TR Circular E-C058_9th LRT Conference_2003.pdf - Florida ...

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Portland’s Westside LRT alignment was designed specifically with future development in
mind. As Newsweek put it in May 1995, Portland is “building transit first, literally in fields, in
the hope development will follow.” All told, in 1994 there were approximately 1,500 acres of
vacant developable land in the vicinity of Westside stations. That gamble paid off. Before the
Westside LRT opened for service in 1998, more than half a billion dollars in new development
consistent with the TOD plans had occurred (6).
In a similar innovative twist on rail design, the Purple Line, a proposed circumferential
light rail line in suburban Washington, D.C., is being designed around TOD. Rather than
approaching TOD as an after thought, the state of Maryland sought to identify the opportunities
for TOD in advance of the engineering so the rail line could be designed with TOD in mind.
Once the best opportunities for stations are located they can be linked with the rail line to create
a classic “string of pearls”(7).
There are a series of design principles to keep in mind in designing a new transit facility
with an eye toward enhancing the opportunity for TOD. The principles of “development-oriented
transit” include:
• Is the station located in an area with development potential?
• Are transit facilities designed in a compact manner with pedestrians in mind?
• Does the design of station facilities allow for direct pedestrian connections from the
transit facility to adjacent communities?
• Has the park-and-ride been designed in a manner that is does not separate the station
from the community it is intended to serve?
• Has TOD been appropriately incorporated into the transit facility design?
Designing a new LRT line to be development friendly does not mean that any of the
transit requirements will be sacrificed. They will be successfully incorporated, and the system
can be integrated into the community. LRT designers can learn a lot by looking at how older
established commuter rail, such as Metra in Chicago, has been well integrated into the
communities it serves. For example, Metra parking tends to be dispersed in a number of small
lots.
COMMUNITY BUILDING AND MOVING PEOPLE
There is no simple recipe for TOD implementation. The ingredients for successful TOD
implementation are part community partnerships, part understanding real estate, part planning for
growing smart, part transit system design and part offering the right mix of incentives to make
TOD work in a particular station area market.
More often than not, the “master chef” for successful TOD implementation has been the
local jurisdiction, not the transit agency. This certainly has been the case in Portland. Indeed,
cities and counties are equipped with the right tools to realize TOD—they have the planning,
development, and political clout necessary to succeed.
The nature of TODs is that their implementation tends to involve many public and private
players. Transit agencies can play an important role in the education, advocacy, and planning of
TOD. Local governments can play a significant role in promoting TOD through plans, policies,
zoning provisions, and incentives for supportive densities, designs, and a mix of land uses.