Skip to main content

Tag: transit oriented development

This is the podcast for transit lovers

Cities across the country have been turning to transit-oriented development (TOD) as a way to build communities with greater opportunity for all of their residents. A new podcast from our Smart Growth America colleagues explores some great TOD projects around the country and the lessons that others have learned.

Younger and older Americans alike are seeking out accessible, vibrant, and transit-connected neighborhoods to live, work, or age-in-place. But with a dearth of these types of neighborhoods being provided by a market tilted towards single-use suburban development, renting or buying in these places is often unaffordable for many. And with a housing crisis in full swing across much of America—where a lack of new housing is making large swaths of urban areas unaffordable to low- and middle-income residents—focusing new housing around transit is an obvious solution.

Fortunately, there are a lot of great examples of communities pursuing this as a solution, and their lessons can be informative for other communities considering their own transit-oriented development (TOD) projects or policies.

Building Better Communities with Transit, a podcast produced by Smart Growth America in partnership with the Federal Transit Administration, shares the stories of communities that are addressing the challenges of executing TOD. From novel ways to fund transit lines in Kansas City, MO, to new a ‘smart city’ concept along a commuter rail line in Denver, CO, to equitable development in Somerville, MA, this podcast covers a range of specific topics, and each month a new episodes expands the offerings.

Whether you are an advocate or a practitioner working on these issues in your community, this podcast has something for everyone. Listen and subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts to catch a new episode each month!

Check out the most recent episodes below:

Episode 5: KC Streetcar: A demonstration of the possible

In 2016, Kansas City, MO opened the first streetcar the city has seen in almost 60 years and transformed the city’s downtown. In this episode, we’re joined by the Executive Director of the KC Streetcar Authority, Tom Gerend.  According to Tom, former skeptics of the line are now some of the KC Streetcar’s biggest proponents as businesses have boomed and more people are moving to—and spending money in—the center city. The 2.2 mile KC Streetcar, akin to a downtown circulator, is “a demonstration of the possible.”


Episode 4: Reconnecting Somerville with transit

Somerville, MA sits just north of Boston and Cambridge, but is largely unconnected to the region’s network of capacity rail transit. But health and environmental justice issues in the community have finally pushed the city and region to extend the Green Line from Boston. In this episode, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone talks about how the community is working together on plans for future transit-oriented development around the Green Line Extension, and how that process can be recreated in the future.


Episode 3: Albuquerque investing in place

Albuquerque, NM is home to the nation’s first gold-standard bus rapid transit (BRT) line which began limited operations late last year. To learn more about the new Albuquerque Rapid Transit line (affectionately known as ART), we spoke with Brian Reilly, one planners for line, about the integration of transportation and land use in Albuquerque. As Reilly explains, ART forms a frequent and reliable backbone for Albuquerque’s entire transportation system and dovetails with the city’s focus on redevelopment along the Central Avenue corridor where ART runs.


Episode 2: Decarbonize the city, a few blocks at a time

In this episode, we explore a new smart city concept taking shape in Denver, CO: Peña Station Next—a new smart city concept on Denver RTD’s A Line commuter rail. Podcast host Jeff Wood talks with George Karayannis, vice president of CityNow, the smart city arm of Panasonic Corporation. Karayannis discusses smart cities, how to think beyond shiny new technology, and what it means for cities thinking about the future. Peña Station Next will eventually include residential, commercial, and retail space.


See the full post announcing the first episode, Taming Pittsburgh’s hostile streets.

Decarbonize the city, a few blocks at a time

Denver’s RTD A Line commuter rail that connects Union Station downtown to Denver International Airport. (Photo provided courtesy of Denver International Airport)

Today, Smart Growth America and TODResources.org are releasing the second episode of Building Better Communities with Transit: “Decarbonize the city, a few blocks at a time.” This month, the podcast explores a new smart city concept taking shape in Denver, CO: Peña Station Next.

Host Jeff Wood talks with George Karayannis, vice president of CityNow, the smart city arm of Panasonic Corporation. George talks about smart cities, how to think beyond shiny new technology, and what it means for cities thinking about the future.

Jeff and George also discuss what CityNow is working on at Peña Station Next—a new smart city concept on Denver RTD’s A Line commuter rail that incorporates ideas such as district energy, smarter streetlights, and intelligent power management in buildings. George talks about how and why the station location was chosen for this innovative project.

Like the name suggests, this smart development is located at Peña Station, the last stop before Denver International Airport. In addition to being a testing ground for new technologies, Peña Station Next will eventually include residential, commercial, and retail space as we explored in a previous post on TODresources.org.

Building Better Communities with Transit is intended to provide more support to communities and local leaders who are working to catalyze new development around transit, give more people access to public transportation, increase access to opportunity, and build robust local economies. For easier access, the podcast now available on a number of platforms: Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher, and others with even more coming soon. You can also access the podcast’s raw RSS feed here.

Recent TOD News

Here are a few things that have been happening this week with TOD projects across the country.

Introducing a new monthly podcast all about transit and development

Pittsburgh north shore skyline. (Photo Credit: Nick Amoscato via Flickr)

Last week, our colleagues at Smart Growth America launched Building Better Communities with Transit, a new podcast series at TODresources.org about transit-oriented development and how it improves communities across America.

