Recent Books & Reports Articles

Midsize Cities On The Move: A Look At The Next Generation Of Rapid Bus, Bus Rapid Transit, And Streetcar Projects In The United States

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:28:18 -0500

Introduction

Public transportation investments have helped to shape many of America’s cities. The largest metropolises typically have extensive rail and bus systems that provide mobility for commuters, residents, and visitors and serve as the backbone of the regional economy. The recent shutdown of the New York subway system as a result of Hurricane Sandy, and the crippling gridlock that resulted, demonstrates the extent to which such cities depend on their transit systems. The benefits of such systems are well documented; New York’s subway, the DC Metro, Chicago’s “L” trains, and other large systems have been the subject of numerous studies of their economic and environmental impact.

At the other end of the spectrum, transit systems in small towns and rural areas have also been the subject of recent research, including “Exploring the Role of Regional Transportation Projects as Rural Economic Drivers” by the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) and Reconnecting America’s own report, “Putting Transit to Work in Main Street America: How Smaller Cities and Rural Places Are Using Transit and Mobility Investments to Strengthen Their Economies and Communities.” In these more rural areas, transit serves to overcome large geographic distances and limited transportation options for residents.

In this report we focus on the overlooked “middle” of America’s cities: those that are too small to be among the top tier, but too big to qualify as small towns. These cities can range in size from 50,000 to 250,000 in population. They are not merely smaller versions of large metropolises, nor are they just “bigger” small towns. Midsize cities are a stand-alone group, with their own unique set of amenities and challenges. Yet, like their larger and smaller counterparts, they too have invested in the development of transit systems to serve their communities. More than 250 transit systems serve midsize cities in the US, providing more than 1.5 billion trips each year. The backbone of the transit network in most midsize cities is bus service, which in some cases extends into the larger region. This bus service may be complemented by express or commuter service, paratransit for individuals with disabilities, and other special services.

The success of these systems, and continuing challenges in addressing residents’ mobility needs, has led local leaders in some midsize cities to take a new approach to transit. Across the country, midsize cities are investing in new rapid bus systems, bus rapid transit, streetcars, and other improvements to better connect suburbs with city centers, to move people between employment centers, and to improve overall connectivity among key destinations. These new transit investments promise to bring not only improved mobility for local residents, but can also be the catalyst for community revitalization, economic development, and improved connectivity between the transit system and surrounding community uses.

This report explores that “next generation” of transit in midsize cities, with a focus on best practices in transit planning, funding strategies, and actual or projected outcomes. The goal is to provide elected leaders, planners, and other stakeholders at the local, regional, state, and federal levels with examples of innovative transit in midsize cities that they can draw upon to improve transportation options in their own communities.

Reconnecting America Releases “Are We There Yet? Creating Complete Communities for 21st Century America”

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 00:27:33 -0400

Reconnecting America today released Are We There Yet? Creating Complete Communities for 21st Century America, an ambitious report that tracks progress in America’s regions toward a vision of complete communities.

The report highlights the benefits that complete communities offer all Americans, tells stories about the work being done across the country to create complete communities, and measures progress in every region with a population above 55,000.

“Reconnecting America is all about people, places and possibility,” said President and CEO John Robert Smith. “Are We There Yet? clearly illustrates that no matter where you live — big city, small town, Northeast, Southwest — it is possible to live in what we call a complete community. It is a vision that should be a reality for all Americans.”

The report introduces the concept of “Opportunity Areas” to help regions track their progress. Characterized by smaller blocks or moderate density housing or jobs, Opportunity Areas have some of the infrastructure in place to help get us “there” by offering greater opportunities to walk, bike or take transit. Reconnecting America examined all 366 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States and found 317 have at least one Opportunity Area. In all, one in six Americans lives in an Opportunity Area. Using Opportunity Areas and other regional indicators, Reconnecting America graded each region on its performance in categories we have called Living, Working, Moving and Thriving.

But offering transportation choices is only one element of complete communities. “Are We There Yet?” offers stories and data-driven observations about the role that complete communities play in enhancing the way all Americans Live, Work, Move and Thrive and how they contribute to the health of overall regional economies.

“Leaders across the country are working to move America in the right direction, but there is still much to be done to ensure opportunity for all,” said Allison Brooks, Reconnecting America’s Chief of Staff. “In issuing this report, Reconnecting America is making a call for a robust national effort to create complete communities for all –communities that are affordable, healthy and well-connected to economic opportunity. This report shows what works and what doesn't work, and offers constructive ideas for how every region can improve their grade, something everyone wants to see on their report card.”

Reconnecting America is thankful for the generous support received from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the Ford Foundation and the Surdna Foundation to complete “Are We There Yet? Creating Complete Communities for 21st Century America.”

Are We There Yet? home page

Transit-Oriented Development Is Good Community Development

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:31:27 -0400

The steady dispersion of people and jobs across core cities, suburbs, and exurbs has contributed to more fragmented lifestyles, with people often living in one neighborhood, working in another, and shopping and recreating in another. There are myriad reasons for this fragmentation of land use. They include the initial drivers of suburbanization, such as the GI Bill, which made mortgages cheaper in the suburbs (at least for those who weren’t redlined out), the separation of land uses in response to contamination by industry in the mid-20th century, the expansion of the highway system and the attendant white flight to the suburbs, and the relative ease of building on greenfields versus more complicated infill development in existing urbanized areas. Today, the quality of people’s lives is increasingly influenced by the time and resources it takes to get where they need to go throughout the day and their ability to access the jobs, educational opportunities, and other life essentials that are located throughout the region where they live and interact.

This reality is particularly true for people living on the economic margins, many of whom are finding access to gainful employment literally out of reach. Well-paying jobs that were once available for employees with a high school diploma or less are much harder to come by. Furthermore, a growing spatial mismatch has occurred between where people live and where jobs of any skill level are located. When one-half or fewer of the jobs in a region are located near transit, workers who cannot afford a car are further challenged in accessing economic opportunity. As many of the contributing authors of this book have expressed, it has become clear that neighborhood- or county-based approaches to poverty alleviation have not effectively addressed the systemic challenges poor people face when trying to improve their quality of life.

We are necessarily entering a new era of community development that embraces the role of transportation and mobility options in connecting people to opportunity, as well as the role of policy at the local, regional, state, and federal levels in supporting comprehensive approaches that address the problematic underpinnings of the new and dispersed landscape of poverty and opportunity. Taking into account the major demographic shifts underway across the country—the aging baby boom population, which will begin to experience limited mobility; the rise in single-person households; a 23 percent drop in miles driven for the 16- to 34-year-old age group in the last decade; and the fact that the majority of youth in America are children of color—the community development field must in turn undergo its own shifts, refocusing efforts to recognize that our cities and regions must accommodate the changing needs of all Americans.¹

Location matters when considering successful community and economic development strategies in both a local and a regional context. The term “transit-oriented development” (TOD) is most often used to describe this integration of transportation and land use and the improved social, economic, health, and environmental outcomes that can result by locating housing, jobs, and other activities near quality transit. We think TOD is just good community development.

INFLUENCING REGIONAL ACTION

There is little dispute that growth patterns in American communities during the past 60 years have not served the poor well. As Alan Berube discusses in this volume, sprawl and the growing inequality between the haves and have-nots have led to more intense concentrations of poverty among the very poor, with poverty becoming more “equal opportunity” through growth in suburban and rural communities. Many of the low- and moderate-income individuals and families who have moved to the suburbs in search of home ownership opportunities and improved amenities are now spending more of their limited income on transportation—a much more volatile expense—than they are on housing.² In many cases, people are finding themselves living in isolated conditions, dependent on their car, family members, or infrequent public transportation to access services and meet daily needs.

The fragmentation of the core elements of our day-to-day lives requires people to make lifestyle choices on the basis of what are now competing factors, including housing, quality education, and employment. Increasingly, individuals and families are finding they must choose one over the others because many of our communities no longer have that combination of elements that make them “complete,” including affordable housing, good schools, safe streets, low crime, parks and recreation, quality transportation, amenities and services, and jobs for people of different skill levels. Of course, it’s always been difficult to ensure that complete communities are accessible to people of all incomes, but the trends in zoning, disinvestment, economic polarization, and an auto-oriented culture have made successful community development a truly uphill battle. The result is that for the transit-dependent, largely made up of the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, just getting to their jobs, doctor’s appointments, or the grocery store can be exhausting.

Turning the tide on the growth of poverty and rising inequalities will require interdisciplinary approaches to community and economic development that better connect people and places, and in the process make their lives easier and more affordable, reduce congestion, improve air quality, and make our regions more economically competitive, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable. To accomplish this requires the diverse parties involved in community development to understand the connection of local conditions and needs to regional actions and investment. Although the community development field has often defined success as the ability to pool capital and build an affordable housing development or an on-site day care center, this new paradigm requires that every place-based effort or project be tied to a broader regional framework that understands where people need to go and how they get there. This approach requires working with local and regional stakeholders involved in transportation and land use planning, economic development, health, and other disciplines.

CHANGING THE RULES OF THE GAME

The old rules of the game did not encourage interdisciplinary approaches among practitioners of community and economic development, transportation, workforce development, education, and health and business, among others. When Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), stated he was going to “put the UD back in HUD,” he was referring to the separation of housing departments and housing developers from broader urban planning activities. The housing community has been focused on generating the much-needed resources and entitlements to build housing projects, but it has disengaged as a result from broader strategies that could comprehensively improve the livelihoods of their constituents, which includes affordable living, not just affordable housing. Not only have the existing rules of the game served to partition disciplines and the financial tools to alleviate poverty, but they have also served to distort and thwart people’s perspectives on what is possible.

Successful TOD by its very nature requires active collaboration among elected officials, transit planners, housing department professionals, private developers, philanthropic leaders, community development financial institutions, and community advocates, to name a few. TOD is operationalized at all levels, including through federal and state policy, through regional guidance and incentives, and through local station-area planning and project delivery. Community development professionals can reach better outcomes when they understand the role of each stakeholder and their varying emphasis on policy and investments at these different scales. The game only changes when we align and coordinate processes that operate on different timelines and scales, such as transportation planning (long-term and regional scale) and housing development (short-term and project scale). This is especially true in the transportation arena, not traditionally a focus area of community development activities. A strong case can be made that shoring up our existing transit systems with supportive infrastructure and dependable operating budgets can positively affect the quality of life for the poor and the transit-dependent, the most vulnerable to changes in transit service. Supportive TOD that includes affordable housing and a mix of services and amenities, and links up to important destinations can be a linchpin in helping the working poor improve their quality of life. New transit corridors and existing transit services need to be provided where equitable outcomes associated with TOD can best be realized. With that in mind, community development practitioners can play a critical role in influencing decision-making at the front end to better serve the transit-dependent, the transit user by choice, and people of low-and moderate-incomes. This could include influencing the location decisions of major employers, facilities investments by school districts and hospitals, and strategic for-profit and nonprofit housing development. Ideally, these types of resources would be located in transit-rich locations or along future transit corridors to address the regional spatial mismatch discussed above.

BUILDING FROM STRENGTH

In an era of constrained resources, communities stand a better chance of serving their residents over the long term by playing to community strengths. Critical leaders such as mayors are increasingly realizing that they can no longer support the infrastructure costs of further far-flung fringe development and instead are reinforcing use of existing infrastructure (water, sewage, utilities) wherever possible. Community leaders are considering investments in transportation and TOD to bring new energy and vitality to their downtown and surrounding neighborhoods by leveraging market forces. Using data analysis and mapping to show how a city and its neighborhoods relate and connect to the larger regional economy allows community stakeholders to develop realistic and feasible strategies that build from strength and promote economic resiliency. Asking questions is part of getting to the appropriate solutions: Is our community well positioned to attract new jobs, and is there a way for people to get to them? Are our residents susceptible to displacement once a new transit line comes in? As a bedroom community, what can we do to accommodate more walking and biking? Where should that new grocery store really go to maximize fresh food access for our residents? This analysis and strategy development can also foster education, collaboration, and capacity building—the types of activities that community development leaders can support in addition to capital formation and project delivery.

Some stakeholders may characterize a strategy of focusing and prioritizing investments as choosing winners and losers, but the more politically palatable “spreading the peanut butter” approach most often results in short-term bandages and little longer term, systemic improvements to poverty. Economically, communities that focus on their strengths also can achieve that hard-to-find critical mass of new investment that spurs revitalization. The truth is that every city and community needs to start somewhere, and in a risk-averse economic climate, a strong case can be made to focus initially on neighborhoods that already have good infrastructure in place to support the development of complete communities, ultimately resulting in increased investment in neighborhoods throughout a city.

Reconnecting America calls places that already have much of the foundation in place to build complete communities “opportunity areas.” Walkable blocks, compact development, and a mix of land uses are important building blocks in the foundation of a complete community. Opportunity areas can be found in the hearts of cities, suburbs, and small towns, and occasionally in outlying centers of economic activity. Reinvesting in opportunity areas is a great community development strategy because it is much more challenging to add the bones of a walkable community to a more auto-oriented neighborhood, although that too is a strategy community development professionals must embrace. In our research, Reconnecting America has identified opportunity areas in just about every one of the 366 Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States. This means that just about every metropolitan region has a place to start.

Decades of transportation research have shown that places we have identified as opportunity areas are more likely to support walking, bicycling, and transit use than other, more conventional suburban neighborhoods. Although the elements that make these vibrant places—major employers, retail, services, and entertainment choices—may have declined or disappeared over the years owing to disinvestment or the siren call of cheap “big-box” stores at the fringe, these places offer the potential for regeneration because the bones of a walkable, mixed-use community remain. Such regeneration is particularly feasible if their connection to the regional economy is strengthened through good transit.

CONCLUSION

Despite the polarized politics that have stymied progressive action in our nation’s capital, unprecedented innovation and collaboration are underway in regions across the country that support TOD, transit investment, and development patterns that better serve the poor, the environment, and the economy over the long term. Given the economic downtown and housing crises, changes underway in entire industries and employment sectors, the elimination of redevelopment agencies in California and potentially other states, and the demographic shifts transforming our communities, it is clearly time to step out of our comfort zones and standard ways of doing business, whether a housing developer, a transit planner, or a community advocate. In this new era of community development, we need to forge partnerships with unlikely allies, build collaborations that will stand the test of time and the vagaries of the political environment. In this new era we have the opportunity to redefine and build communities that are well supported by quality transportation systems and that will serve the life needs of today’s grandparents and tomorrow’s grandchildren.

* * *

JOHN ROBERT SMITH is the president and CEO of Reconnecting America. Reconnecting America is a national nonprofit organization that helps transform promising ideas into thriving communities, where transportation choices make it easy to get from place to place, where businesses flourish and where people from all walks of life can afford to live, work and visit. Reconnecting America not only conducts research and public policy, but also builds on-the-ground partnerships and convenes the players necessary to accelerate decision-making. He is the former Mayor of Meridian, Mississippi, and a long-time leader on behalf of passenger rail. He is co-chairman of Transportation for America, a former Chairman of Amtrak’s board, and a former member of the transportation committees of the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, as well as former co-chairman of the National Forum on the Future of Passenger Rail. He is a veteran of the station-centered community development movement, and led the drive to renovate the City of Meridian’s Union Station, a $7 million historic restoration project that created a new multimodal transportation center, dramatically increased use of the station, raised property values and city tax receipts, and lowered crime in the station’s neighborhood. He served on Reconnecting America’s board for five years, and was a founding partner and board member of Reconnecting America’s predecessor organization, the Great American Station Foundation.

ALLISON BROOKS is chief of staff at Reconnecting America where she helps guide the strategic direction of the organization, overseeing RA’s programs and partnerships across the United States. In her role, Allison leads national and regional efforts on a range of issues including fostering multi-sector collaborative partnerships across the fields of transportation, housing, and community and economic development to support more equitable and sustainable outcomes. Prior to joining RA, Allison served for over six years as a program officer for the Livable Communities Program at the East Bay Community Foundation where she spearheaded a number of innovative transit-oriented and community development initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was one of the founders of a collaboration of nonprofits and community foundations called the Great Communities Collaborative—geared towards influencing regional planning and investment in transit-oriented development across the 9-county Bay Area. Allison holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego and a master’s in sustainable international development from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

Notes

1 U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and the Frontier Group, “Transportation and the New Generation: Why Young People are Driving Less and What it Means for Transportation Policy,” April 5, 2012, available at http://www.uspirg.org/reports/ usp/transportation-and-new-generation.

2 American Public Transportation Association, Public Transportation Protects Americans from Gas Price Volatility (Washington, DC: APTA Policy Development and Research Department, May 2012).

Policy Brief -- Locating Aff ordable Housing Near Transit: A Strategic Economic Decision

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:59:55 -0400

Reconnecting America has written an eight-page policy brief that makes the economic case for locating affordable housing near transit.

