The demand for transit in the U.S. has never been greater, with ridership at its highest levels in 50 years and almost 400 new rail, streetcar and bus rapid transit projects proposed in large and small regions from Massachusetts to Hawaii, according to a new report by Reconnecting America. Americans took 10.1 billion trips on transit in 2007, saving 1.4 billions of gallons of gasoline -- the equivalent of a supertanker leaving the Middle East every 11 days.

"Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race: How the New Administration Could Make America Energy-Independent, Create Jobs and Keep the Economy Strong" documents the interest in transit projects around the U.S., and calculates the investment required to build all the proposed new lines. The report concludes that a transit building program not unlike the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act after World War II would help address many of the challenges facing this country -- from rising gas prices to climate change -- and it would create jobs.

Somerville: Reconnecting America worked with the Somerville Community Corporation to identify needs and opportunities for equitable transit-oriented development in the City of Somerville, with a focus on the planned extension of the Green Line. The report highlights demographic and real estate trends, and outlines a series of strategies for achieving mixed-income TOD.

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development prepared this white paper to help the Metropolitan Transportation Commission consider alternative methods for providing regional funding for transit-oriented development in the San Francisco Bay Area. The report outlines the need for such a funding source, case examples of other Metropolitan Planning Organization programs, and key considerations in implementing a new program targeted to this purpose.

New research recently completed for the Transit Cooperative Research Program provides the ammunition to build TODs that take the benefits of transit into account. The study completed by PB PlaceMaking, Dr Robert Cervero, The Urban Land Institute and the Center for Transit Oriented Development looked at how automobile use of residential TODs compared to conventional development.

Our research looks at the actual transportation performance of 17 built TOD projects. This was done by counting the passage of motorized vehicles using pneumatic tubes stretched across the driveways of TOD housing projects of varying sizes in four urbanized areas of the country: Philadelphia/N.E. New Jersey; Portland, Oregon; metropolitan Washington D.C.; and the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In fact, the results of this research clearly show TOD-housing produces fewer automobile trips in the four urbanized areas. The research confirms the ITE trip generation and parking generation rates over estimate automobile trips for TOD housing by 50%.

“Station Area Planning: How To Make Great Transit-Oriented Places” is the first in a series of “TOD 202” guidebooks to promote best practices in transit-oriented development. This 24-page manual follows publication of our TOD 101 booklet “Why Transit-Oriented Development and Why Now?” and is intended to help simplify the complex decisions that surround planning for TOD projects and station areas by providing details about the scales of development likely to occur in different places, station area planning principles, and TOD plan checklists. The intent is to help all the planning partners better understand the potential outcomes at the beginning of the planning process. The ultimate goal is to facilitate the creation of high-performing TOD projects and great neighborhoods.