There’s a deep well of expertise when it comes to undertaking or encouraging development around transit stations or along transit corridors. This new monthly podcast taps into that expertise to share the experiences of communities across the country, large and small, when it comes to development near transit of all shapes and sizes—heavy rail, bus and everything in between.

Transit-oriented development is not a one-size-fits-all solution and it’s vital that projects are tailored to each community’s specific needs. Yet, the principles are the same. Beginning this month, host Jeff Wood will invite experts for short conversations about how communities can catalyze smarter growth by encouraging new development around transit stations. Jeff and his guests will discuss the finer points of developing local policies to encourage TOD, engaging the public, securing sources for funding, and how certain communities are experiencing success, among other topics.

All of this is intended to support communities and local leaders who are working to catalyze new development around transit, give more people access to public transportation, increase access to opportunity, and build robust local economies.

Listen to the inaugural episode: Taming Pittsburgh’s Hostile Streets

For this first episode, Jeff Wood speaks with Breen Masciotra, transit-oriented development manager for the Port Authority of Allegheny County, PA, and Karina Ricks, director of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure for the City of Pittsburgh. We discuss the challenges they face in Pittsburgh, including topography, new technologies, and hostile streets. You’ll also hear about how they’re making a more walkable and multi-modal city through new bus rapid transit projects, transit-oriented development initiatives, and “eco innovation districts.”

An exciting time for bus rapid transit

A new study found that BRT in Eugene, OR had a positive impact on the livability of the surrounding communities. (Photo credit: Lane Transit District)

Investments in high-capacity public transit such as light rail and subways continue to demonstrate their ability to substantially increase property values along transit alignments. But can we say the same about buses?

Interest in bus rapid transit (BRT) is booming across the country as an effective and more affordable transit investment. Yet little research has been completed on their economic impacts in the U.S., partially because only a limited number of BRT projects have been completed here. Elected officials, real estate developers, and other key decision-makers are eager for more information on whether investments in BRT will pay off in their own communities.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), in partnership with Transportation for America, released an early study last year that found that BRT can indeed generate economic development, attract jobs, retails, and affordable housing.

Building on that research, NITC recently published a new study that takes a closer look at the impact of one specific BRT system. Researchers examined the Emerald Express (EmX) — a BRT system that connects downtown Eugene to Springfield, Oregon — and found that the EmX line improved the livability of the surrounding communities:

“The EmX line had a statistically significant positive impact on property values, which stands to benefit the community as a whole: the related taxes can be used to pay for transportation and other infrastructure, further enhancing the economic development of the community.”

This is an exciting time for BRT in the U.S. — BRT projects are currently underway in dozens of cities, several of which are taking part in the FTA TOD Technical Assistance Initiative. Visit the TODresources.org hub to access a trove of research on how to maximize the development potential of BRT corridors.

Recent TOD news

Here are a few things that have been happening this week with TOD projects across the country.

(Cross-posted from TODresources.org)

Introducing “Empty Spaces,” new research about parking requirements for transit-oriented developments

The oversupply of parking around transit — usually at the direction of outdated engineering guidelines — takes up valuable land, raises the cost of development, and misses key opportunities. This new research from Smart Growth America analyzes the amount of parking actually used in five transit-oriented development areas and how it compares to the guidelines that many planners, engineers or developers follow.

The land near transit stations is a valuable commodity. Hundreds or thousands of people travel to and through these places each day, and decisions about what to do with this land have implications for local economies, transit ridership, residents’ access to opportunity, and overall quality of life for everyone in a community.

Many communities choose to dedicate at least some of that land for parking. The question is, how much? Standard engineering guidelines are designed for mostly isolated suburban land uses—not walkable, urban places served by transit. But few alternative guidelines for engineers exist.

Empty Spaces: Real parking needs at five TODs, released today by Smart Growth America, set out to determine how much less parking is required at transit-oriented developments (TODs) and how many fewer vehicle trips are generated than standard industry estimates.

Professor Reid Ewing and his research team at the University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning selected five TODs across the country, each with a slightly different approach to development and parking: Englewood, CO; Wilshire/Vermont in Los Angeles, CA; Fruitvale Transit Village in Oakland, CA; Redmond, WA; and Rhode Island Row in Washington, DC. The research team counted the number of people entering and exiting the TOD buildings, and conducted brief intercept surveys of a sample of them. The team also counted parking inventory and occupancy.

The study found that all five TODs generated fewer vehicle trips than standard guidelines estimate, and used less parking than many regulations require for similar land uses. Most of the TODs included in this study also built less parking than recommended by engineering guides, yet even this reduced amount of parking was not used to capacity: the ratio of demand to actual supply was between 58 and 84 percent. Fewer vehicle trips is one likely reason why parking occupancy rates were lower than expected. Another possible reason is that standard engineering guidelines do not fully account for other travel modes that are available and actively encouraged at TODs.