The brief, entitled "Locating Affordable Housing Near Transit: A Strategic Economic Decision," explores the economic benefits of affordable housing and transit, the benefits of living near transit, and the efficiencies that come from bringing the two together.

The policy brief compiles recent research to demonstrate that one of the most economically efficient strategies for providing public services is to ensure that housing near public transportation is affordable to people with a range of incomes. The brief is designed to help city and county leaders, transit agencies, housing advocates, and land use planners make better economic decisions about how to meet their communities’ needs and includes seven recommendations for policymakers at all levels of government on ways to promote preservation and creation of affordable housing near transit.

TOD 205 Guidebook Explains Value Of Incorporating Families Into TOD Planning

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 14:28:17 -0400

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) and the Center for Cities & Schools (CC&S) at the University of California, Berkeley, today released "TOD 205 - Families and Transit-Oriented Development: Creating Complete Communities for All," the seventh in the Federal Transit Administration-sponsored series of reports explaining the best practices of transit-oriented development. This guidebook illustrates why planning for transit-oriented development that serves families is important for creating truly "complete" communities and how such planning can be achieved in conjunction with school stakeholders.

"There's a real change in how communities and developers are thinking about who lives near transit," said Abby Thorne-Lyman, CTOD Director. "TOD projects often cater to young professionals and empty-nesters without young children. But households with children also have an interest in living near transit. However, these families tend to look for a different set of amenities, and access to high-quality education is one of the most important factors they consider - which means that TOD planning has to consider how to align with education."

CTOD and CC&S worked collaboratively to produce this guidebook, which is based on a series of reports CC&S has published over the past two years. The Center for Cities & Schools is an action-oriented policy think tank whose mission is to promote high-quality education as an essential component of urban and metropolitan vitality to create equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities for all (see: citiesandschools.berkeley.edu).

"Our research has found that creating family-friendly communities around transit requires new approaches and partnerships for investment and implementation," said Jeff Vincent, Deputy Director of the Center for Cities & Schools. "Done in tandem with school sites and school districts, TOD planning can support high-quality educational opportunities and the other amenities that matter to families, like parks and libraries, safe streets for walking and biking, and access to grocery stores and daycares."

The first half of the guidebook describes how TOD can support families and why families are an important market segment in developing TOD. The second half of the guidebook delves into seven action-oriented steps that detail how TOD can be planned to attract families and support high-quality education.

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development is the only national nonprofit effort dedicated to providing best practices, research and tools to support equitable market-based transit-oriented development. Other guidebooks in the TOD series can be found on our What Is TOD? page.

Read an introduction and download the full booklet

Putting Transit to Work in Main Street America: How Smaller Cities and Rural Places Are Using Transit and Mobility Investments to Strengthen Their Economies and Communities

Thu, 24 May 2012 17:54:29 -0400

Introduction

Public transportation plays a critical and expanding role in rural America. Just as it does in urban environments, public transportation in small towns and rural areas provides mobility choices and promotes sustainable economies. Across the country, small towns and rural communities are developing partnerships to build intermodal transit centers, creating circulator buses to catalyze private investments in their downtowns, and improving connections between people and jobs. Small towns are using public transportation investments to help address the challenges of limited resources, populations both shrinking and growing older, industrial decline, and the loss of farmland. Through strong partnerships and creative funding mechanisms, rural America is creating stronger and healthier communities through transit¹ investments. Connie Garber, a passionate advocate of rural services and transportation director at York County Community Action Corporation in Maine, sums up the motivation of rural transportation leaders: “We all are headed for the same goal: a more robust economy that helps all of the people in the communities we serve.”

In this report, the researchers have explored how smaller cities, towns, and rural places are integrating transit into their communities. This report seeks to elevate the emerging best practices in smaller cities and rural places where transit investments are helping to set the stage for a robust future. This report is intended to help local planners, elected leaders, and policymakers understand the strategies, partnerships, resources, and plans being enacted in comparable communities across the country.

Key research questions include:

What types of transit investments are smaller communities making?
What impact has transit had on the economy and quality of life of those smaller communities?
Has transit affected the historic character that exists in many of America’s small towns, or has it been integrated seamlessly into the community?
Can a modest or incremental approach to transit investment yield results, or do only large-scale, urban-style systems yield bene. ts?
How do different players in.uence the process?
What is the role of the federal government in small-town transit projects?

When examining transportation investments in small towns and rural places, it is important to keep in mind the unique mobility challenges such areas face. Many rural places have long distances between destinations, and small-town residents often must travel a long way to reach specialized services or venues in larger towns and cities. The rural population in America is older than in urban areas, and older Americans experience more mobility challenges as their ability to drive decreases. As intercity bus and rail access has declined over the last several decades, small towns and rural places have become increasingly isolated from larger population centers.² The cost of transportation for Americans living in such communities is high, and household budgets are tied to the cost of gasoline for the family car, the primary – and in many cases only – means of getting around.

These factors suggest that small towns and rural areas would bene.t from transportation alternatives. But it is also clear that transit in these communities cannot look like the transit systems of larger cities. Historic low-density land-use patterns in rural areas make designing and operating transit service more challenging. Local resources to support transit planning and service are limited, and small-town residents may feel that while transit can be wonderful in a big city, it just isn’t something that would .t in with their lifestyle.

End notes

1 The words “public transportation” and “transit” are used interchangeably throughout this report.

2 Rural Access to Intercity Transportation Has Declined. (2011). Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Retrieved December 2011 from http://bit. ly/wc9xxf

Download the full report

Webinar: Putting Transit to Work in Main Street America

CTAA Podcast (MP3): Putting Transit to Work in Main Street America

$code

Preservation in Transit-Oriented Districts: A Study on the Need, Priorities, and Tools in Protecting Assisted and Unassisted Housing in the City of Los Angeles

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:00:04 -0400

Executive Summary

Los Angeles is transforming our future by investing in the largest transit expansion in the United States. By the end of 2012, the City alone will have 71 operating light rail or bus rapid transit stations, with dozens more in nearby communities throughout the county. Planned Measure R investments will add another 42 stations to the City, for a total of 113 stations in 30 years. These plans could happen instead within a quick, ten year time frame if the federal government approves America Fast Forward, bringing thousands of new transit construction and operations jobs to the City and connecting over 1.2 million existing jobs to high quality, fixed-guideway transit rich areas.

Ensuring that all of our families and workers are able to continue to live and work in our most transit rich neighborhoods is a key priority of the City of Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD). One way to achieve this goal is to preserve existing affordable and rent stabilization ordinance-subject housing opportunities near transit.

Preserving Affordable Housing Near Transit is Important Because:

Our economic competitiveness relies on offering housing for workers of all incomes. The majority of workers in the City's major job centers do not have a college degree. In fact, 70% of Downtown Los Angeles workers have an Associate's Degree or less. And about 60% of jobs in our fastest growing sector – Health Services – require less education than a Bachelor's degree. Many of these jobs will be filled by low and moderate income workers. Further, many of the city's critical workforce development institutions such as Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Valley College and Pierce College, are located along the transit system, offering a built-in opportunity to connect low income workers to better job opportunities through training and education.
Low-and moderate-income workers support a successful transit system. Approximately 70% of workers who commute by transit earn less than $25,000 a year. Nearly one in five workers earning less than $25,000 in annual pay, take transit to work. If these workers are unable to afford to live near transit in the City, the transit system suffers, and our most vulnerable, transit-dependent residents will have an even more difficult time accessing jobs affordably.
An opportunity exists today that might not exist tomorrow. Today, the City's most transit-rich neighborhoods house a high percentage of low and moderate-income residents. These residents are able to take advantage of the many benefits that have been discussed. However there is concern that as transit catalyzes reinvestment in these core, transit-rich neighborhoods, lower income residents and workers might be displaced to areas with fewer transportation choices.
More so than ever before or ever again, the City's affordable housing stock is at risk. Nearly 15,000 income-restricted units have covenants, rental assistance contracts, mortgages, or other time-limited affordability requirements that will expire or are at risk of being terminated between 2012 and 2017. While many property owners will choose to continue to serve low-and moderate-income residents with below market rents, the temptation of rising rental prices near some station areas may be too great to resist. Preserving these units today will be substantially more cost effective and energy efficient than having to replace them with new affordable housing stock tomorrow.

Priority Transit-Oriented Districts for Preservation, 2012-2017

Given the deep need for the preservation of affordable housing in the City, the many economic, social, environmental, and health related benefits offered in transit-rich locations, and the dauntingly large number of station areas in the City, this study focused on defining a limited number of transit-oriented districts with the greatest need and opportunity for preservation of affordable and vulnerable housing over the next five years. To do so, the Los Angeles Housing Department and Reconnecting America conducted a data-and mapping-intensive analysis of demographic, economic, and transportation-related conditions at all existing and planned Measure R station areas throughout the City. Factors evaluated include:

Median Household Income
Percent of Renter-Occupied Households
Potential Change in Market Strength Resulting from:
- Proximity to Major Job Centers
- Areas with Lower Transportation Costs
- Rising Property Values
- Transit Access to Downtown Los Angeles and Westwood Resulting from Measure R Investments
- Historic Neighborhood Character (age of buildings)
Vulnerability of Housing Stock:
- Concentration of Income-Restricted, At-Risk Units
- Concentration of Larger Buildings Subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance
- Concentration of Smaller Buildings Subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance

Based on the evaluation of these factors, four existing transit-oriented districts were selected as areas of focus for preservation activities over the next five years. Specifically, these areas exhibited the higher confluence of vulnerability factors. Where other geographies in proximity to transit investment are also subject to market pressures, the four districts in Figure 1 have the higher concentration of combined factors today. These include station area clusters along the Red Line, Purple Line, Venice Blvd. Central L.A Rapid Bus corridor (North of I-10), and Expo Line.

City of Los Angeles Strategy Areas

These areas have common characteristics including a high share of low-income renters, a strengthening real estate market, and rich transit connectivity. While other areas such as Downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights also meet these characteristics, the intention of this analysis was to select areas that could serve as pilot locations for coordinated transit-oriented preservation strategies to potentially be replicable in the future. Downtown Los Angeles requires a unique approach that addresses issues related to single room occupancy buildings, and Boyle Heights lacks the same concentration of expiring units seen in the selected transit-oriented districts.

Within these four geographies collectively, there are about 160,000 rent stabilized properties(25% of City total), and about 6,200 affordable units with expiring restrictions in the next five years(41% of City total).

Developing Coordinated Strategies for Preservation

It is important to identify ways in which the City and key partners can work together to prioritize the preservation of units in these geographies, develop pilot, coordinated strategies that can be evaluated and later applied in areas facing similar issues in the future. Addressing preservation issues in these areas can stave off the potential loss of a significant share of the City's affordable housing stock, but also possibly offer some opportunities to get ahead of the market and acquire key transit-rich properties for long-term preservation or development.

There are several possible next steps to address preservation in these four areas, including but not limited to:

Coordinating existing tools to move proactively and aggressively in preserving buildings
Anticipating property owner behavior, and focus outreach to owners and tenants
Conduct pilot assessments for development and deployment of new tools

A next step for preservation stakeholders is to define the specific types of tools that need to be coordinated within each area, and to identify gaps that new tools or policies could address.

To delve more specifically into the types of possible strategies to be coordinated and deployed throughout these adjoining areas, it is important to have a deeper understanding of the actual risks of potential loss of affordable units. These risks vary based on the characteristics of the affordable and rent-stabilized housing stock. For example:

Affordable units with expiring restrictions could potentially be removed from the City's affordable and rent stabilized housing stock, depending on a number of factors including the remaining term of rental subsidies and/or restrictions, current funding structures, property size, property ownership (non-profit, private for-profit, etc.), and rental market;
Any rental property on a parcel larger than ¼ to ½ acre may be a potential site for tear-down and redevelopment of buildings, which would not be subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO); property owners that demolish RSO units and build replacement rental housing within five years of the demolition are required to register the new units with the RSO. The landlord may set the initial rent on these units, but all subsequent increases are subject to the RSO's annual percentage. Any demolition or redevelopment that takes place after five years would not be subject to the RSO.
Large RSO-Subject properties with 50 units or more demonstrate an elevated possibility of removal from the rent stabilized stock. Also, these properties more easily meet the typical minimum standard to be (re)capitalized for a loan.
Small RSO-Subject properties (approximately 5 units or fewer) are more likely to be owned and operated by property owners who are not professional property managers (i.e.“mom and pop” landlords). Owners of smaller properties are more likely to be uninformed about the City's Rent Stabilization Ordinance rights and responsibilities. These types of properties also more frequently building code violations.

Different geographies within priority transit-oriented districts have a unique mix of these types of vulnerable housing units. These geographies (see the figure below) have been divided into four “preservation types” based on the concentration of affordable at-risk properties, the presence of large RSO buildings and small RSO buildings to reflect the different types of vulnerability described above.

Areas with Large RSO Properties (red). Many Expiring Units are key targeted areas for financing of property acquisition and preservation because they yield the greatest financial opportunities.
Areas with Large RSO Properties (green). Few Expiring Units may also be key targets for preservation through property acquisition; these could be more reliant upon limited, local funding sources (e.g. the Affordable Housing Trust Fund).
Areas with Small RSO Properties (brown). Many Expiring Units will require the most hybridized set of preservation strategies, such as property acquisition and outreach/enforcement related activities. This combination becomes important as market strength changes in these neighborhoods; redoubled tenant outreach efforts may help prevent both building code and RSO violations if property owners attempt to evict tenants without just cause.
Areas with Small RSO Properties (yellow). Few Expiring Units will be priorities for tenant and property owner outreach and enforcement. As with the previous type, redoubled tenant outreach efforts may help prevent both building code and RSO violations if property owners attempt to evict tenants without just cause if/when market strength changes.

City of Los Angeles Preservation Types

The figure above is evolved from the previous figure, which identifies four transit-oriented districts selected for preservation activities. This figure is color-coded based on the number of expiring units and concentration of different types of RSO properties, which defines four possible preservation types.

Maps from this report are available in the Maproom

The Denver Regional Equity Atlas: Mapping Opportunity At The Regional Scale

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:24:52 -0400

The Denver Regional Equity Atlas was written by Reconnecting America and the Piton Foundation on behalf of Mile High Connects to inform the development of strategies to ensure that existing and expanding transit systems in the Metro Denver region provide greater access from affordable housing to jobs, good schools, health care and other essential services.

The Atlas is a visual representation of demographics, education, employment, health care and housing in relation to transit. The Atlas helped Mile High Connects identify both areas of greatest opportunity and greatest need prior to developing its strategic plan.

To help raise awareness among a wide range of stakeholders about the benefits and opportunities that a robust public transportation network can create, the Atlas maps out the region’s major origins and destinations in relation to the current and future transit network. The Atlas emphasizes the need to ensure access to opportunity for everyone in the region, especially improving connections for the region’s most economically disadvantaged residents. The future transit network will better connect people to jobs, healthcare providers, schools, grocery stores, parks and other essential destinations, but there are challenges in ensuring that the people who use and need access to public transportation the most have the opportunity to live, work, learn and play in transit-oriented communities.

The following topics form the organizational structure for the atlas:

Population and Demographic Characteristics of the Region
Access to Affordable, Quality Housing Options
Access to Jobs and Economic Development Opportunities
Access to Educational Opportunities
Access to Health Care, Healthy Foods, and Recreational Facilities

Data was collected from a variety of sources for seven counties in the Metro Denver region: Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas and Jefferson. Geographic information system (GIS) software was then used to spatially analyze the data and produce maps for each topical area. Each map contains the current and future transit network, including high frequency bus routes and rail lines, as the base map.

Maps from the project are available in the maproom.

Reconnecting America Supports New Orleans and Baton Rouge “Super Region” In Pursuit Of Improved Transit And TOD

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:00:00 -0400

In 2011, Reconnecting America developed a three-part series of briefs on the opportunity for New Orleans and Baton Rouge to develop an integrated, regional transportation network that supports strong communities and improves opportunity for the residents and businesses of southern Louisiana. The briefs were written for CONNECT, a coalition of public and private sector organizations that work across the New Orleans and Baton Rouge regions to advocate for expanded mobility choices that offer improved access to affordable homes, job centers and equitable economic opportunity. The CONNECT Coalition is a project of the Center for Planning Excellence (CPEX), a nonprofit that helps create highly functional, equitable communities throughout Louisiana by supporting community members and leaders as they work toward a shared vision for future growth and development.

