersed destinations. People who live and work in such communities tend to own fewer vehicles, drive less, and rely more on alternative modes.

A recent report by the libertarian Cato Institute, Does Rail Transit Save Energy or Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?, claims that public transit service improvements are ineffective at conserving energy and reducing pollution emissions. But this conclusion is based on faulty analysis.

In 2004, voters in Denver approved the FasTracks ballot to build a regional rapid transit system. Now that planning is underway to construct about 120 miles of new rail and 60 new train stations, planners are beginning to focus on transit-oriented development (TOD) around many of these new stations. While much excitment exists in Denver for creating one of the top 21st century cities, some fears for TOD are unfounded. Mr. Ferguson's "Four Fallacies of 'transit-oriented development'", published May 13, 2008 in the Rocky Mountain News is typical of a common mis-education about TOD. What Mr. Ferguson does not realize is that TODs can help protect the rural and suburban nature of communities surrounding Denver. He proposes four tenets about why TODs are bad for the future. Below, I address each of these.