This was crossposted from Smart Growth America

Join us for the kickoff webinar, today at 1 pm

If you’re reading this before 1 p.m. Eastern on 1/31, join us for a kickoff webinar. You are invited to join us:

Register now

 

Register for the event to to learn more about the findings and to hear from the report’s author, national policy experts, and planners from two of the cities included in this survey. Developers, regulators, and practitioners are already rethinking how much parking is needed at TOD. This new information can help them make better informed decisions, and ultimately create the development needed most at these in-demand locations.

Introducing a new suite of resources to support transit-oriented development

In December, Smart Growth America announced a new initiative to help communities across the country advance transit-oriented development (TOD) projects to grow their economies, achieve their social equity goals, and improve quality of life for everyone. As part of this initiative, yesterday SGA launched TODresources.org, an online hub for national information and ideas that will help users develop outstanding transit-oriented development projects.

fta-tod-website-screen

That effort, the Transit-Oriented Development Technical Assistance Initiative, provides on-the-ground and online technical assistance to communities working on — or planning to work on — transit-oriented projects across the country. The initiative is designed to help elected officials, municipal staff, advocates, developers, transportation professionals, and urban planners discover new ideas, connect with one another and, ultimately, build great projects.

As part of the initiative, today we launch TODresources.org, an online hub for national information and ideas that will help users develop outstanding TOD projects. The new site includes a dynamic database of leading research on TOD, information about funding and financing options for TOD projects, and opportunities for TOD professionals to connect with one another. Anyone interested in TOD can join the project’s mailing list to get news about new resources and opportunities.

The TOD Technical Assistance Initiative is a project of the Federal Transit Administration administered by national non-profit Smart Growth America. In addition to the new website, the project includes on-site technical assistance for communities. In April 2016, nine communities were selected for the inaugural round of this assistance. The project also includes a collaborative network of TOD professionals, which is open by invitation only.

The TOD Technical Assistance Initiative is one of the ways the U.S. Department of Transportation supports the efforts of communities across the country to build compact, mixed-use, equitable development around transit stations and foster sustainable economic development related to planned transportation projects. When done well, TOD can create convenient, affordable places to live and work for people from all walks of life. This new website and our broader work is designed to help the people building those projects learn how to make that happen.

Crossposted from TODresources.org and Smart Growth America. Transportation for America is a project of Smart Growth America.

Seattle making smart decisions today to continue their city’s renaissance tomorrow

Downtown Seattle has become the hot place in the region for companies to locate as employment and growth has accelerated to new highs over the last decade, but limited space downtown could stymie job growth and economic potential if Seattle doesn’t continue thinking differently about transportation.

Seattle Panorama

The Seattle regional economy is perhaps best known for big suburban employers Microsoft and Boeing, but over the last decade, the region’s recent economic growth has been driven by many companies choosing to locate in downtown and investing in new and old properties alike. For example, Amazon has rapidly expanded in South Lake Union (with more investment in the pipeline) and forest products giant Weyerhaueser is relocating into downtown from the suburbs south of Seattle and building a new headquarters in Pioneer Square. And travel giant Expedia Inc. announced that they’ll be moving to a new campus in Seattle in 2018.

Sponsored streetcar stopYet if the region doesn’t continue making smart transportation investments and developing the kind of policies that have already reduced the share of people commuting alone by car into downtown, that prosperity could be threatened — killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Culture of collaboration

Luckily, the Seattle region is tapping their strong culture of collaboration to ensure that they come together to protect that golden goose. That collaboration is exemplified by the ORCA transit fare card. Developed over 15 years ago, the “One Regional Card For All” enables transit riders to seamlessly use one card to pay fares with 7 different agencies. “The ORCA regional fare card project paved the way for all kinds of interagency collaboration,” says Josh Kavanagh, Director of Transportation Services at University of Washington.

About 10 years ago, Downtown Seattle Association’s then-President Kate Joncas saw great economic potential if decision-makers could come together and free up transportation capacity into and within downtown Seattle and encourage more employers to set up shop there. She convened leaders at Seattle DOT, Downtown Seattle Association and King County Metro. They formed the Downtown Transportation Alliance and in turn created Commute Seattle, an entity focused on reducing drive-alone trips into downtown.

Transit as a growth strategy

They implemented two key strategies that helped make it easier to access jobs (and future jobs) located downtown.

The first was bus passes. Washington State’s Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) Program requires employers with more than 100 employees to provide employees with transit passes and other strategies to reduce drive-alone trips. Smaller employers face no such requirement, so Commute Seattle focused its efforts on bringing these smaller employers voluntarily into the fold.

Boarding 594 to Seattle at Tacoma Dome Station

Transit passes aren’t enough to get folks on board if transit service is lousy, and Seattle’s high-density downtown environment makes transit/traffic conflicts challenging. Metro needed a way to bring buses through downtown and load and unload them more efficiently. The transit tunnel underneath the downtown core, built in 1984, did not have enough capacity for all the bus lines — a problem that was magnified when new LINK light rail service began in 2009 and also required use of the tunnel.

Ready to rollTo address this Seattle worked with the business community and Metro to incrementally improve 3rd Avenue and set aside space for use as a transit mall. If you visit 3rd Avenue at 5 p.m., you’ll be struck by the volume of buses and the crowds of passengers boarding them.

