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Building housing near transit takes change at every level

An eastbound Green Line train pulls into a station alongside apartment buildings.

Advancing equitable transit-oriented development requires all hands at the community level, but leadership at the state and federal level can also help propel change.

Public transportation and housing work in tandem. People want to live in walkable areas that are close to frequent transit stations to move around quickly. Equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD) helps meet this desire by maximizing the amount of residential, business and leisure spaces within walking distance of public transportation.

Locating public transit near everyday destinations promotes ridership and makes it easier for people to travel without needing a private vehicle. It’s a vital component to establishing well-connected communities and promoting economic growth. However, it’s difficult to build any form of transit within one mile of residential spaces.

On June 26th, 2024 the Future of Transportation Caucus hosted a congressional briefing focused on equitable transit-oriented development. Here are a few of the barriers to ETOD that came up during the briefing.

Local legislation can restrict development

Principal Research Associate from the Urban Institute, Yonah Freemark explained during the briefing that many localities have land use policies that restrict dense and mixed use buildings near transit.

Additionally, zoning laws in many cities have been stagnant in updating their codes. Planning Manager for the City of Columbus, Alex Saursmith, highlighted this point with his own city, where the zoning code has not been updated in 70 years. Currently, only 6,000 housing units can be constructed every 10 years, despite Columbus being one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

ETOD is also more financially effective than supporting continued road-building by prioritizing development density. It better maintains and maximizes the benefits of existing infrastructure. As LOCUS Chair Alecia Hill explained, state legislators should have an economic financial incentive to promote equitable transit-oriented development. When a lack of housing supply coupled with a lack of transportation options drives up household costs, residents are the ones who pay the price.

Transportation costs are the second largest expense category, behind housing, for most households. When households are already severely economically constrained, the costs of housing and transportation can be particularly difficult to meet. Renters that are cost-burdened or severely cost-burdened can spend greater than 30 or 50 percent, respectively, of their gross income on housing costs, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The Bureau of Transportation Statistics found that households with income lower than $25,000 who own at least one vehicle spent 38 percent of their after-tax income on transportation in 2022.

Community voices are key

Community input is a foundational factor to rally support for more housing and transit. It’s important for citizens to have an opportunity to provide input early and see how their concerns will be addressed.

Sometimes, residents oppose new housing development for a variety of reasons, ranging from a fear of losing a community’s identity to a fear of increased traffic or reduced property values. Practitioners and legislators should listen and respond to these concerns. For example, they could point to research like this study from Livable Cities Lab which showed that some property values increased when more housing was introduced. In addition, legislators working to adopt new zoning regulations would be wise to find their local allies and enlist their help in developing community support. Explaining how new housing development relates to the community’s values and goals can further strengthen the case for change.

As Saursmith explained during the briefing, areas that have seen high population growth are a major driving force to zoning reform, especially when those areas are economically disadvantaged. These places are in desperate need of more housing, especially mixed-use residentials within walking distance to transit. He notes that with noticeable population growth, innate political pressure grows to update local amendments that have become obsolete. Generally, political pressure on leaders is the start to policy-making change.

Labor perspectives are also vital to promoting ETOD, especially within the realm of unions. Executive Director of Good Jobs First, Greg LeRoy, explained that some unions have begun to embrace urban density, arguing that promoting density is not only beneficial for the environment, public health, and economic growth, but also innately pro-union and pro-jobs.

More equitable, better connected communities

Updating zoning laws requires having local city council members and state leaders actively and loudly call for reform. Calling local representatives and campaigning for leadership that will advocate for updated zoning laws is part of the solution to allow for more housing. The other side of the issue to address focuses on the grassroots level. Tackling discourse in online spaces, attending city council meetings in promotion of more housing near transit, or canvassing on referendums are all opportunities to promote ETOD.

Even federal leaders like members in the Future of Transportation Caucus make waves to address housing and transit, helping to propel the conversation forward. In 2020, Representative Jesús Chuy García introduced a bill to promote housing near transit and establish an office under DOT specifically for ETOD. These avenues all provide a chance to showcase the numerous economic, public health, and environmental benefits of constructing housing near transit.

Stories You May Have Missed – Week of August 18th

Stories You May Have Missed

As a valued member, Transportation for America is dedicated to providing you pertinent information. This includes news articles to inform your work. Check out a list of stories you may have missed last week.

Driving Community Change, The National Urban League and Lyft Inc. are joining forces to advance ride-hailing services for every community, especially those that are underserved. (Morning Consult)
Traffic deaths down slightly, but still historically high. Traffic deaths have declined slightly this year but are still higher than two years ago, according to preliminary estimates.(The Hill)
Public forum will explore TOD in Chicago. (Curbed Chicago)

With conference underway, how do the House and Senate bills stack up?