Brief 1: One Great Region

This introductory brief sets the stage for a new level of “super regional” coordination on issues of transportation and land use in southern Louisiana. The brief argues that when neighboring jurisdictions compete against one another for jobs and new development, or plan transportation systems that aren’t complimentary, they perpetuate a cycle of regional congestion and wasteful spending. One Great Region discusses the three “key ingredients” that will be needed in order to build a sustainable super region: improving the link between the state’s two largest metro areas by launching commuter rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans; improving local and regional transit within parishes, and; aligning investments and policies to build affordable, walkable transit-oriented communities. The report uses national data to explain how these three areas of planning and investment could reduce congestion, support a strong regional economy and improve equity in greater Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Download One Great Region

Brief 2: Connected and Ready to Compete

The second brief in the series is focused on the economic advantages that coordinated planning and improved transportation choices could bring to the Baton Rouge and New Orleans super region. The brief shares national data and case studies on how improved transit can create opportunity for real estate development and help businesses attract and access the workforce they need. It also discusses how coordinated transportation and land use planning can help governments and communities see a higher return from public investments. Connected and Ready to Compete makes the case that investing in transit and walkable, vibrant communities is essential to maintaining a region’s economic competitiveness, and argues that the public and private sectors must work together to build a sustainable and equitable super region.

Download Connected and Ready to Compete

Brief 3: Getting from Here to There

The final brief in the series, Getting from Here to There outlines specific guiding principles and actions that the super region can take to advance the proposed commuter rail line, improve transit and support walkable, affordable, transit-oriented communities. The six next steps discussed in the report include:

Conducting education and outreach on the benefits of transit and TOD
Developing a commuter rail implementation strategy
Forming a Regional Rail Advisory Council
Prioritizing Bicycle and Pedestrian Improvements
Creating a Strategic Plan for Transit-Oriented Development
Conducting a Cost-Benefit Analysis for Mobility in the Super Region

Download Getting from Here to There

CTOD Guidebook Explores Importance of Planning for TOD at Regional Scale

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 21:21:06 -0400

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development today released “TOD 204: Planning for TOD at the Regional Scale,” the sixth in the Federal Transit Administration-sponsored series of reports explaining best practices of transit-oriented development.

This guidebook, which includes case studies from around the country, focuses on regional planning for TOD, including the general framework and benefits, and eight strategies for successful regional TOD planning.

“TOD helps communities of all sizes make the most of their transit investments,” said FTA Deputy Administrator Therese McMillan. “By improving connections to jobs and helping communities make targeted public investments, regional planning for TOD supports strong local and regional economies – something we know to be a current priority in many places.”

Building successful TOD requires thinking beyond the individual station and understanding the role each neighborhood and station area plays in the regional network of transit-oriented places, the guidebook notes. It also requires an understanding of the real estate market, major employment centers, and travel patterns in the region. Regional planning for successful TOD depends on the coordination of existing plans for growth, transit, housing and jobs, as well as programs and policies at all levels of government.

“People often think about TOD at the site- or station-area scale, but it is critical that we plan for TOD with the bigger picture in mind. This booklet is designed to give elected leaders, planners, citizens and community development practitioners the strategies and case studies they need to initiate a successful regional TOD planning process,” said Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

One of the TOD planning efforts discussed in the booklet is taking place in greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where a coalition of public and private sector organizations called CONNECT has formed in order to advocate for better transit and TOD planning in the region.

Rachel Diresto, Executive Vice President of the Center for Planning Excellence and coordinator of the CONNECT Coalition, stated, “When it comes to building a quality regional transit network and strong, transit-oriented neighborhoods, we recognize that no one city or parish can do it alone. Coordinating the efforts of all the agencies and communities groups who need to work together is difficult, and we need to understand what strategies have worked in other regions that have undertaken similar efforts.”

Read the introduction and download the full report

Learn more about What is TOD?

CTOD releases West Corridor TOD Report for Denver Region

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0400

What's the difference between good transit-oriented development and great transit-oriented development? The answer is laid out in the new Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) report, "Connecting the West Corridor Communities: An Implementation Strategy for TOD along the Denver Region’s West Corridor."

The report was produced as part of a collaboration between the city and county of Denver, the city of Lakewood, the Denver Housing Authority and Metro West Housing Solutions. Known as the West Corridor Working Group (WCWG), the collaborators sought CTOD's expertise in creating a strategy for implementing successful transit-oriented development along the West Corridor light rail line operated by the Regional Transportation District (RTD) and scheduled to open in 2013.

“The WCWG recognized that to truly achieve affordable, mixed-income communities along the West Corridor, we had to work together to align our vision, policies and resources for positive change” said Ismael Guerrero, Executive Director of the Denver Housing Authority.

Among other things, the report notes that a focus on TOD will support growth near new transit stations, enhance access to opportunity, preserve and enhance the supply of a range of housing choices, reduce the combined costs of housing and transportation, and support walking and biking to stations. But it will not be an easy task.

"The economic conditions in the country today are impacting the pace and magnitude of private sector development activity, and along the West Corridor potential development opportunities related to transit have not yet been realized,” said Catherine Cox Blair, Reconnecting America's program director and principal report author for the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. “As a result, public agencies will play a vital role in ensuring the success of this incredible opportunity for transit-oriented development to leverage market momentum for new investment and community building. "

CTOD recommendations to the West Corridor Working Group include:

Complete the “last mile” of critical bicycle and pedestrian connections along the corridor.
Develop a corridor-wide affordable housing strategy for both preservation and new production of units.
Prioritize the Federal Center, Oak, and the Federal/Decatur Stations respectively as high priority stations with transformational opportunities.
Continue to support infrastructure improvements at Oak, Garrison, Wadsworth and Lamar in Lakewood.
Collaborate on a joint Denver and Lakewood implementation plan at Sheridan.
Develop some small-scale strategies for the Knox and Perry stations in Denver.
Emphasize Colfax as the retail corridor in both cities.
Develop a marketing and branding plan to market and promote the West Corridor.

"By laying the foundation now through activities such as adopting appropriate policies and investing in high value catalytic projects, the WCWG can ensure that over time and as the market matures, the overall value of new private investment will ultimately surpass the public investment," the report concludes.

Read the Executive Summary and Download the report

Visit WestCorridor.org

Transit Revitalization Investment Districts: Opportunities and Challenges for Implementation

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:00:00 -0400

Introduction

This report provides an evaluation of planning and implementation efforts undertaken based on the Pennsylvania Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID) Act. This innovative law, passed in 2004, has been cited nationally as a model for fostering transit-oriented development (TOD). TRID is intended to achieve a variety of goals including:

Encouraging TOD and economic development;
Fostering collaboration between multiple entities;
Promoting the use of value capture mechanisms, public-private partnerships, and other innovative financing methods to spur infrastructure investment;
Incorporating community involvement in planning; and
Generating increased revenue and ridership for transit agencies.

The TRID legislation enables the use of a district-based tax increment financing mechanism to capture increases in property values to pay for needed improvements. It is distinct from tax-increment financing (TIF) because unlike TIF, it does not require that there be a finding of “blight” in the area where it is used. It also differs from other district-based TIF strategies around the country in its explicit emphases on transit and TOD and the comprehensive, community-based planning that is required for successful TOD implementation.

Twelve TRID planning processes have been initiated statewide using funds from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), and others are in the early stages of planning using other state and local sources. However, thus far no TRID financing district has been created. This report aims to assess TRID’s strengths and offer some reasons as to why the tool has not yet been used for implementation financing. Using a case study approach, we evaluate TRID efforts to date and offer recommendations to help assist with future efforts. Findings from the case studies were supplemented by interviews with TRID practitioners from around the Commonwealth. Section 1 provides a brief overview of the legislation, and Section 2 provides four case studies of TRID planning efforts in Marcus Hook, Lower Merion Township (Bryn Mawr), Dormont/Mt. Lebanon, and Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. A summary of findings about TRID successes and challenges, as well as a discussion of potential ways to overcome implementation barriers, are provided in Section 3.

TRID Overview

Goals

The TRID statute outlines a series of goals related to advancing TOD in the Commonwealth:

Promote local, county and regional economic development and revitalization activities through private sector investment, reinvestment and joint development activities in conjunction with public transportation improvements.
Encourage multi-municipal, cooperative approaches to generate new investment, reinvestment and revitalization through transit-oriented development around rail transit stations and along public transportation corridors.
Increase overall ridership on public transportation systems, including AMTRAK, while generating additional revenues for current and expanded services, capital improvements and related ongoing maintenance.
Encourage and support municipal and multi-municipal comprehensive plan implementation, including consistency of plans at the local, county and regional levels.
Stimulate public-private partnerships created by prospective development opportunities around, within or adjacent to the transit system, station areas and transit system components.
Establish appropriate mechanisms to capture the real estate taxation and other values added by joint development activities for reinvestment in the transit system and local communities.
Encourage greater community involvement in TRID location, design and implementation and resulting investment activities.
Promote flexible, cooperative, coordinated and enhanced support for innovative, intermodal solutions in TRID development and implementation activities by municipal officials, public agencies, nonprofit organizations and the private sector.
Support TRID implementation by maximizing use of existing Federal and State laws and programs that are consistent with the purposes of this act.

TRID is unique in that it is explicitly intended to expand the role of transit agencies in local value capture strategies. In addition to the increased ridership generated by new development near transit stops, it can also generate revenues to support transit service, capital improvements, and maintenance.

Key Provisions

Below is a summary of key provisions of the legislation.

Eligible TRID locations are defined by distance from a transit stop or station (at least 1/8 mile, but no more than ½ mile), and may include vacant, underutilized or potentially redevelopable land. Specific boundaries can be tailored to local circumstances based on property boundaries or other factors, when authorized by the jurisdiction and the transit agency, and supported by a TRID study.
TRIDs are designated by municipalities or counties, in cooperation with transit agencies, transportation authorities, and/or AMTRAK. The TRID may encompass an existing or planned station. The municipality or municipalities enter into an agreement with the transit agency, which defines the activities and commitments of each party to the TRID.
TRID plans are required, and must consider the need for capital improvements to transit-related facilities and adjacent public infrastructure as well as opportunities for private sector real estate development. The plan must also include a financial plan, including discussion of funding sources, a proposed amortization schedule where applicable and estimated future maintenance requirements.
DCED provides a 75% match for TRID planning efforts and related implementation activities, up to $75,000 per project. Municipalities undertaking a TRID planning study are also entitled to receive priority consideration for planning and implementation grants and technical assistance from DCED, working in partnership with the pertinent county planning agency or agencies and other State agencies with grant or loan programs that may be applicable to TRID. In addition, Commonwealth agencies are directed to provide State resources, programs and new capital investments that will assist local governments, transportation authorities and transit agencies to implement TRIDs.
Transit agencies may purchase and improve property within a TRID, consistent with existing authority and limitations on transit agencies to condemn and acquire land for public transportation purposes. A transit agency may not be the primary real estate developer, but it can purchase property, make improvements, and work with the local jurisdiction(s) to offer it for sale for uses consistent with the plan. Alternatively, they can advertise the presence of development opportunities within the plan area.
While a management entity must be designated to manage and facilitate implementation, municipalities retain policy and oversight responsibilities over the budgetary and programmatic actions of the entity. Neighborhood improvement districts or business improvement districts may act as the managing entity for implementation activities.
Value capture areas are coterminous with TRID boundaries, within which taxing entities can share incremental tax increases generated by new real estate investment in the TRID. The tax revenues are dedicated to specific improvements designated in the TRID planning study.
Community involvement is required during the planning and establishment of a TRID, including at least one public meeting to explain TRID and alternative implementation approaches, and another to review the proposed joint development plan and its related public improvements prior to implementation.

Crafting Strong, Collaborative Applications for HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:59:58 -0400

In anticipation of the release of the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the 2011 round of HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants, Reconnecting America did a series of interviews with successful applicants from the 2010 round of HUD Regional Sustainable Communities Grants to understand has led to the formation of strong collaborative efforts that were successful in winning a highly competitive grant. These interviews included winners of both the Category 1 grants to support the creation of Regional Plans for Sustainable Development and Category 2 grants for Detailed Execution Plans and Programs. We asked interviewees for key tips around convening multidisciplinary consortia, identifying the lead applicant and developing an agreed-upon scope of work. The following tips were compiled by Reconnecting America independently of any involvement of HUD staff and should be taken as general best practices in forming regional planning partnerships, not universal or official recommendations on how to win Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant funding. Here is what we heard:

Start early, meet often. Most of the applicants we spoke with started meeting and discussing their applications before the HUD NOFA was released. Many of the interviewees met at least every other week, if not on a weekly basis. One applicant said the core group of leaders in the process met every Friday morning for two hours at a time, consistently. In another case, the lead applicants for a Category 1 grant issued an open invitation to groups interested in the process and held conference calls every other week, where as many as 60-70 participants learned and gave feedback on the evolution of the application scope. This region formed subcommittees that gathered information and worked on ideas related to specific issues like housing, transportation and equity. Other applicants worked with smaller and more targeted groups to develop the application but then built in substantial funding and a detailed process for grassroots engagement and outreach as part of the work plan. Completing the application is a detailed process, so getting to the necessary level of specificity about what you want to do will require regular conversations.

One Category 2 grantee shared that they found it helpful to focus on a few key decisions at each monthly consortium meeting. The lead applicant would start each meeting with a presentation about what decisions had already been made and what specific decisions would be made that day.

This year it may be easier for applicants to solidify partnerships and form consortia because jurisdictions and NGO’s will have already spent some time thinking about what a collaborative effort will look like and who it will involve. Regarding building a consortium for the grant, many interviewees mentioned the importance of expanding upon existing relationships or partnerships if possible. As one interviewee put it, “people have to want to be at the table and have a basic level of trust with one another in order to have productive conversations.” While new actors can be added throughout the process (and some may drop out), many successful applicants seemed to start with a core set of people who had some history of working together.
A trusted and “neutral” convener can help overcome political issues (and save you time). Due to the multidisciplinary nature of these grants, it may help to have a “neutral” player convening meetings and helping to develop the scope so that it doesn’t become too heavily focused on any one issue (i.e. housing, transit, equity, jobs, etc) or geography to the exclusion of others. In one region where there wasn’t an existing organization that represented the entire geography that would be part of the application, the interviewee stressed the importance of “reiterating throughout the process that this was a collaborative application that belonged to everyone at the table, not just to us (the lead applicant).” Although many places will not have the resources to do so, some successful applicants from 2010 hired professional grant writers to facilitate the process and write the application. Having a grant writer who can also serve as a facilitator can help make the proposal come together faster, and help everyone feel like equal players. The grant writer can also ensure that the proposal is competitive and compliant with the application requirements, especially if that person has experience with federal NOFAs.
Be as explicit as possible about your work plan. Being explicit about what you plan to do will not only give HUD more information but will also help various partners feel clear about their roles and activities. Especially for Category 2 grants, successful applicants were highly specific about proposed activities and the intended outcomes of these activities. It may be necessary to be vague about exactly how some projects will be implemented, so long as you are specific about who is going to implement these projects. Establishing a detailed organizational chart is a great tool for adding specificity. Especially in Category 2 applications where the place-based nature of a proposed activity might benefit one jurisdiction or group more than another, you may need a creative process for identifying what to include in your application. One successful applicant used an open process to solicit project ideas from a core application team and then used a scorecard to evaluate how well these projects would meet the goals of the region and the NOFA.
Expect different “cultures” between public sector and private-sector/nonprofit groups. While cross-sector consortia are a key part of the HUD regional planning grants, expectations around timelines for moving a project forward can be very different between the public sector and private sector or nonprofit players. Private/nonprofit partners may also not be used to the laws and practices around public process that public agencies use. While some entities might feel the need for an open and transparent process for crafting the application, others might be concerned that this will slow down the process and open up for too much debate given the timeline of the application. Some regions compromised on this issue by having certain processes or meetings that were open, and others that were limited to a core group. This issue also came up regarding the launch of programs after grants were awarded; Interviewees said that the regional or local bureaucracy required to initiate work under the grant had led to frustration amongst some partners. Minimize these challenges by planning for that start-up period in your timeline and helping all partners understand why it may be a necessity.
Don’t lose sight of what matters. When thinking about what might be included in an application related to sustainable regional planning, it is easy for the scope of work to be expanded to unmanageable proportions. Especially for Category 2 applicants, it was not always easy for regions to narrow down the list of projects and keep to the core objective of writing a winning application. Interviewees suggested staying focused on what would make the most competitive application. Regions used different approaches to keep themselves focused. In one case, the weekly meetings of the application team included a “cheat sheet” of the specific outcomes HUD was looking for, and the team devoted more time to talking about items that were worth more points in the application process. Another region struggled to maintain an equity focus in its application, and had to remind consortium members that affordable housing would be a core component of a competitive application.

In sum, while creating collaborative and multi-sector consortia can be difficult, the diverse perspectives that different partners bring can strengthen the work and the outcomes of regional plans and efforts to advance sustainable communities. Collaboration is an ongoing process that may require adjustments - in who is involved or how they work together - along the way. Reconnecting America will continue to track progress and share stories as the HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program evolves.

Transit-Oriented Development, Jobs and Economic Development

Wed, 11 May 2011 06:00:00 -0400

Today the Center for Transit-Oriented Development released a pair of studies exploring the impact of job sprawl and the importance of linking employment centers with transit.