These thousands of people are some of the workers filling tens of thousands of new jobs downtown. Through all of these efforts, Seattle was able to reduce the proportion of drive-alone trips into downtown Seattle from 50% to 31% over the course of 14 years, which made it possible to add tens of thousands of jobs downtown while keeping car trips into downtown more or less the same. 27,857 jobs were created in downtown Seattle just from 2010 to 2013. Expanding and making transit work for more people has been critical in facilitating and encouraging this expansion.

Progress hasn’t been limited to downtown. The region’s light rail system LINK, run by Sound Transit, serves Sea-Tac Airport to the south and is opening a new northward extension to the University of Washington in 2016 from downtown. Which is a good thing since Seattle’s population is also growing and transit ridership is bumping up against capacity in places like the University District. In fact, population growth in the city has outpaced growth in the King County suburbs since 2010, with more than 70,000 new residents added since 2010 in the city.

Investing for the future

The last few years have been successful, but with the city continuing to add jobs and people, the question remains: How can Seattle accommodate its population growth and sustain its economic growth and still maintain a good quality of life?

SDOT Director Scott Kubly speaks to the press at a Microsurfacing Event

SDOT Director Scott Kubly speaks to the press. Flickr image from Seattle DOT.

Coming into office in 2014, Mayor Edward Murray viewed addressing this challenge as a one of the most important parts of his job. He brought in new expertise at the Seattle Department of Transportation by luring Scott Kubly, a star staffer from Gabe Klein’s transportation team in Chicago, to serve as SDOT director. Kubly cut to the heart of Seattle’s geometric transportation challenge, pointing out that “if all the people moving to our city — 60,000 new people by 2025, according to the mayor — have to drive their cars everywhere, we’ll descend into an awful hellscape of traffic jams even worse than what we have now.”

Under Kubly’s leadership, Seattle developed a plan called “Let’s Move Seattle” that focuses on accommodating new growth while preserving the quality of life that Seattle is known for and existing residents value.

Some exciting elements include seven new Rapid Ride bus rapid transit (BRT) corridors, and three new light rail access points: one new station, one pedestrian bridge, and realignment of another station to improve access. Safety improvements include 150 miles of new sidewalks and other projects to make the walk to and from school safer for Seattle children. The city will also be able to invest in 16 bridge retrofits to make sure they’re more resilient in the face of earthquakes, and in repaving 180 miles of arterial streets.

Cyclists on Dexter Avenue

Looking to the ballot in 2015 and 2016

The plan to pay for all of this involves extending and expanding the “Bridging the Gap” property tax levy that expires this year. City homeowners will pay about $12 per month, which is relatively affordable considering that Seattleites who are able to switch even some of their trips from driving to transit as a result of these investments could save money, and those who could make a more permanent change could save as much as $1,101 dollars per month. Seattle voters will decide on this plan at the ballot next week on November 3rd.

That measure is just the first of two important steps for Seattle voters in deciding whether or not to pay for the investments needed to help keep their booming economy humming.

With the Washington legislature’s passage of a $16.1 billion statewide transportation package earlier this year, the three-county regional transit agency, Sound Transit, received the authority ask voters to approve up to $15 billion in transit investments. They’re developing plans for placing a measure on the November 2016 ballot, Sound Transit 3, which could extend LINK light rail to important residential and employment centers in Tacoma, Redmond, and Everett — connecting yet more jobs to the region’s transit system — and lead to construction of new light rail lines to Seattle neighborhoods such as Ballard and West Seattle.

Seattle is unique amongst American cities in that transportation ranks as the top priority in public polling. We will see if the importance of transportation and a collaborative approach help the city and region to continue investing in transportation options to keep that goose laying golden eggs.

Pilot program to support smart planning around new transit lines will benefit 21 different cities

It’s important that communities make the best use of land around transit lines and stops, efficiently locate jobs and housing near new transit stations, and boost ridership — which can also increase the amount of money gained back at the farebox. 21 communities today received a total of $19.5 million in federal grants from a new pilot program intended to do exactly that.

Sound Transit's LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. Six stations will eventually be added to Tacoma's current LINK line, doubling their number of stations.

Sound Transit’s LINK light rail on the Seattle-SeaTac line. Six stations will eventually be added to Tacoma’s separate LINK line, doubling their number of stations.

Building a new transit line isn’t some sort of magic wand; a new rail or rapid bus line doesn’t automatically mean that well-planned, walkable neighborhoods will spring up to help support the line by adding new riders nearby, or result in new buildings filled with meaningful destinations bringing transit riders to the area. A lot of work goes into creating a plan that can foster and incentivize the kind of private development that a community wants to see around their transit stations, and the grants in this small pilot program will be a big boost to these 21 communities either currently expanding or planning to expand transit service to their residents.

This pilot program was one of the bright spots in MAP-21, and was a priority we worked hard to see included in the final bill during those negotiations back in the summer of 2012, along with our colleagues at LOCUS, the coalition of responsible real estate investors within Smart Growth America.

Making proactive steps to plan for development along entire transit corridors – rather than just one station area at a time – can attract private-sector interest as well as stronger buy-in from the community by creating a complete picture of the development opportunities presented by the new transit line.

