National Streetcar Workshop in Los Angeles on May 22nd.
Twin Cities TOD Toolkit
The Twin Cities region has a tremendous opportunity to use existing and planned transit to create strong, livable neighborhoods with easily accessible connections to regional employment, educational, and recreational activities. Understanding the various elements, players and opportunities surrounding successful transit-oriented development (TOD) can be a challenge. The Twin Cities TOD Toolkit takes lessons learned from the Hiawatha Corridor and other transit projects around the country to provide technical assistance and information for people interested in the ways in which transit-oriented development can help the Twin Cities region shape growth.
What is It?
The TOD Toolkit is a collection of materials that can be used together to provide an overview of the central issues, definitions, and policy recommendations that encompass successful TOD from the regional to the neighborhood level. The TOD Toolkit includes such general resources as a map of proposed key transit corridors including light rail, commuter rail and express bus service; to a links to regional and national resources on TOD and detailed presentations focused on efforts to date in the Twin Cities to develop TOD projects.
How to Use It?
The TOD Toolkit is organized into four major categories: general TOD materials, regional opportunities and issues, corridor-scale overviews of Hiawatha, Central and Northstar corridors, and a spotlight on issues of importance at the neighborhood or station area scale. The materials are designed to be used individually or as a comprehensive basic TOD curriculum, with text included to help guide potential presenters. For most topic areas, the TOD Toolkit includes a powerpoint presentation and a 2-page summary that can be reprinted and used has handouts. Slides from any PowerPoint presentation can be copied and inserted into other presentations
10-part financing plan for TOD
An article in Mass Transit magazine presents a 10-part TOD financing plan for transit-oriented development. Writers John Stainback and William Reed from Stainback Real Estate say that the 10-part approach "should be helpful to private developers to convert a TOD which is financially infeasible to a project which is attractive to the equity and debt capital markets." A variety of public-private partnerships, tax credits and federal and state funding are discussed.
National TOD Database now accessible to RA members
CTOD works with an extensive GIS database that combines a demographic snapshot of who presently lives near transit with information on travel behavior in each transit region of the country. We’ve recently created a password-protected seciton of our website to allow access to this valuable resource to members of Reconnecting America. Join now to get your password. For more information, click "Get Connected" in the sidebar.
New study sheds light on walkability
A new study conducted by the University of Oregon and San José State University reveals that people often walk farther than they had thought despite their desire to minimize time and distance. Other results suggest that design is less important than accessibility.