American cities have experienced significant employment decentralization over the last 60 years as jobs have shifted from urban downtowns to suburban communities. This “employment sprawl” has helped to generate much of the traffic congestion experienced today, swelled infrastructure costs, consumed open space and increased the bite that transportation takes out of household incomes.

In a white paper entitled “Transit-Oriented Development and Employment,” CTOD discusses the relationship between transit and job concentrations and explains the importance of the destination side of the trip for both transit operations and land-use planning in station areas.

"Future transit planning must focus on making the critical connections between home and work trips," said Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. "Without these strong connections, transit will never be able to fulfill its potential to address immediate goals such as accessibility improvements or longer-term goals of stronger regional economies and reduced greenhouse gas emissions at the metropolitan level."

The report examines Atlanta, Georgia; Phoenix, Arizona; and the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul), Minnesota, to illustrate the patterns of employment concentrations and show how these create opportunities for future transit investments.

"Transit-oriented development planning has generally been more focused on the origin side of the trip, conceived as dense residential neighborhoods and mixed-use development featuring housing built over retail," explained Dena Belzer, lead author and president of Strategic Economics, a CTOD partner. "However, with employment uses more closely associated to transit ridership than dense residential uses, it is clear job centers must be a key component of the TOD equation."

The second report, “Transit and Regional Economic Development,” focuses primarily on the location decisions of employers. The report analyzes the degree to which different industry sectors are currently attracted to transit-rich locations and examines the character of employment clusters near transit.

"The outcome of this analysis is a better understanding of the types of industries that may have a greater propensity to be transit-oriented," explained Sujata Srivastava, lead author and principal with Strategic Economics. "This paper is intended to provide a framework for how the coordination of regional economic development, land use and transportation planning efforts can better promote healthy, high-functioning regions.

Both reports were supported with funding from the Federal Transit Administration.

We also have a featured topic page that gathers together many of our resources on TOD and Employment

Transit-Oriented Development Strategic Plan for Portland Metro TOD Program

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:29:36 -0400

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development today released the Transit-Oriented Development Strategic Plan created for the Metro TOD Program in Portland, Oregon. In conjunction with the release, CTOD published a web page providing guidance on how the plan contents can be nationally applied.

CTOD developed the Strategic Plan in collaboration with Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, Inc., and Metro TOD Program staff. The plan will ensure that the program maximizes the region's transit-oriented development opportunities and effectively leverages additional resources to advance TOD in station areas and frequent-bus corridors.

Metro is the only Metropolitan Planning Organization in the country with a TOD Program that, among other things, invests specifically in the bricks and mortar of development projects with the intention of pushing the market to build more sustainably. While the Strategic Plan looks at the range of investments needed to promote TOD, it focuses on the program’s activities.

The plan evaluates existing conditions around Portland, classifies station areas and corridors based on their readiness to support TOD, offers guidelines for phasing of TOD Program work and discusses future activities and funding strategies.

Chris Yake, senior TOD planner at Metro and the project manager, said the plan “will help us make the most of our regional investments in compact mixed-use development. Most importantly, it will allow us to work with our local jurisdictional partners and the development community to seize opportunities and address constraints related to TOD across the Metro region.”

Abigail Thorne-Lyman, Reconnecting America's project director and lead author of the Transit-Oriented Development Strategic Plan, explained that "Grouping shared market and physical characteristics in station areas and corridors can help regional and local agencies sort out the investments needed to promote TOD at the neighborhood scale – when expensive and time consuming station area planning is not possible. And regional mapping of current conditions can change the way our neighborhoods and transit systems are designed, to support TOD."

As CTOD's supplemental web page points out, local governments and transit agencies across the nation could benefit from the approaches developed for the Strategic Plan.

“This TOD Strategic Plan can be a model for other regions in the country seeking to leverage investments in transit to benefit larger community and economic development strategies,” said Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. “With more and more communities building transit systems nationwide, this resource shows them that they don’t need to start from square one.”

Portland Metro’s TOD Strategic Plan webpage

Jumpstarting The Transit Space Race: 2011

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 17:29:39 -0400

The 2013 Edition of the Jumpstarting the Transit Space map is available

Since 2004, regions including Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Charlotte and the Twin Cities have been planning large transit network expansions that would move forward faster than the one-line-at-a-time production schedule that in the past had been economically and politically feasible. At the same time, smaller regions have been inspired by the benefits that transit can bring to their communities and have proposed their first streetcars, light rail starter lines and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). However these places have to compete with each other for the approximately $1.6 billion annually available in the federal New Starts funding program to build out their multibillion-dollar networks. Reconnecting America spent several months in late 2010 gathering the most current transit plans available from the 100 largest regions around the country, as well as some known projects from smaller regions.

Through this cataloging effort, Reconnecting America found 643 transit projects in 106 regions. Of these, cost estimates were available for 413 projects, 99 projects had detailed ridership and 121 had mileage information. For 143 projects, there was sufficient information about station locations for Reconnecting America staff to digitize station points and analyze demographic and employment conditions within a half-mile of the stations. Because information on transit projects changes almost daily, this catalog and findings are a snapshot in time and will need to be updated periodically in order to remain current. It is also possible that some projects and plans were not discovered during the cataloging process.

Interactive Map of Projects

The demand for new fixed-guideway transit is strong all across the country. In this research alone, we documented more than 640 fixed-guideway transit projects from around the country in various stages of the transit planning process. This is a huge number, especially when compared to the number of projects currently in the federal New/Small Starts process (45 in 2011.)

The scale of the projects being proposed is immense. More than 30 percent of the individual projects examined were in regions that currently have no fixed-guideway transit. The ultimate outcome of this “race to the top” is still unknown, but if this analysis is any indication, there are many more competitors for limited transit infrastructure dollars than anticipated.

There is a huge backlog of federal funding through the New Starts program. For the 413 projects where Reconnecting America has collected cost estimates, the total estimated cost is $233 billion. If all of these were funded through the New Starts program at the current rate of federal investment in capital funding ($1.6 billion per year) assuming 50 percent federal share in projects, this would take 73 years to fund. Even the projects in the engineering and construction stage represent a 30-year queue, but will yield 1,464 miles of new transit.

This level of transit investment has the potential to transform American regions. If all projects that have station points (143 projects, about 20 percent of all of the projects in the catalog) were built, transit would connect directly 3.5 million more jobs than the current 14.1 million, about a 25 percent increase. Nearly 4 million households would receive enhanced transit access from these projects, with 46 percent of those being lower income households.

The New Starts Program isn’t sufficient to meet the demand. In addition to the backlog of projects, there are parts of the country that aren’t applying for or getting New Starts grants. Collectively, metropolitan regions in the Midwest have a total population that is similar to the total population of regions in the Northeast, but those Midwestern regions are seeking about one-third of the funding for new transit. The maps below show an additional dissonance between regions that have transit in their long range plans, but are not receiving or actively pursuing New Starts funding.

The New Starts Program is also not well suited to support the rapid system build out called for in many regions. There is a healthy competition among regions, and many are planning a large program of projects. The Los Angeles region is planning the most new transit lines, but even an optimistic timeline for construction under the current scenario would be 30 years for completion. The region is committed to trying to complete the projects in 10 years, but this is not feasible under the current federal transit funding framework. The federal government should find a way to partner in building out regional systems, especially where regional capacity to build projects has been “tested” through previous New Starts processes. Table four shows the regions with the largest number of projects currently planned.

TOD Tools For Metropolitan Planning Organizations

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:40:37 -0400

Metropolitan Planning Organizations play a very important role in the planning and implementation of TOD. As regional planning bodies, MPOs are in a unique position to support stakeholders within their jurisdiction to take actions or adopt policies that support transit-oriented development and provide funding for planning and transit supportive infrastructure. In long-standing federal law for MPOs, the goals of a typical regional TOD strategic plan dovetail with the goals that metropolitan planning organizations of all sizes must strive to meet with their planning efforts. TOD is more successful if both public and private investments are planned as part of a regional transit or TOD strategy. This improves the efficiency and the cost-effectiveness of transportation investments and yields more value to more people. Because MPOs play a primary role in identifying priority projects for federal transportation funding, they are uniquely set-up to support region-wide planning efforts, and to encourage local jurisdictions to implement TOD strategies when engaging in transportation, housing, or land use planning.

Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:12:54 -0400

"Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions" is described as a step-by-step action plan guidebook for making communities resilient, resourceful, and healthy. The book by Stephen J. Coyle includes work contributed by Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

Zimbabwe's portion of Chapter 5 is entitled "Sustainable Transportation and Transit Planning — Strategies for Comprehensive Regional Transportation Plans and Transit-Oriented Development" and includes action guides on "Transportation for Livable Communities" and "Transit-Oriented Development." The section speaks to transportation planning and transit-oriented development as core strategies in addressing sustainable communities planning. It also includes sections on developing programs and strategies to implement TOD.

From the product description on Amazon:

Many of today's communities face an unprecedented struggle to adapt and maintain their environmental, economic, and social well-being in an era beleaguered by fiscal constraints, uncertainty about energy prices and supplies, rapid demographic shifts, and accelerated climate impacts. This step-by-step guidebook for urban planners and urban designers explains how to create and implement an actionable plan for making neighborhoods, communities, and regions more environmentally healthy, resource-conserving, and economically resilient. Sustainable and Resilient Communities delineates measures for repairing, retrofitting, and transforming our built environments and supporting systems—transportation, energy, water, natural environment, food production, solid waste, and economics—through:

Methods for assessing a community's key sustainability quotient

Deploying tools for establishing timely performance goals and metrics

Developing strategies for evaluating, selecting, and implementing 'high-leverage' interventions

Activating policies, codes, programs, plans, and practices, as well as monitoring and upgrading their performance

The book includes a range of targeted case studies, from New Orleans and South Carolina to Arizona and California, illustrating geographically diverse approaches for urban contexts large and small.

A resource for developing an ecological urbanism, Sustainable and Resilient Communities employs time-proven, broadly applicable strategies and actions that can be customized for specific environmental, energy, and economic conditions.

The book is available on Amazon.

Building Economic Strength through Sustainable Communities

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:25:14 -0400

A growing body of research shows that strategies to develop more sustainable communities can boost regional economic growth by reducing state and municipal spending, attracting businesses and jobs and helping families with household budgets. Adopting such strategies could help communities:

. . . save billions in public infrastructure costs.

By making more efficient use of existing infrastructure and building jobs and housing closer to one another, communities could save a total of more than $12 billion nationwide on water and sewer costs and nearly $110 billion on road costs over the next 25 years.1
Such strategies also reduce the number of schools, libraries, fire houses and police stations needed per capita, freeing up funds for tax relief or alternative investments.

. . . attract businesses and reduce unemployment.

In a 21st century economy, businesses often choose to locate where college-educated young people choose to live. Survey data suggest that a majority of young professionals decide where to live based on neighborhood affordability, environmental quality, transit access and nearby retail and entertainment opportunities2 – the hallmarks of strong sustainable communities.
Efforts to improve access to public transportation, reduce congestion and shorten the distances between housing and jobs make it easier for employees to get to work. Together with other steps to improve job access, these strategies can help reduce unemployment.3

. . . reduce families’ household expenses and support local jobs.

Neighborhoods developed in a sustainable manner help families save thousands of dollars each year on transportation alone. Across the country, savings range from $1,580 per year in Little Rock and $1,830 in Minneapolis to $3,110 in Chicago, $3,610 in Phoenix and as high as $3,850 in Boston.4
Families making between $20,000 and $35,000 who live in town centers spend 16 percent less on the combined costs of housing and transportation than those living further from employment centers. Similar trends exist for families making between $35,000 and $50,000.5
Families that spend less on the combined costs of housing and transportation have more to spend on local goods and services, helping to support local jobs.

Federal partnership supports economic strength through sustainable communities:

The Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities helps regions unlock the economic benefits of sustainable communities by funding coordinated regional planning efforts.
Some 225 communities from across the country applied for the 45 regional planning grants available from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first year of this new program, and the grantees have already begun their work in rural, suburban, and urban communities around the country.

Notes:

Burchell, Robert W., Anthony Downs, Barbara McCann and Sahan Mukherji. Sprawl Costs: Economic impacts of Unchecked Development. Washington, DC: Island Press. 2005
Cities of Opportunity. Price Waterhouse-Coopers and the Partnership for New York City 2010; Wieckowski, Ania. “Back to the City.” Harvard Business Review. May 2010
Alam, Bhuiyan M. “Transit Accessibility to Jobs and Employment Prospects of Autoless Welfare Recipients”. Transportation Research Record. 2009; Gao Sheng Yi and Robert Johnston, “Public vs. Private Mobility for Low Income Households”. Transportation Research Record: 2009
Center for Neighborhood Technology. Pennywise, Pound Fuelish: New Measures of Housing + Transportation Affordability. 2010.
Lipman, Barbara J. A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Families. Center for Housing Policy. 2006.

Rails to Real Estate: Development Patterns Along Three New Transit Lines

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:20:10 -0400

Executive Summary

This report documents real estate development patterns along three recently constructed light rail transit lines in the United States. This topic is important for local planning practitioners, transit agencies, community members and other stakeholders in their efforts to plan for new transit investments and foster transit-oriented development (TOD). Setting realistic expectations about the scale, timing and location of private investment along new transit lines is especially critical where new development is expected to help pay for needed transit improvements, neighborhood amenities, or other community benefits.

The three transit lines examined in this report are the Hiawatha Line in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, the Southeast Corridor in the Denver region, and the Blue Line in the Charlotte region. The report examines residential and commercial development that occurred within a half-mile of stations along the three lines. Development is evaluated in the context of land use and demographic characteristics of the station areas along the lines at the beginning of the period studied. In particular, the analysis considers development patterns with regard to:

Proximity to downtowns and other major employment centers;
The location and extent of vacant or “underutilized” property that might offer opportunities for development or redevelopment;
Block patterns that influence “walkability”;
Transit connectivity; and
Household incomes.

The research is also based on interviews with local planning and transit practitioners and developers about the nature of development activity along each line, and the roles of the public and private sectors in stimulating development. While the analysis considers quantitative information, most of the findings are qualitative in nature. The report considers the relationship between certain land use characteristics and development activity, but the relationships discussed are not meant to imply causality.

The three corridors are summarized below.

The Hiawatha Line opened in 2004, the first in a series of major transit investments planned for the Minneapolis - St. Paul region. The corridor connects a series of important regional destinations including downtown Minneapolis, the St. Paul-Minneapolis Airport, and the Mall of America. The neighborhoods along the Hiawatha Line offered a limited number of opportunity sites for new development compared to the other transit lines considered in this report. Nevertheless, the corridor saw a tremendous amount of new development, an estimated 6.7 million square feet since the line opened. Most development is focused in and around the downtown, and is associated with long-term efforts aimed at revitalizing the downtown riverfront and warehouse district. The majority of development along the line consists of new condominiums and apartments built in the downtown and elsewhere along the line. These residential uses benefit from proximity to the new transit line because it offers easy access to several key regional destinations. The value of this accessibility will increase over time as the existing network expands to encompass additional destinations in the region.

Studies of the Hiawatha line have found that the limited connectivity between the stations and the neighborhoods to the east has hindered ridership, and the limited access by these station areas has resulted in uneven patterns of property value impacts from the new light rail. The experience of the Hiawatha line has stimulated a more proactive approach by the public sector in planning for and implementing station area infrastructure investments along the Central Corridor, the region’s second light rail line, which is currently under construction.

Denver’s Southeast Corridor opened in 2006 and travels along Interstate 25 through the City’s southeast suburbs, linking the existing light rail system to a major concentration of office employment. The corridor experienced a more dispersed development pattern than the other lines studied, with development occurring at many stations along the line. Most of the Southeast corridor is suburban in character, and does not possess a pedestrian-friendly street grid with small blocks, historic buildings, a mix of land uses, or other characteristics typically associated with “TOD-friendly” neighborhoods. The new transit line also runs along a major highway, which poses some challenges for TOD. Nevertheless, the corridor experienced approximately 7.8 million square feet of new development, much consisting of larger, often phased, projects on greenfield sites. While it is not clear that the transit itself has directly stimulated new development, it has reportedly had an impact on the design of projects near stations, and may have resulted in a greater mix of uses in the station areas. Properties near transit are also reported to be in high demand, experiencing faster absorption and higher occupancy rates.

Charlotte’s Blue Line is the most recently constructed of the three corridors, having opened in 2007. Nevertheless, the corridor experienced the most new development of the three lines studied, estimated at nearly 10 million square feet. Like the Hiawatha Line, a high proportion of this development was in downtown Charlotte (commonly referred to as “Uptown”). Additional development occurred in the South End, a historic manufacturing area that has been transitioning to a mix of residential and commercial uses over time. The transit connection between the South End and Uptown has is generally believed to have had a direct positive impact on development, with the South End offering new condos and apartments for professionals with finance-related jobs in Uptown.