A wide variety of projects received grants ranging in size from $250,000 awards to support the Woodward Avenue bus rapid transit line that will connect downtown Detroit with Pontiac and a transit overlay district in the area around the planned Valley Metro light rail expansion to Tempe; all the way up to $2 million for planning around the six stations of Sound Transit’s light rail expansion in Tacoma, including street design to improve connectivity for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders and a plan to expand access to jobs and job training in a fairly disadvantaged area.

Therese McMillan, the acting administrator, was on hand in Tacoma to announce the grants. “Transit-oriented development is critical to the success of new projects and to the economy of the local communities they serve,” she said. “These grants will help communities like Tacoma develop a transportation system that encourages people to use transit to reach jobs, education, medical care, housing and other vital services that they need.”

We’re excited to finally see the first fruits of this small pilot program that we worked so hard to see included in MAP-21. These grants will go a long way toward ensuring that these numerous planned transit investments bring the greatest returns and the best possible benefits to all.

The full list of winners can be found on the FTA website.

What we’re watching: Senate Commerce Committee to mark up six-year transportation bill today

[This blog post is cross-posted from Smart Growth America. – Ed.]

Later today (Wednesday) the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is scheduled to mark up the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015 (S. 1732), a proposed six-year transportation reauthorization. As we’ve mentioned here before, the federal transportation bill has huge implications for development across the country. Here’s what we’ll be looking for during today’s proceedings.

The bill currently includes legislation that supports and expands opportunities for transit-oriented development (TOD). The bipartisan Railroad Reform, Enhancement, and Efficiency Act (S. 1626) would expand the capabilities of the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Act, a $30 billion loan program to provide needed financing for transit-oriented development projects and infrastructure near passenger rail stations. This provision also includes provisions to improve rail safety and enhance existing rail infrastructure. These provisions are a big deal: previous transportation bills have not included a rail title, and it’s noteworthy that this bill would include both rail and surface transportation. We’re looking for S. 1626 to remain included in the final bill.

In addition, an amendment to the bill would include components of the Safe Streets Act, originally introduced in the Senate in 2014. The provision would require states and metropolitan planning organizations to adopt Complete Streets policies for federally funded projects. We’re looking for the Safe Streets amendment to be adopted in the final bill.

Finally, the bill would dramatically alter the U.S. Department of Transportation’s highly successful Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants. As written, the bill would refocus TIGER funding towards a new multimodal grant program exclusive to freight infrastructure. Hundreds of communities have used TIGER grants to catalyze local transportation investments and safety improvements. We’re looking to see the TIGER program retain its competitive, multimodal mission in the final bill.

Help defend the TIGER program: Send a message to your Senator TODAY >>

Ultimately the Senate Commerce Committee’s bill will be combined with bills from the Environment and Public Works and Banking committees. The final resolution could come to the floor for consideration by the full Senate as early as this week. The House of Representatives is also currently considering its strategy for transportation. No word on when the two chambers will come together on a final resolution.

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.

A new bill in Congress would create new financing option for transit-oriented development

This article originated on our partners’ websites Smart Growth America and LOCUS Developers. 

Transit-oriented development (TOD) can make it easier for people to live and work near public transportation. These places are in high demand and real estate developers are eager to build them, but because they’re often complicated TOD projects can be difficult to secure financing for.

A new bill in Congress would help make it easier to finance TOD projects. On Thursday, Senator Cory Booker (NJ) introduced the Railroad Infrastructure Financing Improvement Act (RIFIA). This legislation would expand the scope of theRailroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program, which currently provides financing for railroad infrastructure development, to include TOD projects near passenger rail stations.

Only $1.7 billion in loans have been processed since RRIF’s inception. RIFIA would not only broaden the scope of the program to a variety of development projects, but also streamline the process to make application easier. With the addition of TOD projects into RRIF, communities will have an additional tool to utilize existing infrastructure for economic revitalization.

“Historically, RRIF has been underutilized,” said Christopher Coes, Director of LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors. “The reforms included in this legislation would ensure that local communities have the tools they need to unlock the enormous economic potential of transit-oriented development while encouraging greater private investment in passenger rail infrastructure.”

“The areas around our country’s passenger rail stations are often economic sleeping giants,” said John Robert Smith, co-chair of Transportation for America. “Finding ways to finance and catalyze smart development in and around them is a proven strategy to boost local economies. Through the renovation of our historic train station in Meridian, MS, we were able to kickstart millions in adjacent development in our small city’s core. Countless mayors all over the country are eager for ways to stimulate the kind of smart, walkable growth that is in such high demand right now, and providing access to low-cost loans for these kinds of projects will give small and large cities alike another valuable tool to revitalize their city and support their local economy.”

In addition to providing financing for TOD, the new program would invest loan repayments back into rail infrastructure to help fund capital and operations expenses. This presents a unique opportunity for private-public partnerships between real estate developers and passenger rail agencies.

In January, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx voiced his support for new financing options for TOD. “When you build a transit station, it captures the imagination of real estate developers, and they start to build dense developments and bring amenities to communities. I would urge that we do more to partner with local communities, and to help them develop the tools to utilize land use opportunities.”