While the multi-year transportation bills passed by the House last week and the Senate back in July are fairly similar, there are still some notable differences between the two. With the conference committee getting underway to reconcile the bills, it’s worth looking at the similarities and differences.

While we believe both of these bills largely represent three (or possibly six) more years of the status quo for the most part, there are still some provisions within each bill worth fighting for in conference. Unfortunately, however, for some of our most significant priorities, that ship may have sailed. It’s unlikely that anyone will be successful in getting provisions inserted during conference which aren’t currently found in either bill. So if something isn’t already included in the House or Senate bill, it’s almost certainly not going to be included during conference (e.g. the Davis-Titus/Wicker-Booker local control amendment).

We’ll be keeping a close watch on the conference committee over the next week, so stay tuned. The staff of the conferees is meeting this week while Congress is on recess, and the members will meet next week for the first time. They’ll have to produce a deal and pass it through both chambers again before next Friday (November 20^th) in order to avoid having to pass another short-term extension of MAP-21.

We produced a much more detailed summary for our members that also includes all named and likely conferees and how the bills stack up to T4America’s platform, available below.

[member_content]Members, we produced a much more detailed memo for you, which provides a detailed chart comparing each bill to one another as well as a comparison to the seven goals contained in our policy platform. You can access that detailed summary here.[/member_content]

The two bills are similar in their overall approach to funding. The overall levels are slightly better in one bill or the other for several key programs, and neither bill made any progress toward providing new sustainable revenues for our nation’s transportation trust fund.

This searchable table below covers 11 key provisions or big-picture goals and how the Senate and House bills stack up on each point.

Item	Senate DRIVE Act	House STRR Act
Does the bill stabilize the trust fund with new sustainable revenue sources?	No. It does not raise or index transportation user fees. The bill uses $45 billion in largely non-transportation funding sources to fill the gap between gas tax revenues and spending in the bill. Unlike the House bill, it only partially funds the bill for 3 out of 6 years.	No. It does not raise or index transportation user fees. The bill adopted most of the Senate's funding sources and added the option of using an infusion from the Federal Reserve surplus account to fund the last 2-3 years of the bill. (Where did that extra funding come from? Read this post.)
Funding levels	The Senate bill provides about $350 billion over six years.	The House provides about $325 billion over six years.
Complete Streets Join with the National Complete Streets Coalition in sending a message to the conferees urging them to adopt the Senate language.	The Senate bill requires states and MPOs to incorporate Complete Streets standards. It allows NACTO’s Urban Design Guide as a required design manual to be used by USDOT when developing the nation’s design standards, and will permit a local government to use its adopted design guide, even if it differs from the state’s.	The House bill only "encourages" states and MPOs to incorporate Complete Streets standards. The House bill does also include NACTO's design guide and allows local governments to use their preferred guide even if it conflicts with the state's
Local control & funding	The Wicker-Booker amendment to increase local funding and control was not included. The Senate bill provides less money for local communities than the House bill. • It suballocates 55% of the Surface Transportation Program to locals instead of 50%. • A smaller pot of STP funds overall = fewer total dollars going to local communities.	The Davis-Titus amendment to increase local funding and control was not included. House bill does provide slightly greater funding for local communities. The Surface Transportation Program increases with inflation, and the amount suballocated to local governments increases by 1% per year until it reaches 55%.
TIGER grants	Does not authorize TIGER or any other multimodal discretionary grant program.	Does not authorize TIGER or any other multimodal discretionary grant program.
TIFIA loans for TOD projects	Yes. The Senate bill lowers the cost threshold for local, TOD and ITS projects to apply for TIFIA loans from $50 million to $10 million, and makes transit-oriented development projects eligible.	No. The House lowers the cost threshold for projects to apply for TIFIA loans from $50 million to $10 million. It does NOT make transit-oriented development projects eligible.
Rail improvement grants for TOD projects	No. Transit-oriented development projects are not eligible to apply for loans from this financing program that provides low interest federal loans to public and private entities to improve rail infrastructure and assets.	No. Transit-oriented development projects are not eligible to apply for loans from this financing program that provides low interest federal loans to public and private entities to improve rail infrastructure and assets.
More performance measures?	No significant progress. MAP-21 took the first step in a transition to a performance-based system of investing dollars based on measurable outcomes and return on our investments. Neither bill takes the next logical, significant step forward in this regard.	No significant progress. MAP-21 took the first step in a transition to a performance-based system of investing dollars based on measurable outcomes and return on our investments. Neither bill takes the next logical, significant step forward in this regard. The House bill does include a new performance measure intended to “assess the conditions, accessibility, and reliability of roads in economically distressed urban communities.”
Transportation Alternatives Program	Senate caps the TAP program at $850 million per year (higher than the House), and suballocates 100% of it to metro areas.	House caps the TAP program at $819 million per year (less than Senate) and moves it within the STP program. It maintains status quo of sending 50% of the program to states and 50% to metro areas.
Passenger rail	Both House and Senate will likely include a passenger rail title in the final bill. The Senate incorporated theirs into the DRIVE Act while the House passed theirs separately.	Both the House and Senate will likely include a passenger rail title in the final bill. The House rail proposal will effectively separate the Northeast Corridor from the rest of the national system and prioritize funding for this segment at the expense of planned rail development throughout the rest of the country.
Transit & transit funding	The Senate bill marginally increases funding for transit. Other policy changes are relatively minor.	The House decreased the allowed federal match in New Starts capital transit grants from 80 to 50 percent and restricting locally-controlled STP funds for counting as local match dollars.

