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Context A growing number of communities are discovering the value of their streets as important public spaces for many aspects of daily life. People want streets that are safe to cross or walk along, offer places to meet people, link healthy neighborhoods, and have a vibrant mix of retail. More people are enjoying the value of farmers’ markets, street festivals, and gathering places. And more people want to be able to walk and ride bicycles in their neighborhoods. People from a wide variety of backgrounds are forming partnerships with schools, health agencies, neighborhood associations, environmental organizations, and other groups in asking their city councils to create streets and neighborhoods that fit this vision. As a result, an increasing number of cities are looking to modify the way they design their streets. They are often stifled by standards and guidelines that prevent them from making the changes they seek. Some want to modify their standards and manuals, but don’t…

Introduction The purpose of this digest is provide an update to The Zoning and Real Estate Implications of Transit-Oriented Development (TCRP LRD 12). When TCRP LRD 12 was published in early 1999, only a handful of transit-oriented development (TOD) and transit-based joint development statutory and regulatory programs existed in the United States; those that did exist were, at that juncture, new and relatively untested. Since then, the field has filled with a number of new TOD and joint development programs, policies, and built projects, along with a robust academic and professional litera­ture. Cumulatively, these sources demonstrate a wide range of legal devices geared, directly and indirectly, toward promoting and building TOD and joint develop­ment projects. This digest attempts to trace these developments, beginning with an overview of the significant literature since the late 1990s. The literature summary is followed by a comprehensive…

The growth machine framework maintains that coalitions of elites work together to promote and adopt policies and practices that best serve their economic interests and propel cities toward growth. While numerous scholars have subjected the growth machine to theoretical and empirical tests, we know little about the beliefs and perspectives of individual actors within the growth machine. To address this gap in the literature, the present research uses in-depth interviews to examine the subjective views of one segment of the growth machine—real estate professionals. The findings demonstrate that these practitioners see the exercise of power at the local level to be less coordinated, consensus-driven, and growth-oriented than the growth machine thesis suggests. Specifically, they see their own power and capacity to act to be constrained by four factors: the (re)-election interests of politicians; the professional interests of municipal economic development staff; bureaucratic procedures…

This document presents a set of Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines which have been adopted by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Transit-oriented development, or “TOD”, means development that is vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and genuinely integrated with transit.

Introduction Purpose This report summarizes the findings from a ULI panel that was formed to assess the economic implications of the California Senate Bill 375 (SB 375), and associated implementation recommendations. As the basis of this inquiry, the panel was charged with reviewing available empirical data and studies pertaining to SB 375 and the impacts of the kinds of development that full implementation is likely to produce, especially compact and transit-oriented development. Drawing on this research and its own substantial professional experience, the ULI panel then convened to review and discuss the economic impacts of SB 375 on the state’s economy and make recommendations that would help deliver on the bill’s goals of regional connectivity, policy alignment, efficient provision of infrastructure, and improved environmental quality. SB 375 SB 375 was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 30, 2008. This bill links land use decisions to transportation…

Some of today’s most vexing problems, including sprawl, congestion, oil dependence, and climate change, are prompting states and localities to turn to land planning and urban design to rein in automobile use. Many have concluded that roads cannot be built fast enough to keep up with rising travel demand induced by the road building itself and the sprawl it spawns. The purpose of this meta-analysis is to summarize empirical results on associations between the built environment and travel, especially nonwork travel.

Executive Summary This project was designed to outline transportation chapters of a planned written history of Oregon land use planning, written in ways that would make the transportation planning profession relevant to a popular audience. The writing would focus on stories from the profession, and on historical facts and events in Oregon transportation planning history that would surprise or enlighten popular reading audiences. Technology transfer would occur through publication of one or more written pieces of work. The result is a topical and historical tale entitled “A Brief Portrait of Multimodal Transportation Planning in Oregon and the Path to Achieving It, 1890-1974.” Sources told stories with enthusiastic reference to past transportation events. The structure chosen was an interwoven collection of topical essays, arranged chronologically but skipping sideways, sometimes backward or forward, from stage to stage – national, metropolitan, state governmental, local – but…

Report assesses opportunities to improve land use and transportation linkages in communities surrounding 70 existing and planned transit stations