Helping interested communities make better use of land around transit lines and stops

A new pilot program from the Federal Transit Administration will help communities make better use of land around transit lines and stops. For those interested in applying, T4America recently pulled together several experts in a session to help them understand how to best take advantage.

One of the few bright spots in MAP-21 was the creation of this small pilot program of competitive grants for communities trying to support better development within their new transit corridors — a smart way to boost ridership and support local economic development.

With applications due in November, this T4America webinar was timely for those municipalities hoping to take advantage of federal dollars intended to better capitalize on the value of past investments in transit.

Nearly $20 million is available to support transit-oriented development around “fixed guideway” projects, which includes light rail, subway, streetcar, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit running in separate lanes. Grants from $250,000 to $2 million will be allotted to the best applicants from across the country that are focused on mixed-use development, affordable housing, and bicycling/pedestrian needs and have a strong, proven partnership with the private sector.

John Hempelmann, founding partner of Cairncross & Hempelmann, praised the private sector for leading the way on partnerships with transit agencies, realizing that projects like these bring both jobs and economic opportunities to the area.

“Urban growth is happening all over the country. We have this opportunity and we need to do this right.”

Hempelmann also stressed that while the program was over-subscribed, applicants should take heart. Because it’s oversubscribed, he said, it shows the Department of Transportation that local communities want this type of development. And just by applying communities are making progress by working to get private businesses on board and form coalitions. Even for the applications that don’t win funding, these critical partnerships can be of benefit in the future.

It’s not just about partnership with the private sector, though. The U.S. Department of Transportation has made it clear that if a project spans multiple jurisdictions, they want to see partnerships between the communities to show dedication to the project.

Beth Osborne, senior policy advisor for Transportation for America, highlighted the absolute necessity for these kinds of partnerships throughout the community, since it proves to the Department of Transportation that there is not only local interest, but also local support and commitment to the project.

“They want local commitment to the project; people can often be just as important as cash,” Osborne said.

Private and institutional land-owners and developers are critical to the long-term success of transit-oriented development, because they’re the ones most often putting their capital up or building the actual product in these areas around transit lines. Creating partnerships that can do it right offer the greatest opportunities for creating walkable, connected neighborhoods with good access to jobs and affordable housing.

We’ll continue providing similar resources like this webinar, and we’ll be tracking the progress of these applicants and reporting back on the winners hopefully in 2015. To keep updated on these kinds of webinars, sign up for our newsletter here, follow us on twitter, and check back here regularly.

(Ed. Note: Also featured as speakers were Homer Carlisle, Senior Professional Staff for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and Sarah Kline, policy director for Transportation for America.) 

New grant program to support smart development around transit lines is open for business

Webinar info updated below: A program created in the 2012 transportation law to help communities plan for transit-oriented development is open for business — and T4America is ready to help your community win some of that grant funding.

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

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

One of the few bright spots in MAP-21, the 2012 update of the federal transportation program, was the creation of a small pilot program of competitive grants for communities trying to support better development within their new transit corridors — one smart way to boost ridership and support local economic development. *Funds can also be used on projects that increase capacity on existing transit lines, but for the most part, these funds will support planning for new transit lines.

It’s a small program, but one that could have a huge impact in the recipient communities. The Federal Transit Administration announced late last week that they’re now accepting applications from transit agencies until November 3, for a total of almost $20 million in available funding (for the two years since MAP-21 passed).

(Speakers updated 9/23) With the FTA open to receive grant applications, T4America has organized an online session to explain the program, how it works, and what kind of applications FTA will be looking for. We’ll have Homer Carlisle, professional staff for the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee, John Hemplemann, Founding Partner of Cairncross & Hempelmann, as well as experts from Transportation for America to discuss this new program. Find out more information about this webinar taking place on Friday, September 26, and register today right here.

According to the notice from FTA, “the grants will fund comprehensive planning that supports economic development, ridership, multimodal connectivity and accessibility, increased transit access for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and mixed-use development near transit stations.”

This type of planning has been used successfully in transit corridors such as the Foothill Extension of the Gold Line which connected 11 small cities east of Los Angeles, the West Corridor that connects Denver with the suburban community of Lakewood, and the Green Line which connects Minneapolis to Saint Paul. As shown in these cases, planning for development along the entire corridor – rather than just one station area at a time –can attract private-sector interest as well as stronger community consensus by creating a complete picture of the development opportunities presented by the new transit line.

Rail and rapid bus lines often cross multiple jurisdictions, which can make coordinated planning of development at stations difficult.  As an example, while most would agree some share of housing along such lines should be affordable to low-wage workers, what if none of the cities along the line choose to provide for it as part of new development at their station areas?  What if one of the cities chooses not to allow walkable development at all around their new station, undermining the ridership potential of the entire line?  Coordinated planning involving all of the jurisdictions along a corridor can help to address these issues at the front end, to capture the maximum development potential of the line.

FTA will focus on funding the kind of planning that would not occur without federal support. Grants will fund planning around an entire transit corridor, not just individual station areas, particularly corridors where there are significant challenges to transit-oriented planning, low levels of existing development, or limited local financial capacity.

Transit agencies that are building new transit systems or upgrading existing ones will be eligible to apply for new planning grants, in partnership with local land use agencies and the private sector, to help them efficiently locate jobs and housing near new transit stations, boosting ridership and increasing the amount of money gained back at the farebox.