Despite a significant amount of development opportunity along other parts of the line, however, only a limited amount of development has occurred beyond the South End. The pattern of development suggests that proximity to Uptown, along with a pedestrian-friendly street grid and the historic charm of a former industrial district, are important factors influencing the location of new development. Areas further along the line will require a significant investment in pedestrian infrastructure and other neighborhood amenities to encourage the transformation of the station areas to meet their potential as mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. The City of Charlotte has been very proactive in its efforts to promote TOD, and voter-approved bonds for station area infrastructure such as streets, streetscape and sidewalks have proved to be very important in encouraging transit-supportive development.

Summary of Key Findings

All three transit lines experienced a tremendous amount of new development. Each of the three corridors experienced between 6 and 10 million square feet of new development since the year before the new transit lines opened (see chart). Charlotte’s Blue Line had the most development, with approximately 9.8 million square feet of new space between 2005 and 2009. The majority of development in all three corridors was housing, a reflection of national market conditions in the early-mid 2000’s, which strongly favored residential development. However both the Denver and Charlotte regions experienced a significant amount of commercial development as well.

The private sector sees value in locations near transit, and this is reflected in the design and marketing of projects. Developers have made major changes to the design of projects to take advantage of the new light rail connection, and in some cases the concept of TOD may also have helped to attract capital for projects. Projects near transit are viewed as having the potential to achieve faster absorption rates, higher occupancy rates, and in some cases higher sales prices or rents. Many projects have been directly marketed as being near the light rail.

Proximity to existing employment centers and downtowns appear to be important factors driving development along transit lines. Seventy-two percent of development along the Hiawatha Line was in downtown Minneapolis, and 64 percent of development along the Blue Line was in Uptown Charlotte. While the improved transit service provided by the light rail is an important amenity for these projects, the impetus for development was more strongly related to longer-term efforts to revitalize the center cities, as well as shifting market demand that favors central locations with urban amenities, shopping and entertainment. In the Denver region, meanwhile, development along the Southeast Corridor is closely tied to growth in employment along the line.

All three corridors offer significant areas of development opportunity that represent unmet potential for TOD. In the Minneapolis - St. Paul region, there are still opportunities for infill development on sites in Minneapolis, many in neighborhoods with a need for better streetscape, pedestrian connections and other “placemaking” investments. A major TOD project is also planned near the end of the line, however only a limited amount of development has occurred. In Charlotte, many of the station areas include a significant number of underutilized properties that might be redeveloped with more intensive uses, however to date most development has occurred at station areas in or near Uptown.

The pattern of recent development along the Southeast Corridor in the Denver region has been much more dispersed than along the other two corridors. Most of the development along this corridor has consisted of larger projects on major opportunity sites (which are less common near the stations along the other two corridors). Development has not focused as much on the northernmost end of the corridor, where despite closer proximity to the downtown, there are greater challenges associated with redevelopment of older industrial uses. As discussed above, this scattered pattern of development may be related to the decentralized nature of employment along the corridor: if it is true that development is more likely to occur near existing employment centers, this could be one of the reasons that development has extended further along the line.

Early station area planning efforts can help to set expectations and ease concerns about TOD; however, prioritizing station area planning efforts is often necessary. Cities in all three regions recognized that station area planning is an important way to prepare communities for TOD. Given limited resources and staff capacity, local jurisdictions often find it necessary to prioritize stations based on market strength, community needs or other factors. In both the Denver and the Twin Cities regions, local jurisdictions were more likely to initiate station area planning processes in existing neighborhoods with fragmented development sites. In station areas with major development opportunity sites, they were more likely to rely on developer-initiated station area planning processes. In these cases, the extent to which new development reflected TOD goals depended on the perceived value to the developer as well as the extent to which the local jurisdiction was proactive in promoting TOD.

Investments in neighborhood infrastructure and amenities are critical for unlocking the potential for TOD, especially in areas where land use patterns were previously automobile dependent. To date, most development near transit has occurred in or near downtowns or other major employment centers, and on large development sites that allow for “placemaking” and where it is easier to finance needed public improvements. There are many other locations near these new transit lines with considerable potential for infill development, including commercial corridors that currently are characterized by relatively low-value, low-density, auto-oriented development patterns. Development opportunities in these kinds of places frequently consist of fragmented infill sites with multiple property owners, and many are likely to require proactive investments on the part of the public sector to enable redevelopment. Strategic investments in pedestrian connections, streetscape, and other infrastructure can assist in their transformation to more transit-friendly places where more intensive development can occur.

Public sector “value capture” strategies should acknowledge the uneven nature of development patterns near transit and the need for strategic investments. The findings of this report have implications for strategies that attempt to harness property value increases near transit to help offset the costs of transit investments, or to help finance other needed improvements along transit corridors. This report finds that development patterns along transit corridors are uneven, in part because many station areas will require proactive efforts and investment to make development possible. In formulating value capture strategies, therefore, it will be important to recognize that targeted investments will in many cases be needed to stimulate redevelopment in infill locations. Where politically feasible, a corridor-level approach to value capture may be very useful, because this can allow value created in a strong market locations to assist with needed improvements and enable development elsewhere in the corridor.

2010 Inventory of TOD Programs

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Reconnecting America today released a new report, "2010 Inventory of TOD Programs: A National Review of State, Regional and Local Programs that Fund Transit-Oriented Development Plans and Projects."

"There are so many innovative programs in the U.S. that provide grants, loans, tax credits or direct financial incentives to TOD plans or projects," said Sarah Kline, Reconnecting America's policy director. "This report can be used as a resource by planners and policy-makers who are creating new TOD programs in their own jurisdiction and who will benefit from learning the essential facts about other programs that operate at similar scales and contexts."

Interactive Map of Programs

The scope of this effort was not to compile all policies that support TOD, such as zoning codes, joint development policies or authorizing legislation, but rather to inventory ongoing, institutionalized programs that provide direct funding or financial incentives. The report provides information on 42 programs, including 18 state-level, 15 regional and transit agency, and nine local programs.

John Robert Smith, President and CEO of Reconnecting America, stated: “I applaud Reconnecting America’s policy team for putting together this document. We recognize that these programs change frequently and there will never be a “final” compilation of TOD programs, but this snapshot should give readers a helpful understanding of the types of policies that exist.”

Programs that provide grants, loans, tax credits, or direct financial incentives to TOD projects or plans have been sorted into three categories:

Planning – funds to conduct corridor, district or station-area TOD planning.
Implementation – funds for construction of projects or infrastructure in a TOD district.
Property Acquisition – funds dedicated to acquiring property or land banking in locations near transit.

The report includes three recommendations regarding TOD funding programs.

TOD programs must be tailored to fit the local conditions and needs of the place they are designed to serve.
TOD-supportive programs are important, but they are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to implementing TOD. In addition, removing policy barriers to TOD may prove equally important.
TOD programs may be able to include an incentive for localities to zone for appropriate levels of affordable housing near transit, for agencies to acquire properties for mixed-income TOD, or for developers to include below-market rate units in their projects.

Reconnecting America’s report displays the notable variety that exists in TOD programs across the U.S. today. This variety is largely due to the different political landscape, challenges, strengths, development market and key players that exist in each state, region or locality. Recognizing that TOD programs change and are adopted frequently, Reconnecting America aims to use the content from this report to develop an interactive web tool that will include a broader set of policies and can be updated by users, to ensure ongoing accuracy.

Street Smart

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The second edition of "Streetcars and Cities in the 21st Century," our popular award-winning book on how to plan, finance and build streetcar systems contains an update on the status of the U.S. streetcar movement and case studies of new streetcars in Seattle and Savannah. There's a foreword by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, chair of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and updated contact info for every streetcar project planned or underway in the U.S. This richly illustrated book is intended to promote a learning network among the cities and transit agencies that are interested in building new systems, with or without federal funding.

The book is available from Reconnecting America for $10 each. For orders of 20 or more copies, please contact Crystal Henle.

$code

TOD 203: Transit Corridors and TOD

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development today released "TOD 203: Transit Corridors and TOD," the latest in CTOD's ongoing series of best practices guidebooks.

"This guidebook illustrates how planning at the corridor scale can help transit investments capture the benefits of TOD," said Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. "Corridor planning can engage stakeholders, lead to more cost effective planning processes, and identify where along a new or existing transit line that the real estate market will be most active.”

Filled with real-world transit-oriented development lessons, the guidebook explains how corridor planning can facilitate not only successful transportation outcomes but also successful transit-oriented development.

"Corridor planning is a critical step toward making wise investments in transit that will spur economic development, reduce congestion and help connect people with work, school, shopping, health care, and other vital services," said Therese McMillan, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, the agency that funded the development of the guidebook. "Having a list of clear objectives and relevant examples at hand makes that critical planning step all the easier.”

The guidebook defines three corridor types (destination connector, commuter, and district circulator) and identifies the different implications for TOD associated with each type of transit corridor.

Putting the theory to work, the guidebook indentifies six objectives for transit and TOD at the corridor level from “Guide growth and development” to “Promote reinvestment and increase spending power” and pairs those with strategies to reach the objectives.

The guidebook contains numerous on-the-ground examples: Alignment considerations for the planned Southwest Corridor in the Twin Cities; engaging stakeholders along the Foothill Extension of the Gold Line; the shared planning process along Phoenix’s Valley Metro Light Rail that led to TOD zoning and pedestrian development guidelines for the entire corridor; Charlotte's development experience since light rail arrived in 2007; and the exciting collaboration between the housing authorities, planners, and city leaders in Denver and Lakewood along the West Corridor; the high ridership experienced by Houston’s Red Line due to the connections it provides between major destinations, not to mention lessons from Seattle, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, DC, the San Francisco Bay Area, Baltimore and Portland.

TOD 203: Transit Corridors and TOD

Performance-Based Transit-Oriented Development Typology Guidebook

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Today the Center for Transit-Oriented Development released its "Performance-Based Transit-Oriented Development Typology Guidebook,” a hands-on tool for identifying the different conditions that exist around transit stations and determining how that influences performance on a range of metrics.

"The compositions of our communities and the quality of transit have a great influence on how people choose to get around and the choices they have in their daily lives," said Sam Zimbabwe, director of the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD). "The Performance-Based TOD Typology is a user-friendly tool that gives interested people around the country the ability to evaluate the performance of the transit zones in their neighborhoods and towns."

Whether working locally or regionally, the guidebook provides easy to understand information to help guide efforts to create high-quality TOD that reduces vehicle miles traveled (VMT), a significant generator of our national greenhouse gas emissions, as well as creating a host of community benefits. The guidebook builds off of the TOD Database, a web tool released in October that provides economic and demographic information for every existing and proposed fixed-guideway transit station in the United States. (See URLs for the report below.)

"The analysis in this guidebook utilizes CTOD’s National TOD Database to take existing conditions from more than 3,700 existing transit station areas in 39 regions across the country," explained Linda Young, Research Director at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a CTOD partner. “This means the performance metrics are based on real data from communities around the United States.”

In the past, mismatched decision-making structures, uncertain outcomes, and a lack of a common framework for measuring performance have been stumbling blocks in attempts to use TOD to address climate change and community development goals simultaneously. The Performance-Based TOD Typology gives stakeholders the ability to evaluate the performance of the transit zones in their neighborhoods.

This guidebook will be of use to policy makers, planners, employers, and residents interested in matters related to transit ridership, climate change, economic development, affordable housing, urban design, or other issues linked to transportation, employment, and place.

While this tool could be useful in guiding future planning decisions by a variety of stakeholders, there are three specific groups who could most readily use it to affect decision-making:

At the federal and state level, agencies can use the tool to inform funding and investment policies and in regional planning and decision-making.
At the regional level, Metropolitan Planning Organizations, transit agencies, and other stakeholders can use this tool to guide corridor planning and regional investments in housing and transportation.
At the local and neighborhood level, cities, community-based organizations and other stakeholders can use this tool to inform local planning decisions from long range plans to affordable housing locations.

The Performance-Based Transit-Oriented Development Typology Guidebook includes detailed case studies from Los Angeles, CA; Oak Park, IL; West Irving, TX; Pittsburgh, PA; Berkeley, CA; Gresham, OR; Jersey City, NJ; Atlanta, GA; and Rockville, MD. Each case study serves as an example of one of the different place types and acts as a template for stakeholders to create their own existing conditions analysis.

CDFIs And Transit-Oriented Development

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0400

In October 2010, the Center for Transit-Oriented Development published a report exploring the role community development finance institutions could play in promoting equitable transit-oriented development. This document is an initial effort to frame the context of TOD and equity, and to encourage a more robust discourse on the connection between the agendas of CDFIs and TOD.

Below is the Executive Summary from the report

Introduction

Transit-oriented development (TOD) can provide households with more opportunities and choices. Ideal TOD communities are mixed-use neigh-borhoods with good-quality public transit that connect people of a variety of incomes to a wide range of economic, social, and educational opportunities. TODs incorporate access to human services such as child care facilities, fresh food stores, health care facilities, and cultural and educational institutions within a short walking distance of transit. Families living in transit areas can signifcantly reduce the time and cost spent on their daily commute to work, and the other trips required for their daily chores, allowing for more disposable income and leisure time. Compact and pedestrian-oriented environments also gen-erate demonstrated public health benefts by reducing obesity and preventing related health problems.

The benefts of living in pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use urban neighborhoods are growing increasingly evident, and the private real estate market has responded. Recent research by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that an increasing share of new housing units has been built in central city locations, which generally have access to transit. Research by the CTOD indicates that a great deal of the recent new development has occurred in or near downtowns and major employment districts. Other types of urban and suburban neighborhoods along transit corridors have not benefted equally in terms of re-ceiving new investment.

The uneven nature of development in transit areas can partly be attributed to the fact that the implementation of TOD is often challenging and complex. TOD projects are generally costly and challenging to finance, especially in the current economic and financial environment. Dense mixed-use TOD projects generally have higher land costs, higher construction costs, and longer time frames for completion. All of these factors require sophisticated financing tools, and a high level of expertise on the part of the developer. The need to cobble together multiple permanent financing sources means that there is often a long holding period, in which the developer must pay for land acquisition, site assembly, and other predevelopment costs. Downtowns and other premium locations can generate higher returns, which can in some cases justify the longer term and higher cost of the investment. However, it is often impossible to find the patient capital that is required to bring a project to fruition, even in very desirable locations. Furthermore, many TOD neighborhoods do not have strong market appeal, and require substantive upfront investments in infrastructure, community facilities, and amenities in order to attract private development. While these investments are typically made by the public sector, many cities lack the revenues to fund these activities, leaving many neighborhoods with a defcit of facilities, amenities, and infrastructure to support TOD. Often, federal, regional, and state-level funding is absent or inadequate to fill the funding gap. The combination of these challenges has led to only a modest share of new housing and jobs occurring in transit and infill locations.

The challenge of bringing TOD to scale has important equity implications. Because of the strong market demand from affuent households, as well as the cost of building housing in high-value urban areas, new TOD housing is most often targeted to upper-income households. Low- and moderate-income households, for whom transit is often an essential service, are not as well served by the market. Furthermore, the introduction of new transit sometimes results in an increase in rental rates, making it diffcult for existing residents to remain in place as the neighborhood changes. In the few regions where the creation and preservation of affordable and mixed-income TOD has been effective, there has been proactive leadership and concerted efforts from a diverse set of actors, including the public sector, nonprofts, and philanthropy.

While community development finance institutions (CDFIs) have long provided financial services and other assistance to promote economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income individuals, and to support strong, healthy, and diverse communities. CDFI activity ranges from providing capital to nonproft housing developers, to investments in small businesses and community assets such as schools, health clinics, fresh food stores, and child care facilities. Some CDFIs are engaged in advocacy at the federal policy level, while others are working in part-nerships with community-based organizations, govern-ment, and foundations in community planning efforts. However, TOD has not been a focal point at the center of these activities. To date, most CDFIs have engaged in TOD in a somewhat limited and opportunistic way, providing capital and technical assistance to individual housing and mixed-use projects in neighborhoods served by transit. However, it is clear that CDFIs have a great deal to offer in advancing the TOD agenda in terms of technical expertise, creative financing tools, and advocacy.

As a first step towards identifying ways that CDFIs may deepen their involvement in promoting equitable TOD, the Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) has prepared this paper. Following a summary of findings, the paper contains the following elements:

A clear description of the benefts of equitable TOD and how this relates to the broad goals of the CDFI industry;
A discussion of challenges to the provision of equi-table TOD;
A description of the range of strategies employed to overcome these challenges;
A framework for understanding the potential role(s) of CDFIs in promoting equitable TOD.

This document is an initial effort to frame the context of TOD and equity, and to encourage a more robust dis-course on the connection between the agendas of CDFIs and TOD.

