Typologies Simplify Complex Decisions About Planning Outcomes

A common misconception about transit-oriented development is that there is only one type of development that qualifies as TOD. “But we’re not Manhattan!” protest residents. “Our streets can’t handle the traffic!” some cities exclaim. “We need to preserve our park-and-ride capacity!” fret transit agencies. Cities, transit agencies, and communities often struggle with making decisions about station development, access, development, and planning outcomes. The diverse nature of transit corridors, modes, and local and regional land use context, cause this decision-making process to become complex and fragmented.

To address these problems, Reconnecting America’s Center for Transit-Oriented Development has developed typologies at two scales: the corridor and the district (or place). Typologies have the potential to simplify complicated decisions about transit and land use planning and communicate them to a wide audience by identifying the key decision points and relating them to both idealized scenarios and real-life places at the same time. The urban-to-rural transect has been a powerful tool for New Urbanist land-use planning and street design because it creates a common language for decision-making in those contexts.

The use of typologies in decision-making is becoming more and more common as cities and transit agencies around the country have realized the complexity that high-quality transit-oriented development requires. Typologies developed by others have also been used successfully in cities across the country for various purposes.

The Center for TOD, which is a partnership between Reconnecting America and Strategic Economics and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, debuted its first TOD typology in the TOD best practices manual entitled The New Transit Town (Island Press, 2004). It has since been refined and expanded in a project for the City of Denver, and again for the City of Houston, and most recently for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We are in the process of further refining and revising our typology to incorporate ideas embodied in typologies for development, access and place-making developed by Arup and by Glatting Jackson. Look for a more complete discussion of how typologies can be used in the Winter 2007 issue of our Platform newsletter – coming soon!