A stirring persuasion for deciding to vote for transit: seeing it built next door

One of the most powerful avenues for persuading a skeptical community to invest in transit is to see it successfully implemented nearby — whether in the community or neighborhood right next door, or a city and region a few hours away. This trend is illustrated in two of this year’s Transportation Vote 2012 ballot measures through two very different stories in Virginia and North Carolina.

In the tidewater region along the Virginia coast, discussions ramped up in the 1980s and 90s about a light rail system connecting the neighboring cities of Norfolk — a little more inland — and Virginia Beach on the Atlantic Ocean, mostly via an underutilized Norfolk Southern railroad corridor that runs in a neat, straight line from Norfolk all the way to the beach.

In 1999, an attempt was made to pass a referendum on the potential light rail system in the City of Virginia Beach, but voters rejected it. Perhaps as a result of the controversy or simple issue fatigue after talking about it the concept for more than a decade, the Virginia Beach city council washed their hands of the whole affair and passed a resolution affirming that the city would have nothing to do with the future construction of the light rail system for ten years.

That setback didn’t stop the project in its tracks.

Norfolk decided to forge ahead on their own with a system spanning the core of their mostly linear city along the Elizabeth River. And in summer of 2011, The Tide — the first light rail system in Virginia — opened to huge crowds and daily ridership exceeding projections.

Grand Opening of The Tide light rail system in Norfolk, Virginia
Crowds of people took rides during the Grand Opening of The Tide in Norfolk, Virginia. Newtown Road Station. Photo by D. Allen Covey, VDOT

Down the road in nearby Virginia Beach, citizens there finally got to move beyond renderings and promises and meetings and see a brand new working light rail system through the center of their neighboring city just a few miles away. Perhaps they bemoaned the perpetual traffic congestion on I-264 between the two cities and wistfully thought about how nice it would be to hop on a train at the beach and get to the downtown mall or the Tides baseball park right on the river in Norfolk.

But most powerfully, the idea of rail transit in their community was no longer an abstraction; a figment of some planner’s or city councilperson’s imagination. There it was, dropping off students by the thousands at Norfolk State and winding right through a newly rebuilt MacArthur Square and park by the mall every day with shiny new passenger vehicles on the way to the burgeoning hospital complex on the west side of town.

A year and a half later, it’s easy to understand how Virginia Beach voters went to the polls Tuesday and gave a hearty “me too!” to the Tide system. Though it was a nonbinding resolution directing the city council that still has the final say on moving forward, 62 percent of voters supported the measure. And in no small part because of the case study of success just a few miles west.

 
MacArthur Square in the center of Norfolk before, and how it looks after tearing down an old office building and creating a stop and a new park across from the downtown mall. First photo from Bing Maps, second photo by Steve Earley, the Virginian-Pilot

North Carolina Research Triangle

Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte are just a few hours apart on Interstates 85 and 40 and about the same size in population (1.7 million) yet Charlotte has done far more to invest in rail transit in the last decade, with more to come. (Though acknowledging the differences: Charlotte is a metro anchored by a central city and the more spread-out Triangle region is composed of the large and small cities of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary and the suburban Research Triangle Park.)

After the better part of two decades of discussion and study, Charlotte’s new Lynx Blue Line opened in 2007 and is a popular line running south from downtown to “uptown” Charlotte that has stimulated a wealth of new development along the way. According to our friends over the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, the Blue Line has catalyzed more than 10 million square feet of new housing, retail and office development along the corridor.

Simliar plans have been discussed in the Raleigh-Durham metro area for almost as long, but with four cities in three different counties trying to agree on a single region-wide plan, they’ve certainly had a harder time making it happen.

Perhaps prodded along by the success of the Blue Line down the road in rival Charlotte, Durham approved a half-cent sales tax last year to fund transit operations and a regional light rail line toward Chapel Hill, and Orange County (Chapel Hill) approved their half-cent tax to do the same just this week on Tuesday.


Rendering of a station in Durham courtesy of Triangle Transit

Unfortunately, the third partner in the region, Wake County (Raleigh), decided not to put a sales tax on the ballot this fall, so as of yet, there’s no truly regional commitment to building rail transit.

Leaders of similar sized cities and regions know that investing in transit, the signals it sends to employers, and the kind of growth that it can stimulate are key to continuing to attract a smart workforce. In a similar story about Nashville, Ralph Schulz, president of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Nashville Ledger that “the lack of a mass transit system costs the area about one in five businesses considering relocating here.” (In that story you’ll see that Nashville Mayor Karl Dean knows it too and is a tireless advocate for investing in more transit.)

With Charlotte signing on the dotted line with the Federal Transit Administration just a few weeks ago to move ahead on a 9-mile expansion to the Blue Line that will reach northward to UNC-Charlotte, the bar has been raised in the region which the Triangle most closely identifies as their competition for jobs and workers.

While they’re two-thirds of the way to a regional system with Orange and Durham approving the tax, unlike Norfolk’s story, the utility of a Chapel Hill-Durham line will be incredibly limited without including lines into Wake County to connect the thousands of jobs in the Research Triangle Park and downtown Raleigh with Durham.