CDFIs and TOD: Principal Findings

To date, CDFI involvement in TOD has been primarily through the provision of financing and technical assistance to development projects in neighborhoods near transit. There are numerous examples of CDFIs partnering with community-based organizations to build and rehabilitate affordable housing and mixed-use developments. While there are many areas of convergence between CDFIs and TOD, there are also some areas of mismatch, identifed below:

Scale of involvement - CDFIs are generally involved in individual TOD projects, which are financed separately. However, implementation of successful and equitable TOD requires neighborhood level investments of all kinds, including built assets such as parks, plazas, streets, basic infrastructure, and community facilities that are diffcult to finance through traditional means.
Qualifying neighborhoods - CDFIs generally target their investments to low- and moderate-income places. However, there is also a role for investing in higher income TOD neighborhoods to ensure that they are equitable. For example, in many TODs, there is a need to introduce affordable and mixed-income housing so that all can beneft from the opportunities of living and working near transit.
Financing challenges - As discussed above, TOD projects are complex and can take a very long time to realize. However, private investors are typically not able to wait 10 to 20 years to receive a return on their investment.
Infrastructure and amenities - Neighborhood infrastructure and amenities such as sidewalks, plazas, parks, and sewer lines are not revenue generators, which makes them diffcult to finance through the lending tools available to CDFIs.
Lack of capacity at the neighborhood level - In order to implement projects on the ground, CDFIs must partner with strong community based organizations (CBOs) and community development corporations (CDCs), but in many neighborhoods, there is a lack of organizational capacity.

The most important prerequisite for a signifcant expansion of CDFI involvement in TOD is the presence of public sector commitment to fund these activities. This includes federal, regional, and local resources to acquire and assemble properties, conduct station area planning, provide technical assistance, fund infrastructure improvements, finance low-income and mixed-income housing, and fund other types of community facilities and services.

There is also a need for Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and regional transit agencies to provide leadership at the metropolitan level urging cities to create TOD-supportive land use policies. Foundations and CBOs can also play the critical role of the central convener that brings various stakeholders to the table. Foundations can also provide patient capital and potentially equity to proj-ects and regional TOD acquisition funds.

CTOD has identifed opportunities for CDFIs to expand their role in TOD to include the following areas:

Provide short-term, unconventional financing for construction and rehabilitation/preservation of affordable housing projects - CDFIs have a proven track record of providing creative financing solutions that go beyond traditional sources for affordable and mixed-income housing.
Formation of additional regional structured funds to finance TOD projects - TOD implementation requires early and low-cost sources of capital to acquire properties in high-value TOD areas. Recent experiences with structured funds for property acquisition provide instruction on the key factors to consider when pursuing this strategy to develop affordable and mixed-income housing in TOD neighborhoods.
Inform federal policymaking - Based on CTOD's research, there is a potential role for CDFIs to provide a) Establishing a federal TOD requirement for LIHTC and NMTC allocations; b) Steering credit towards transit areas; c) Exploring new federal financing sources for child care facilities.
Engagement with metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) in regional TOD planning - CDFIs could assist MPOs to modify their station area planning processes to explicity include equitable development, going beyond affordable housing to reinforce the critical role that essential services (e.g., infrastructure, child care, health services, libraries, recreational facilities) play in building healthy communities.

In addition to the recommended areas of involvement above, CTOD also identifed other potential areas for CDFIs to explore for future engagement in TOD.

Providing financing to revenue-generating neighbor-hood infrastructure projects such as public parking garages and energy infrastructure;
Providing assistance to MPOs and/or local govern-ments in developing sound underwriting standards to evaluate grants and loans to finance TOD infrastruc-ture and projects;
Advising MPOs in the formation of regional infra-structure banks and/or revolving loan funds for TOD infrastructure investments;
Dissemination of best practices to educate public pol-icy-makers about ways to include the human services, like quality early care, education and health care, as components of equitable TOD into their plans.

Enhanced involvement in all of these areas would require a significant amount of "soft" funds from the public or philanthropic sectors.

Preserving Affordable Housing Near Transit: Case Studies from Atlanta, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0400

Reconnecting America, Enterprise and the National Housing Trust have released a collection of case studies examining what cities are doing to ensure that affordable housing isn't lost as cities pursue transit-oriented development.

"Preserving Affordable Housing Near Transit: Case Studies from Atlanta, Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C." describes ways metropolitan areas are addressing preservation challenges and opportunities, and identifies the strategies and tools communities can use to preserve affordable housing in transit-rich neighborhoods.

The builds on Reconnecting America's work with AARP and the National Housing Trust in "Preserving Affordability and Access in Livable Communities: Subsidized Housing Opportunities Near Transit and the 50+ Population."

"The findings of this report demonstrate that more than 250,000 privately owned, federally subsidized apartments exist within walking distance to quality transit in 20 metroropolitan areas. Nearly two-thirds of these apartments are covered by federal housing contracts set to expire over the next five years," the new report notes.

Beyond the impact on subsidized housing, the popularity of new developments convenient to transit pushes up the market rate for rentals. As rents rise lower income households are displaced. To reduce this impact on affordable housing, the report states that communities need to retool strategies to address opportunities and threats specific to preservation of affordable housing near transit.

Among the key findings of the report:

Affordable housing developers are turning to new sources of permanent capital subsidy, such as the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP), Weatherization Assistance Program and local housing levies for funding.
CDCs and tenant organizations are tapping local zoning incentives and participating in pooled financing to access capital subsidies and low-cost funds.
Affordable housing developers seek flexible acquisition financing with repayment terms that allow them to hold at-risk properties near transit until refinancing or redevelopment is feasible.
Affordable housing developers see unsubsidized rental housing in transit corridors as a prime opportunity to secure long-term affordable housing near transit.
CDCs and community organizations are beginning to join larger conversations around coordinated regional planning and collaboration with housing, transit and planning agencies.

"Transit-oriented development, and the market pressures that go with it, pose new challenges for CDCs, community leaders and affordable housing developers," the report concludes. "By taking action to create or preserve housing options near transit, community leaders, CDCs and developers can ensure that people of all incomes can enjoy the benefits from transit investments."

The report identifies the basic steps necessary to perserve affordable rental housing near transit:

Make an Affordable Housing Inventory
Identify Acquisition Resources
Assess Repositioning Resources
Map Out Regional Strategies

CTOD Creates Citywide Toolkit For TOD In Los Angeles

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0400

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) has released the "Creating Successful Transit Oriented Districts in Los Angeles: A Citywide Toolkit for Achieving Regional Goals" report, which assesses opportunities to improve land use and transportation linkages in communities surrounding 70 existing and planned transit stations in the City of Los Angeles. The report identifies strategies to help communities around transit stations achieve high transit ridership, increase mixed-income and mixed-use housing opportunities and create sustainable neighborhoods while offering its residents a wealth of travel options.

The report was produced through a grant awarded by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). The CTOD project took place over an intensive 15-month period, including the participation of key stakeholders and focus groups. The result was the development of a "toolkit" that includes a station typology, station area profiles, and a set of regional maps that analyze demographic and economic conditions throughout the city. Community goals and factors such as transit use and commute mode, equity, existing density, and auto ownership were all taken into consideration in developing the toolkit.

Five transit corridors were involved in the case study. These include: the Metro Gold Line from the Little Tokyo and Indiana Street Station; the Metro Red Line from the Vermont/Wilshire Station to the Vermont/Sunset Station; the Metro Orange Line from the Sepulveda Station to the Warner Center Station; the Expo Line from USC to Crenshaw; and a key portion of the proposed downtown Los Angeles streetcar alignment along Broadway. Stakeholders, including property owners, businesses, and community groups from these areas helped identify emerging opportunities as well as issues and challenges that could make these areas more transit usable.

Findings from these focus groups were that communities must work together to build local support for transit-oriented development; establish supportive policies; and improve collaboration among public and private entities.

The analysis also found that given the small scale of many development opportunities throughout the City, and the vulnerability of many low income communities to displacement once the housing market recovers, it is important not just to think about "TOD" as involving new real estate development, but also as involving efforts around revitalization of existing communities, and neighborhood stabilization efforts including affordable housing preservation and job creation.

Irving Taylor, Metro Project Manager for the CTOD project, said, "This project supports Metro's continuing interest to support implementation of a TOD plan that is tailor-made for each transit station, to build on that community's attributes and reinforce its sustainability, while integrally linking communities via the transit system. The toolkit helps advance the state-of-the-art of creating transit districts that meet local and regional transport needs through providing more viable mobility options to the use of private automobiles. We believe the toolkit will help strengthen our partnership with local communities as we continue to further develop transit stations and effective linkages. Our collaboration with CTOD to develop this project has been extremely useful in educating the public on a key element of public policy and implementation."

"This project was a milestone for us and provided new challenges and opportunities in looking at regional growth, transit investments, and how both intersect with local community goals," said Sam Zimbabwe, Director of CTOD. "We hope to replicate this in other cities as we continue to push for market-based and equitable transit-oriented development across the country."

TOD 201- Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit: Increasing Affordability With Location Efficiency

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The latest booklet in the Center for Transit-Oriented Development's series of "100" and "200" manuals has been added to the website. These booklets explain the theory and best practices of transit-oriented development. The TOD 201 booklet "Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit: Increasing Affordability With Location Efficiency" discusses how providing for a mix of incomes in walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods near transit improves the already considerable benefits of having mixed-income neighborhoods by significantly reducing transportation costs. Creating mixed-income TOD deepens the affordability of housing because families can get by with one less car or no cars -- resulting in the savings of thousands of dollars per household annually. The book includes 11 strategies for encouraging mixed-income TOD housing, with studies an photos illustrating successful examples.

Mixed-Income Housing Near Transit: Increasing Affordability With Location Efficiency

Realizing The Potential for Sustainable, Equitable TOD

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

In June 2009, the Obama Administration announced a new interagency partnership on sustainable communities between the Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. An early action by the Partnership was to announce a set of Livability Principles to guide future federal investments, policy development, and programs. These include:

Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable, and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote public health.
Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
Enhance economic competitiveness. Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers, as well as expanded business access to markets.
Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities—through strategies like transit-oriented, mixed-use development, and land recycling—to increase community revitalization and the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.
Coordinate and leverage federal policies and investment. Align federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding, and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.
Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe, and walkable neighborhoods—rural, urban, or suburban.

To help inform the work of the Interagency Partnership, Reconnecting America today released a new white paper, “Realizing the Potential for Sustainable, Equitable TOD: Recommendations to the Interagency Partnership on Sustainable Communities”.

The white paper reflects input from a variety of stakeholders involved in transit-oriented development, affordable housing and community development. Table 2 of the White Paper contains an extensive list of recommendations for each of the three federal agencies participating in the Partnership. The white paper provides a short history of previous federal efforts to promote livable communities and highlights the growing number of local, regional, and state programs that successfully leveraged the combined power of housing, land use, transportation, and environmental programs to create sustainable communities. Appendix I provides a summary of state, regional and local TOD-supportive policies.

Four key policy recommendations that could be implemented through the rule-making process or administrative actions over the next year are provided. The authors believe this “low-hanging fruit” would have an enormous impact on the ability of communities to successfully plan for their futures.

A Revamped Coordinated Long Range Planning Process: Work to integrate the federally-required planning efforts for transportation, housing, and environmental investments on the regional level to make the planning process simpler, more effective and to help ensure that public investments work together to create equitable and sustainable development.

Develop New Project Funding Priorities Based on Livability Principles: Establish a set of livability measures that would be used to prioritize project funding for discretionary grants, something also laid out in Senator Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) Livable Communities Bill (S. 1619). These principles should be reflected in criteria for HUD’s upcoming sustainability grants and in new guidance for the federal New Starts/Small Starts program that funds new transit investments.

Implement the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index: Affordability is impacted both by housing and transportation, the two highest household expenditures. For households earning $50,000 or less, transportation now costs more than housing in most metropolitan areas, and this cost is highly dependent on the character of the location of housing . The Federal government should act to ensure that housing consumers (renters and homebuyers) and suppliers (investors, builders, regulators and developers) are made aware of the full direct costs of housing (including transportation costs), and work to ensure that these costs are fully disclosed by the marketplace.

Enhanced Comprehensive Technical Assistance Programs: The most compelling actions that the Interagency Partnership could undertake in the short term are to support capacity building at the state, regional and local levels. There is a demonstrated demand for pursuing sustainable community initiatives locally, however many communities struggle with trying to develop funding sources, integrated plans, establishing baselines and performance indicators, and project implementation.

In December, Reconnecting America will present these recommendations to the Interagency Partnership, along with other national organizations who provided input to the White Paper and are developing additional recommendations for short-term federal actions to support livable communities.

Value Capture And Tax-Increment Financing Options For Streetcar Construction

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

D.C. Surface Transit commissioned the Brookings Institution to look at funding alternatives for a proposed streetcar. Brookings then subcontracted with Reconnecting America for assistance. Out of that collaboration came “Value Capture and Tax-Increment Financing Options for Streetcar Construction.”

The study shows it is hypotheticaly possible to forgo federal funding and fully pay construction costs ($140 million) using three value capture tools.

$46.6 million of Tax Increment Financing (TIF).
$46.6 million of a traditional special assessment district.
$46.6 million from a “never-done-before” sharing of private property value increases.

The study draws upon the experiences of Portland, Tampa and Seattle in case studies undertaken by Reconnecting America. These case studies examined property value appreciation in the years following the streetcar line opening and the geography along the lines and at station stops which were affected by the streetcar opening.

Findings of the case studies, which appear in Appendix II of the document, should be of interest to those looking to develop streetcar lines through redeveloping and existing neighborhoods close to existing downtowns.

One key finding in these studies was that underutilitized land near transit can see phenomenal growth in value, but areas already built out might see increases, albeit less impressive. In underutilitized areas in Seattle, Tampa and Portland, property value increases in excess of 400 percent were common.

On the other hand, existing single family residential property values grew at a much slower rate than industrial, commercial or multi-family properties. As an example, in Portland's Pearl District, existing residential property values were less likely to see greater increases until after the streetcar had been in operation for a few years. This supports the hypothesis that existing properties see the value of the line after operations commence while developable land sees value increase after the alignment is announced.

The case studies also showed that commercial property does not increase in value in the same manner as multi-family and industrial property or undeveloped land. "After an initial rise for the first six years of Portland's streetcar planning and opening, [commercial property] values compared to the rest of the county leveled out showing an opposite movement from the residential properties discussed above," the report notes. This is similar to the situation in Ybor City in Tampa, where property values accelerated at lower rates than the rest of the county, proving that while the streetcars usually give property values a boost, that is not always the case depending on the local context.

Finally, the study shows that destinations have a major impact on the success of the system and improvements the addition of a streetcar can bring to a corridor.

"It can’t be expected for the streetcar to do all the work of rehabilitating a corridor and increasing land values. In Seattle, Portland, and Tampa many investments were made in infrastructure and planning for the line. And residents need to be able to use the line to get somewhere. Just putting a line in anywhere is not likely to replicate the development returns that each of these cities has realized. There needs to be value in the transportation also," the report concludes.

Preserving Affordability and Access in Livable Communities: Subsidized Housing Opportunities Near Transit and the 50+ Population

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

In the next five years as many as 160,000 renters in 20 metro areas could lose their affordable apartments near transit because the contracts on their privately-owned HUD-subsidized rental units are due to expire. The renewed popularity of urban living means that properties in walkable neighborhoods near transit have increased in value, and that property owners are likely to opt out of the HUD program and convert the housing from affordable to market rate.

These are the results of a recent study by AARP, Reconnecting America and the National Housing Trust, which released the results in Washington, DC, on Sept. 30. The study found that there are more than 250,000 privately owned HUD-subsidized units within a half-mile of existing or proposed rail stations in the 20 regions, and that contracts on two-thirds of these units are due to expire by the end of 2014. Almost a quarter of the units are designated for seniors.

“Affordable housing near public transportation is a very special resource because families who use transit can reduce their transportation expenditures by 16 percent – so these subsidized apartments are made even more affordable because of their location,” noted Reconnecting America President and CEO John Robert Smith. “The federal government should ensure that this housing remains affordable.”

Smith noted that rising gas prices hit lower-income families and families on fixed incomes especially hard since they already spend a greater portion of their income on transportation costs. He added that many of the families currently living in apartments near transit don’t own a car and are dependent on public transit, and should not be forced out of their apartments.

The report recommends that Congress appropriate sufficient federal funding to renew all Section 8 contracts, and increase funding for the Section 202 housing program. The report also recommends that state and local governments allocate funds to preserve affordable housing in transit-rich areas, including the development of affordable housing acquisition funds for properties near transit, and that governments develop “early warning systems” for properties with expiring federal subsidies.

A study entitled “Affordable Housing in Transit-Oriented Development,” released by the General Accounting Office earlier this month, referenced the results of the Reconnecting America/National Housing Trust/AARP study, noting that federal agencies are hampered in their efforts to monitor affordable housing because of a lack of research and data. The GAO study recommended that the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Transit Agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development try harder to work together, preferably in a formal collaboration, to create and preserve affordable housing near transit.