The economic development potential of passenger rail for downtowns

In a Next City piece, T4America board chair John Robert Smith discussed strong public investment in downtowns in smaller cities — especially those with passenger rail connections — as a smart way to signal to the market that the public sector is committed to downtown.

The article explores the story of Opa-locka, Florida, a town of 15,000 people in Miami-Dade County, where town officials moved City Hall into an 80,000-square-foot mixed-use building in the city’s downtown partially to save money. How do they expect to save money? The city only plans to use 40 percent of the property, leaving the rest for other offices and ground-floor retail — thanks to the area’s mixed-use zoning. With the passenger/commuter rail line expected to expand or add service, they’re hoping to capitalize on the increase in property values.

On the one hand, its value is expected to appreciate because, located near the Tri-Rail station, it’s in the heart of a recently created overlay district. And more connectivity is expected in the future: A Tri-Rail commuter train already runs through that station, but several lines expected to come through Miami, including a private high(ish)-speed rail line, could eventually connect those commuters with more of southeast Florida.

“The district has more flexibility for developers,” Chiverton says, explaining that the city changed zoning in the area to encourage mixed residential and commercial uses.

“It’s a perfect moment for us to purchase prior to values going up,” he says.

T4America’s John Robert Smith — no stranger to the economic development potential of passenger rail connections — pointed to other cities that have moved their city offices to downtown locations and the value of those moves for their cities:

Smith also points to the city of Normal, Illinois, which he says included many of its city offices within the same walls as its multimodal facility when it went up. He adds that older cities often already have established city halls within their downtown core, located near historic transit hubs (and likely, already long-ago paid off). Decentralized cities that were built later are more probable candidates for a move.

But whether or not it makes sense as a cost-saver, Smith says that being centrally located is a good long-range strategy for city offices.

“If we’re expecting the private sector to move in, then the public sector has to be the first to maintain its presence in the downtown,” he says. “We talk a lot about [public-private partnerships], but the truth is that the public sector always needs to go first.”

You can read the rest of the article here, and you can read more about Normal, IL, in our can-do profile.

Four senators introduce bill to help finance transit-oriented development

Building structured parking, public amenities and pedestrian-safe streets are part of the public infrastructure needed for successful economic development around transit.

Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) have introduced an important bill to make it easier for communities to support economic development around transit stations.

For any community with a high-capacity transit line – subway, light rail, bus rapid transit – encouraging walkable development around the stations is a no-brainer. By attracting more potential riders, it makes the best use of the transit investment and helps to build the tax base.

Even more importantly, it helps to meet growing demand for homes and workplaces in neighborhoods with easy access to transit. And who is driving that demand? To a large degree it is the talented young workforce that every area is looking to recruit and retain. [See our poll with the Rockefeller Foundation] At the same time, a significant share of baby boomers is looking for similar things, as an American Planning Association poll showed this week.

Doing transit-oriented development right often means retrofitting streets so that they are safe and inviting for people on foot and provide good traffic flow, and building parking structures rather than surface lots, among other improvements. But it is the rare developer who has resources enough to finance the upfront costs of public infrastructure and utilities before the revenue from the finished development starts rolling in.

The Transit Oriented Development Infrastructure Financing Act would help provide low-cost financing in the form of loans or loan guarantees under the highly successful TIFIA program, which was expanded under MAP-21. Eligible borrowers, whether a state or local government or public-private partnership, would have to demonstrate a reliable, dedicated revenue source to repay the loan needed for public infrastructure.

This bill would help to support communities in creating public-private partnerships that help to spur economic development, build the local tax base, improve neighborhoods and infrastructure and make the most of transit investments. Senators Schatz, Markey, Merkley and Gillibrand are to be commended for their vision in introducing the TOD Infrastructure Financing Act.