But every trip that a Triangle leader or citizen takes down the road to Charlotte will be a powerful reminder that successful new rail transit in a similar still-sprawling southern city is a downpayment on future growth that reaps dividends in shorter commutes, more access to jobs and neighborhoods, and an increase in the type of walkable neighborhoods that are so heavily in demand these days.

On an optimistic note, if a booming suburban city in the South with jobs scattered across the region like Raleigh can find a way forward with more transit, there’s hope for many other similar regions.

—

Though these regions have voted to tax themselves to invest in transit and make their vision for the future a reality, they can’t do it alone. They need a strong federal partner to come through and help leverage those local dollars into tracks in the ground one day.

Innovation and competition make the housing-transportation connection work

A map of the Chicago Transit Authority system.

Note: a version of this post was also published on the National Journal’s Transportation Experts blog.

This country is in desperate need of innovation. We are still mired in a recession triggered by a collapse in real estate that was driven in no small part by the exhaustion of the “drive-til-you-qualify” housing market. The housing market was showing profound signs of change before the real estate-triggered financial meltdown halted all development, with surging demand for more conveniently located, walkable neighborhoods. As just one example, the city of Atlanta added nearly 120,000 new residents since 2000, a population increase of 28 percent, after decades of serious population loss.

Two summers after the devastating run of soaring gas prices in 2008, we are again suffering from anxiety over our over-reliance on petroleum as oil gushes into the Gulf of Mexico. Just yesterday, the House Livable Communities Task Force sent House leadership an urgent letter arguing that Americans must be given new options for where they live and how they get around as part of the long-term solution to this potentially crippling vulnerability. As they noted:

The transportation sector accounts for almost three-quarters of U.S. oil consumption, and Americans consume over 10 percent of the world’s oil just driving around. … Livable communities offer a safer, cleaner and more economical approach to reducing our nation’s energy consumption … .

“Livability” has become the administration’s catch-all term for providing communities the resources and expertise they need to give their citizens the living and travel options they are looking for, while sustaining a high quality of life. With the old model gasping its last breaths, our local communities and metro areas are the laboratories for emerging innovations in building the next America. The best way to sort out the most promising new ideas is through the tried-and-true American way: Competition.

The principles articulated by the three-agency partnership are an excellent prism through which to evaluate grant applications from local communities. The trick will be holding themselves and their grant recipients accountable for collecting and evaluating data on the success of these projects. Did that new neighborhood near a rail transit station draw the expected customers? Did residents and visitors drive less, walk and use transit more? Are residents satisfied, and if not, what would they change? There won’t be a one-size solution, but we should all be able to learn lessons about what works in a given region of the country or in certain types of communities.

This is an unsettling time for many of us, but it also could be an exciting time of positive change and new discoveries. The Obama administration deserves a lot of credit both for recognizing the link between housing, transportation, economic development and environmental stewardship and initiating a bold partnership to make sure this coordination happens. We should support their impulse to prod innovation, even as we hold their feet to the fire in evaluating results.

Feds announce change to consider livability in funding transit projects

TriMet MAX on the Transit Mall Originally uploaded by paulkimo90
From the Transportation for America Flickr group.

Following through on a policy change hinted at for much of 2009, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced this morning that federal transit officials would begin considering expanded criteria as they select which transit projects to fund, bringing a new focus on improving livability and sustainability.

At the Transportation Research Board’s annual conference this morning, Secretary LaHood made it clear that a wider range of positive benefits would be considered in the application process for new transit lines or systems. These applications were being unfairly burdened by the previous administration’s cost-effectiveness measurement, which left out such benefits as energy efficiency, economic development and reduced emissions.

“Our new policy for selecting major transit projects will work to promote livability rather than hinder it,” he said. “We want to base our decisions on how much transit helps the environment, how much it improves development opportunities and how it makes our communities better places to live.”

Of course, the one problem that this will not fix is the very high demand for a limited supply of New Starts funding. Even under the old narrow rules for winning approval, only a small percentage of the many applicants were receiving limited funding, and even then, the federal government was only matching about half of local funds, compared with at least 80 percent for road projects.

Still, this change is keeping in line with the positive reforms contained in Chairman Jim Oberstar’s draft reauthorization bill released back in the summer. In June, we quoted the bill’s section on New Starts reform, noting that the proposal to remove the cost-effectiveness requirement and include other “livability” criteria “equalizes the treatment of proposed transit projects and elevates the importance of the benefits that will occur in the community once the project is built.”

The Obama administration and all the leaders at USDOT and the Federal Transit Administration are to be praised for their leadership in changing this program for the better. The next step is securing a greater share of funds for public transportation in the upcoming reauthorization and improving federal match rates to equalize the choices state or regional leaders face between new highways and new transit lines.

Update: Chairman Oberstar responded with a statement of his own praising the change, also observing that New Starts needs greater funding to meet the overwhelming demand. “Now we need increased investment dollars to follow this reform, so that we can move forward with transit projects that relieve congestion, reduce emissions, increase our energy independence, and promote more livable communities across the country,” he said. (From Elana Schor’s post on Streetsblog Capitol Hill)