“The HUD/DOT/FTA Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities is beginning to develop policy that reflects the interconnectedness of housing and transportation that can lead to the creation of sustainable, livable communities,” National Housing Trust President Michael Bodaken said in the AARP press release. “Maintaining and improving affordable housing near transit is essential for ensuring that all Americans can enjoy the benefits of sustainable communities.”

Central Maryland Looks To TOD For Future

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The Central Maryland Transportation Alliance has released "Central Maryland TOD Strategy: A Regional Action Plan For Transit-Centered Communities.

"The continuing and expanding prosperity of Central Maryland will rely on careful and prudent transit investments that continue to link jobs and housing, and people with their destinations, while creating the types of neighborhoods in which people will want to live," notes the report's executive summary.

Technical assistance for this study was provided by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

"TOD should not be thought of as a one-size fits all development solution, but rather a paradigm shift to focus on creating high-quality, strong communities connected by a multi-modal transportation network," the report states. "This report identifies key challenges and opportunities to move toward the transit-oriented development end of the spectrum, as well as identifying key locations, strategies, and tools for accomplishing this shift."

The report notes that the goals of TOD are broader than simply a better and more efficient transportation system. At the regional level, TOD can facilitate and generate momentum for market-driven TOD investment that can be self-sustaining over time. At the local level, TOD can direct the velocity and trajectory of neighborhood change when necessary to provide neighborhood stability.

This study will help identify priority locations for meeting both goals.

The report provides a methodology for planning and investment in any location, given real estate and development market and demographic data.

"Reinvigorating TOD in Central Maryland will require a shift in mind set and collaborative planning efforts at multiple geographic scales and among multiple partners," the report notes. "These collaborative efforts are already emerging, and need to be strengthened in order to build on the recent progress."

This report was developed through a year-long process of identifying challenges and opportunities for transit-oriented development in Central Maryland.

Making The Twin Cities More Walkable

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Changing demographics and housing preferences as well as concerns about quality of life are boosting the demand for walkable urbanism and transit-oriented development in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region as elsewhere in the U.S. The Twin Cities’ real estate market must be able to provide for this demand in order to preserve the region’s economic competitiveness, but a recent study by the Brookings Institution found the Twin Cities ranked below average in the number of “regionally significant walkable places.” Brookings found only two such existing places – the downtowns in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.

As part of an effort to promote walkable, transit-oriented places in the Twin Cities, the Center for Transit Oriented Development has just completed a study outlining an approach for transforming existing activity centers into walkable places. This study was done in partnership with the Urban Land Institute in Minnesota and the ULI/Curtis Regional Infrastructure Project and called the Connecting Transportation and Land Use Systems Initiative. The initiative was funded by the McKnight Foundation.

In defining a “walkable urban place” the CTOD considered several measures:

whether a place has a multi-modal transportation system and how well it performs
the “employment gravity” of job clusters and the mix of uses – to determine how many hours out of the day people actively use a place
the intensity of uses -- how many people use the area
the area’s "walkscore" – a measure of the amenities within walking distance
a connectivity index that measures the connectedness or “permeability” of the street network – because connected street networks support increased walking and biking as well as other benefits
block sizes and intersection density
origin mode split and destination mode split
land opportunity and the potential for walkability

Notes the report: "Where there are good transportation options and workers choose to take alternatives to the car, fewer parking spaces are needed, and less public space overall is devoted to the car. This becomes a positive feedback loop, in which public space is used by pedestrians walking to work, transit, lunch, and/or home, and more resources and space can then be allocated to improving the pedestrian realm."

Conservatives And Public Transportation

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Reconnecting America is co-publishing the book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Transit, a collection of studies by renown conservative transit advocates Paul Weyrich and William Lind. Weyrich, who in 1977 founded the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative Washington, DC, think tank that focused on grassroots political organizing, died this past year. The studies that he and Lind did on public transportation helped conservatives understand why transit should be an essential part of the conservative agenda: because it enhances national security, promotes economic development, helps maintain conservative values including a sense of community, and provides welfare recipients with access to jobs.

Weyrich and Lind have always contended that the way to enlist conservative support for public transportation is to talk about it in terms that conservatives can appreciate. These studies are essential reading for all who need to build bipartisan support for transit – a critical endeavor as Congress considers reauthorizing the federal transportation bill that provides hundreds of billions of dollars for transportation over the next six years.

The studies were published between 1997 and 2009 in booklet form by the American Public Transportation Association, and include a previously unpublished report on the activities of the National Surface Transportation Commission, appointed by Congress in 2005 to examine the infrastructure needs of this country. Weyrich served on the commission and wrote language that strongly supported public transportation for the commission’s final report. That language, which had been adopted on a 9-3 vote, was excised from the final report but is reprinted here. It advocates, among other things, that we need a National Defense Public Transportation Act, much like President Eisenhower’s National Defense Interstate Highway Act.

The book includes the studies listed below:

Conservatives and Mass Transit: Is It Time for a New Look?
Does Transit Work? A Conservative Reappraisal
Twelve Anti-Transit Myths: A Conservcative Critique
Bring Back the Streetcars! A Conservative Vision of Tomorrow’s Urban Transportation
How Transit Benefits People Who Do Not Ride It: A Conservative Inquiry
Winning Transit Referenda: Some Conservative Advice
A National Defense Public Transportation Act: A Conservative Proposal for Energy Independence
Good Urban Transit: A Conservative Model
The (Unexpurgated) Report of the National Surface Transportation Commission: A Conservative Analysis

The book is available from Reconnecting America for $10 each. To order 15 books or more or for international shipments, please contact Crystal Henle.

$code

Transit Oriented Development - Making It Happen

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:57:56 -0400

Transit Oriented Development, Making it Happen is a book about realizing the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in the United States and Australia. Edited by John Renne and Carey Curtis, this book contains a chapter by Reconnecting America staff members Shelley Poticha and Jeff Wood entitled Transit Oriented for All: Delivering Mixed Income Housing in Transit Served Neighborhoods.

Product Description from Amazon:

Until very recently, facilitation of car-based travel has been central to the planning of cities in the developed world. Over the past 50 years, this has resulted in urban sprawl which has far-reaching effects on accessibility by other modes of transport, together with social, economic and environmental problems. Planners have, however, begun to address issues of urban environmental sustainability and a key concern has been to develop a highly accessible city within the context of reducing the need to travel by car. This concept is entitled 'Transit Oriented Development' (TOD). This volume brings together the different stakeholders and disciplines that are involved in the conception and implementation of TOD to provide a comprehensive overview of the realisation of this concept in Australia, North America and Europe. While TOD systems have been implemented widely, there are still strong vested interests (property, community, state) which encourage the maintenance of the car-dependent urban form. The book firstly identifies these various challenges and shows, through a range of international case studies, successful ways of addressing these. It provides a range of insights into how to move from TOD policy to regulation; urban design solutions; issues for local governance; the need to work with community; and the commercial realities of TOD. It shows how many barriers have been overcome, while others remain and new ones are emerging. In its conclusion, the book draws together the key principles that make TOD happen, addressing both substantive issues (what needs to be done, and when) and procedural issues (who needs to be involved, and how).

The book can be purchased at Ashgate Publishing or Amazon.com

Destinations Matter: Building Transit Success

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0400

The effectiveness of transit is typically measured by ridership – ridership projections, for example, often determine whether a project will win federal funding. But the complex movements of people within a region make accurate predictions difficult. Indeed, three of the most successful lines that have opened since 2003 (Minneapolis, Denver’s Southeast line, and Los Angeles Orange BRT line) received only a medium-low rating from the Federal Transit Administration, and under current rules would not have been funded.

The Center for Transit Oriented Development has just released a paper, "Destinations Matter: Building Transit Success," that analyzes the performance of 19 transit lines to better understand the factors contributing to high ridership. Of the 19 lines examined, seven exceeded projections, eight are on track to beat projections, and two did not meet projections, while data for three was unavailable. The conclusion: that connecting destinations is key, and that the funding decision-making process needs to take into consideration a fuller range of factors that enhance ridership.

Much of the problem with existing travel models is that they are based on transportation and land use inputs at the regional scale, which don’t accurately reflect the density of development or walkability that will occur once stations are built. Neither do these models predict the ridership increases that could occur over the entire system once a new lines provides better access to more destinations. Neither does the analysis reflect a nuanced understanding of the importance of whether a line connects to destinations like regional job centers or major entertainment venues.

For example, it may be more cost-effective to build a line down an existing railroad right of way. But these corridors often skirt residential neighborhoods and high-density employment centers, and can result in disappointing ridership. It’s also more cost-effective to build lines down the middle of freeways, but again, lack of a pleasant walking environment and easy pedestrian access to stations makes taking transit a far less appealing alternative.

The study concludes that lines that link multiple regional destinations and housing opportunities appear to be the most successful in generating ridership. This paper recommends that the funding decision-making process take into consideration a fuller range of the factors that contribute to high ridership. For example, this paper recommends and demonstrates a job center analysis.

Growing Mixed-Income TOD

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0400

As TOD planning processes proliferate there is a broader understanding that mixed-income housing supports many TOD goals including stable transit ridership, better public health, broadened access to opportunities, and deeper affordability. This Mixed-Income TOD Action Guide was developed for the nonprofit Great Communities Collaborative (GCC), which is working in the San Francisco Bay Area to ensure TOD planning processes result in neighborhoods that include households of all income levels. The guide “walks” users through a three-step analysis to determine the most effective strategies and tools.

The first step involves collecting data on the community’s demographics and economic and physical conditions (an inventory of the housing stock and land supply, for example). The second step is a “needs and opportunities” assessment that asks questions such as “Which populations are currently underserved?” “Is the housing market hot or cold?” “Is the emphasis on housing preservation or production, or both?” “Is affordable housing in the process of being built now?” These two steps help users match their community with one of several scenarios, each of which comes with recommendations for a suite of strategies and tools.

In scenario one, for example, the underserved population might be households that need affordable housing; the market is “warmer”; the emphasis is on development not preservation; and important policies to promote mixed-income housing are missing. Communities fitting this scenario could benefit from inclusionary zoning, land-acquisition assistance including public land dedication and write-downs, and joint public/private development. The cost of housing production could be reduced through lower parking requirements, fast-track permitting, fee waivers and appropriate regulatory requirements for small sites. Housing preservation is also recommended, by limiting condo conversions and offering first right-of-refusal to nonprofits or limited-equity co-ops that could purchase existing multifamily housing. Also recommended is targeted affordable homeownership assistance for current residents in transit districts, continued assistance for existing subsidized housing, and that steps are taken to ensure that Section 8 contracts don’t expire.

The Mixed-Income Housing TOD Action Guide, which was assembled by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development, is available as a downloadable PDF here. The Center for Transit-Oriented Development is a partnership of Reconnecting America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Strategic Economics.

Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

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.

"There is so much interest in transit that 78 regions in 37 states have proposed 400 projects worth $248 billion," says Shelley Poticha, CEO of Reconnecting America. "The increased interest in transit has opened a window of opportunity to make an investment that would reduce dependence on foreign oil, enhance national and economic security, and create jobs. But at the current rate of federal transit investment, building these projects would take 77 years.

The number of transit projects that have been authorized to begin the federal funding process increased from 220 in 1998 to 331 in 2004. At least 64 new projects have been proposed in the four years since, with regions from Cleveland to Tampa to Baltimore proposing construction of entire rail and bus rapid transit systems consisting of several lines. So many projects have been proposed that the total investment required would be at least $248 billion -- roughly the same amount allocated for both highways and transit in the last federal transportation reauthorization, a six-year funding bill named SAFETEA-LU. Billions more are needed to modernize existing transit lines in cities with older systems, including New York; Chicago; Boston; Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta.

SAFETEA-LU allocated $248 billion for highways and transit for the six-year period from 2004 to 2010. But the federal government spends about 80 percent of federal transportation funding on highways and just 20 percent on transit. A relatively small portion of transit's 20 percent is spent on the construction of new fixed-guideway systems -- about $1.6 billion a year over the last half dozen years -- while the rest is spent on maintenance and on buses. The federal government typically pays for half of total project costs.

Poticha notes that the transit investment in the U.S. lags far behind that of countries such as China, India, England and Canada. She says that federal transportation policy remains essentially unchanged since the 1950s, when gas was a nickel a gallon and President Eisenhower launched the interstate highway system. She adds that the era of cheap gas is over, and today's new reality demands a reassessment of federal transportation priorities that results in a 21st century transportation system for a 21st century America.

* * *

In addition to the "Jumpstarting the Transit Space Race: How the New Administration Could Make America Energy-Independent, Create Jobs and Keep the Economy Strong" document, a list of pending projects by region is available here.

Press release

Selected links to reaction to this report:

http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=1518

http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/articles.asp?art=3691&res=1280

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/jump_starting_the_transit_space_race.php

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/levin031/transportationist/2008/10/jumpstarting_the_transit_space.html

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2008/10/21/the-transit-backlog.aspx

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/10/17/report-american-cities-raring-to-build-248b-in-transit-projects/

Realizing The Potential: One Year Later

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development has updated its “Realizing the Potential” study for the FTA and HUD, which assessed strategies to promote mixed-income housing along five transit corridors in Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver and Portland. The new study finds the downturn in the housing market is playing out very differently in the five regions, but that property along transit corridors in Charlotte, Portland and Minneapolis appears to be holding its value better than in the regions at large. The housing market has not been as active along corridors in Denver or Boston, in contrast, because they traverse lower-income neighborhoods and because the many transit corridors in each region spread the TOD opportunity out.

The new study finds the down market has not increased home ownership opportunities for working families since housing prices are still high relative to incomes, and because of tight credit. However, the slowdown has allowed cities to catch up and enact policies that will better prepare them for the next market spurt. The authors note concern that a reduction in the pool of buyers for low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC) will reduce available funding for mixed-income projects. And the study finds that land speculation has driven up prices along planned transit corridors in both Charlotte and Minneapolis-St. Paul, noting that the timing of land use regulations and transit construction can have an impact on both speculation and development – a phenomenon the CTOD is exploring further in new research.

The report advocates that changes be made to the LIHTC program, and recommends that inclusionary zoning policies be made flexible so they can be applied in neighborhoods with strong housing markets and waived where it is not. The report notes land acquisition funds are emerging as an important tool to enable the purchase of land near transit while it’s still affordable, and recommends that resources for mixed-income housing be targeted to entire transit systems – including bus lines – in order to maximize opportunities for truly affordable lifestyles. Links to the executive summary and the full report appear below. “Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit” (April 2007) and its executive summary are available here.

Capturing the Value of Transit

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Over the past decade, it has become increasingly clear that the presence of transit can increase property values and result in valuable development opportunities. In this era of constrained transit funding and widespread demand for new and expanded transit systems, policy makers, transit planners and elected officials are increasingly interested in harnessing a portion of the value that transit confers to surrounding properties to fund transit infrastructure or related improvements in station areas. This idea, known as “value capture,” is much discussed in planning, transit, and local government circles. However, confusion abounds. Where does the value come from? What is the best way to measure it? And, most importantly, what is the best way to capture this value?

Those are the questions addressed in "Capturing the Value of Transit," a new report by Reconnecting America's Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

The Center for TOD is the only national nonprofit effort dedicated to providing best practices, research and tools to support market-based transit-oriented development. We partner with both the public and private market sectors to strategize about ways to encourage the development of high-performing TOD projects around transit stations and to build transit systems that maximize the development potential.

The Center for TOD is a partnership of the national nonprofit Reconnecting America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Strategic Economics, an urban economics firm in Berkeley, CA.

Those are the questions addressed in "Capturing the Value of Transit," a new report by Reconnecting America's Center for Transit-Oriented Development.

The Center for TOD is a partnership of the national nonprofit Reconnecting America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Strategic Economics, an urban economics firm in Berkeley, CA.

Somerville: Opportunities for Equitable Transit-Oriented Development

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

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.

Financing Transit-Oriented Development

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

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.

TCRP 128: Effects of TOD on Housing, Parking and Travel

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

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.

The 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.

Results of this research 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%.

TOD 202: Transit & Employment

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Why This BOOk?

To Inform StrategiesThat Can Increase Transit’s Share of the Commute Trip

The daily commute is a fact of life for 90 million Americans. While some commuters value the “down time” this trip provides them, others experience financial, emotional and physical stress.

The societal cost is also significant – the freedom and flexibility provided by the automobile exacts a high price in terms of environmental and climate impacts, infrastructure costs, accidents and injuries, and dependence on foreign oil, and rising gas prices make commuting by car a heavy personal financial burden. Moreover, it has proven to be impossible to reduce traffic congestion by keeping up with the ever-expanding demand for road capacity – the amount of driving, measured in vehicle miles traveled or VMT, has increased three times faster than the U.S. population since 1980, and is expected to increase another 59 percent by 2030, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Transit and transit-oriented development is an essential part of the solution to both the traffic and climate change problems, and can address the personal and societal costs of our dependence on the automobile.

A great deal of practical and academic activity in the past several decades has been devoted to understanding how land use can support robust transit ridership and realize all of transit’s potential benefits. But to date most of the research and discussion has been about residential and retail development at stations. There has been less consideration about where the people who live and shop in transit-oriented neighborhoods will work, and how they will get to work.

Clearly, in order for TOD to deliver the most riders for transit, the discussion about TOD needs to be more comprehensive, extending to considerations of the work trip, its origins (where workers live) and its destinations (where they work). The goal is an increasingly efficient and complementary land use pattern that provides more mobility and accessibility and responds to consumer demand for fast, convenient public transportation.

The good news is that the market is responding to consumer demand for more housing and transportation choices. American households are becoming older and smaller and more ethnically diverse, and whereas the family used to be the dominant demographic group, singles are becoming the new majority. These demographic changes have resulted in more demand for in-town living, 24/7 neighborhoods, transit and TOD. This has opened a window of opportunity for communities to make the land use patterns associated with employment centers as transit friendly as residential and mixed-use TOD.

TOD 202: Station Area Planning

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

This is the first in our TOD 202 series of guidebooks to promote best practices in transit-oriented development. Following publication of “Why Transit-Oriented Development and Why Now?” our TOD 101 guidebook, we realized there is a need for more in-depth analysis and discussion for TOD practitioners. This 202 manual is intended to help with simplifying 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, as well as station area planning principles and TOD plan checklists.

The manual begins with a discussion of seven "TOD place types," followed by a self-diagnostic questionnaire to help identify a particular station area place type in a TOD typology we have applied and refined in several regions around the U.S. There are also typologies of buildings and of the kinds of open spaces sometimes included in transit-oriented neighborhoods. All of these typologies can help inform decisions by enabling the planning partners to visualize and talk about the possibilities for station areas. They are intended to be suggestive only and not a complete list of options.

The second section is a discussion of station area planning principles, and includes TOD plan checklists for each principle to help guide station area planning efforts. Again, the goal 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.

This manual is based on a station area planning manual that Reconnecting America’s Center for TOD created for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in the San Francisco Bay Area with the help of Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates. MTC has a TOD policy that requires new transit projects to meet certain thresholds in terms of the number of housing units planned or built within walking distance of stations. The TOD policy is intended to make regional transit investments as efficient and cost-effective as possible by requiring and encouraging transit-supportive development to promote ridership. To support implementation of the TOD policy MTC has also made funding available for station area plans to help communities think about and plan for changes in land use, access, circulation, pedestrian-friendly design and parking policies.

Center for TOD Demand Estimate Update

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

The Center for TOD has updated its market demand estimate for the number of households likely to be looking to rent or buy housing near transit, from 14.6 million households by 2025 to 15.2 million households by 2030. These numbers are more than double the number of households who live near transit today. Meeting this demand would necessitate building 2,000 housing units near every station in the U.S.

The earlier demand estimate was released in our landmark TOD market study "Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit" in 2004. The numbers were updated for 2030 in order to be consistent with the time horizon of many regional transportation and land use planning efforts underway, as well as to account for the construction of new fixed-guideway systems.

Preserving Opportunities: Saving Affordable Homes Near Transit

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Preserving affordable housing near transit means more than simply saving a building—it means preserving opportunities for low-income families and seniors to access jobs and services. Next to housing, transportation is the second highest household cost for most Americans. Affordable housing located near transit allows families and seniors to live an affordable lifestyle and access employment, education, retail, and community opportunities. Reconnecting America and the National Housing Trust identified federally assisted affordable housing located in close proximity to existing or proposed public transportation in 8 cities: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, New York City, Portland,St. Louis, and Seattle. We found that more than 100,000 federally assisted housing units sheltering more than 300,000 individuals in these cities are located in transit rich neighborhoods. Approximately 65,500 of these units- or 63 percent of total units near transit- are covered by federal rental assistance contracts expiring before the end of 2012.

Station Area Planning Manual

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0400

This manual is intended to serve as a companion to MTC’s Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Policy and for Priority Development Areas under the Focusing Our Vision (FOCUS) program to assist jurisdictions with decisionmaking as they complete planning efforts around Bay Area transit hubs and corridors.

MTC’s TOD Policy, adopted in 2005, requires new regional transit expansion projects to meet corridor housing thresholds that require local governments and transit providers to work together to show how they will provide for a minimum amount of housing within walking distance of transit stations. The goal is to make regional transit investments as efficient as possible and encourage local jurisdictions to focus growth around transit nodes. In order to reinforce the requirements of the TOD Policy, MTC has made funding available for Station Area Plans that address future land use changes, station access needs, circulation improvements, pedestrian-friendly design, TOD-supportive parking policies and other key features in a transit-oriented development.

Focusing Our Vision (FOCUS) is a multi-agency effort spearheaded by ABAG and MTC in coordination with the Bay Area Quality Management District (BAAQMD). FOCUS builds upon the Smart Growth Strategy/Regional Livability Footprint Project. This pioneering effort has allowed local governments to nominate “Priority Development Areas” where future growth will be focused in region.

This manual is divided into three sections. The first section defines seven Bay Area Place Types and is intended to help cities self-identify their vision for the future of station areas based on characteristics such as land use mix and transit mode. This self-identification serves to establish a common language for a regional policy framework. This section also presents simple guidelines for new development within a given station area according to Place Type. Development guidelines include such elements as typical housing types, total units per station area, and total jobs per station area. The first section should be used to understand the potential outcomes at the start of a planning process.

The second section presents a number of station area planning principles. These principles are meant to inform the development of Station Area Plans, regardless of place type, and represent an understanding gained from previous MTC-sponsored Station Area Plan efforts. The second section should be used throughout the planning process to help make decisions that will support TOD.

The third and final section provides illustrative examples of building and open space types as companions to the Station Area Plan guidelines and principles. The building types are meant to help visualize the possibilities and are not intended as an exhaustive list of the options. The third section should be used to help visualize potential development outcomes and implement Station Area Plans.

TOD Case Studies: Implementation In Low- Income, Ethnically Diverse Neighborhoods

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0400

These case studies, funded through the support of the Surdna Foundation, present transit-oriented development (TOD) examples from diverse, low-income neighborhoods around transit, all built within the last 10 years. The goal of this survey is to provide examples that can help spur development around Philadelphia’s underutilized transit resources in similar types of neighborhoods. To that end, the examples in these case studies all overcame barriers to implementation using innovative, but replicable approaches. These examples are intended to allow the Philadelphia Neighborhood Development Collaborative and others to advocate for more involvement by the public sector, test some of the same mechanisms for financing and land assembly, and provide examples of successful TOD to developers and community members.

Realizing The Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit

Sun, 13 May 2007 00:00:00 -0400

This new national study funded by the Federal Transit Administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that location matters a great deal when it comes to reducing household costs. While families who live in auto-dependent neighborhoods spend an average of 25 percent of their household budget on transportation, families who live in transit-rich neighborhoods spend just 9 percent, the study says. The report examines five case study regions – Boston, Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis, and Portland -- to better understand the proactive strategies being undertaken to create and preserve affordable housing near transit.

TOD Typology and Strategic Plan for Denver

Fri, 04 May 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Denver is building 119 miles of rail and 70 new stations in six years, and the Center for Transit-Oriented Development has helped develop a “TOD Typology” for the city and the county that categorizes stations according to seven ”types“ (downtown, urban neighborhood, commuter town center, etc.) and suggests a land use mix, scale, housing types, and station function for each type. CTOD has also helped draft a TOD strategic plan to prioritize planning and resources depending on the development potential of stations. The intent is to help provide certainty for communities and for developers.

Hercules Aerial Tram, Mobility Study and Report (2007)

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

This study seeks to inform City of Hercules Council and Staff about connecting the City’s waterfront to a new developing town center. This study gives technical information on the possibility of using aerial ropeways (which includes aerial trams and gondolas) and discusses alternatives such as buses and streetcars.

Twin Cities TOD Toolkit

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Reconnecting America has undertaken a three-year effort to educate regional decision-makers and communities about TOD. Educational information about the Hiawatha, Central, and North Star corridors is being developed to help provide a better understanding of how transit investments can be leveraged to create stronger communities and more transportation choices, to advance affordable housing and environmental goals, and to connect households with jobs. The McKnight Foundation is funding this effort.

Twin Cities TOD Toolkit

Street Smart

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500

This richly illustrated book is about streetcars and the tremendous private investment they help generate. There are case studies of the most robust new systems and the ways they’ve been used to leverage ambitious public goals like affordability and high-quality public space, and chapters on planning, financing and the more technical aspects of building a system, and also a history of streetcars as a public/private venture. The 2009 edition of the book is available for purchase here.

The Case for Mixed-Income Transit-Oriented Development in the Denver Region

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Mixed-income TOD has the potential to meaningfully address the growing affordability crisis in the Denver region. This report, which was commissioned by the Enterprise Community Partners of Denver, concludes that there is a growing demand for housing near transit, and a closing window of opportunity to develop it in a sustainable way with mixed-income housing.

TOD 101: Transit-Oriented Development And Why Now?

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

This colorful 24-page “picture book” lays out in easy-to-read format how shifting demographics and the changing real estate market have opened up an unprecedented window of opportunity for transit-oriented development.

The book explains what TOD is, how it benefits communities, and how it can be an important affordability strategy for regions. It references our national TOD market study, includes two brief TOD case studies, and discusses the Affordability Index developed by the Center for TOD.

In sum, it explains all the reasons that TOD is a sustainable, low-cost solution to a host of problems ranging from housing affordability to traffic congestion to global warming. The text consists of PowerPoint-style slides with bulleted information, brief explanations, photos and captions.

Preserving and Promoting Diverse Transit-Oriented Neighborhoods

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

This report for the Ford Foundation is about the demand for housing near transit from low-income and very-low-income households, and the racial and economic diversity of households living within a half mile of transit. It describes the benefits of diversity and TOD to maintaining the health of neighborhoods and regions, and the policies that can be employed to meet the demand for transit-oriented housing.

Tools for Mixed-Income TOD

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0400

This paper describes and evaluates tools and strategies that are being used to create mixed-income and affordable housing near transit in regions around the U.S. The first half of the paper explains how these various strategies are being used and the limitations and successes of each, and the second half discusses best practices and provides examples of each.

Communicating the Benefits of TOD: The City of Evanston's Transit Oriented Redevelopment

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 20:57:59 -0500

This is a tale of three cities—Jersey City and neighboring Hoboken in New Jersey, and Evanston, Illinois – that have experienced an enormous amount of development since the late 1980s, reversing three decades of decline brought on by the great suburban exodus of the 1950s. The result is that in 2006 all three cities are prospering, posting significant increases in property values and sales taxes and other revenues due to the building boom and resulting increases in business activity. The amount of high-density development that has occurred could never have occurred this quickly if these cities did not have rich transit networks providing very high-quality connections to the abundant jobs, culture and destinations in their big city neighbors: Manhattan is across the Hudson River from Hoboken and Jersey City; Chicago and Evanston share a border.

A Heavy Load: The combined housing and transportation burdens of working families

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Low- and moderate-income families are finding that if they move farther from work in order to find affordable housing they end up spending at least as much as they save – or more – on the increased cost of transportation. This report details the “heavy load” of combined transportation and housing costs on working families in 28 metropolitan regions around the U.S.

The Affordability Index

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The housing and transportation Affordability Index quantifies the impact of transportation costs on the affordability of housing choices and the savings derived from living in “location efficient” communities that are near transit, shopping, schools and work. The index was built using data sets that are available for every transit-served community in the U.S. and can be applied in more than 42 cities in the U.S. It is intended to provide consumers, policymakers, lenders and investors with the information needed to make better decisions about which neighborhoods are truly affordable – so as to illuminate the implications of policy and investment choices.

Connecting America: Making the Case for Intercity Rail

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 15:16:54 -0500

Imagine traveling quickly and conveniently between cities, avoiding congestion on the highways and at the airports. Imagine being able to fly across the country, and catch a train at the airport that takes you to your final destination, all with just one ticket. Imagine a reconnected America, with a variety of affordable and convenient transportation choices for traveling between regions. We are at a time in history when such scenarios need not be just imagined, but realized. Now is the time for America to reinvest in rail to reconnect our communities; to improve our national transportation network for efficiency, security, and safety; and to help spur economic growth. Rail passenger service in the United States is in the midst of a renaissance at the local and regional level, yet is facing critical policy decisions at the national level. Ridership on our commuter rail, regional rail transit, and intercity rail systems continues to increase dramatically. The development of rail passenger service merits support and should continue to be the focus of attention at all levels of government.

Value Capture: How to Get a Return on Investment in Transit and TOD

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0400

The maxim is that when looking for a new home or business the three most important considerations are: location, location, location. As traffic makes it increasingly difficult to drive in downtowns, as downtowns become increasingly popular with both residents and businesses, and as new transit systems open up in downtowns across the U.S., an address near transit is proving to be a good one. Empirical evidence that transit and TOD create significant value is mounting. It has to do with economies of agglomeration and the efficiencies created: Some things work better when clustered together. And with “killer commutes” tying up 10 million drivers two hours a day in traffic, it works best when they’re clustered around transit.

This article provides a summary of the many options available for capturing the value of transit and TOD before they're built.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit

Fri, 03 Sep 2004 00:00:00 -0400

This study by the Center for Transit-Oriented Development shows that demographics and other trends will cause the potential demand for compact housing near transit to more than double by 2025. This means that more than 14.6 million households will be looking to rent or buy near transit, and meeting this demand would require building 2,100 residential units near each of the 3,971 stations in the U.S. today. The study was conducted for the Federal Transit Administration and ranks metro regions according to the development potential.

TOD in the USA

Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:00:00 -0500

This paper assesses the progress of transit-oriented development in four metropolitan regions – Atlanta, the Bay Area, Chicago and Denver. The shared "lessons learned" include the following: early planning is essential; upfront work on zoning, parking and codes can entice the market; and the planning and entitlements process needs to be made more developer-friendly. One conclusion is that TOD represents a paradigm shift toward a more integrated and interdisciplinary way of solving problems.

The New Transit Town

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The New Transit Town brings together experts in planning, transportation, and sustainable design to examine the first generation of TOD projects and derive lessons for the next generation. Topics include a typology of projects appropriate for different contexts and scales; the planning, policy and regulatory framework of "successful" projects; obstacles to financing and strategies for overcoming those obstacles; issues surrounding traffic and parking; the roles of all the actors involved and the resources available to them; and performance measures that can be used to evaluate outcomes. There are case studies of Arlington, Virginia (the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor); Dallas (Mockingbird Station and Addison Circle); Atlanta (Lindbergh Center); San Jose (Ohlone-Chynoweth); and San Diego (Barrio Logan).

Missed Connections II

Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:22:24 -0500

In 2002, we examined trends in air service in the United States in the 12 months following the September 11 attacks. We found a steep and continuing drop in air travel, and an overall reduction in the number of flights supplied. Using the industry standard data base, the Official Airline Guide (OAG), we examined air service levels at individual airports, and ranked them by both flights reduced and reduced seat availability within three airport categories: large hub, small and medium hub and non-hub commercial service airports.

A year has passed, and we felt it timely to review our findings from late 2002. Congress has still not completed its efforts to reauthorize the federal transport legislation, although it completed the aviation bill this fall, without, however, addressing the fundamental issues raised in this report.

Transit-Oriented Development: Moving From Rhetoric to Reality

Fri, 05 Apr 2002 00:00:00 -0500

Many projects that are labeled “transit-oriented” are merely “transit-related” and don’t realize their potential to also be environmentally sustainable and socially just. This paper offers an expanded definition of TOD that focuses primarily on functions and outcomes, such as increased location efficiency and mobility, more housing and shopping choices, and enhanced value recapture and value return. This definition allows for a more nuanced evaluation of projects, and a different view of why so many don’t live up to their potential. The authors also make recommendations on how projects can be improved, focusing on the roles that can be played by the five main actors in the development process. This paper became one of the Urban Center’s ten most popular publications of 2002.

Missed Connections: Finding solutions to the Crisis in Air Travel

Mon, 18 Mar 2002 21:12:32 -0500

This is the first in a series of reports from the Reconnecting America project examining the current crisis in intercity travel in the United States and recommending a more economically stable and integrated system of travel for the country. This first report focuses on the aviation system. Future reports will analyze intercity rail, homeland security issues, and federal policy opportunities. The crisis affecting the aviation industry is profound and will be long lasting unless changes in policy and approach are found in both the public and the private sector. The airlines have responded to their difficult financial situation by attempting to cut costs in labor, equipment and service. The cuts in service are resulting in reduced schedules, convenience and comfort to travelers and reduced accessibility to the national economy for many cities. The crisis threatens to prolong and deepen the financial difficulties being felt in the travel and tourism industry, which is key to metropolitan economies. The report identifies the cities hardest hit by the cuts in air service, ranking them in categories of large, medium and small airports, and finds that the changes result from deep cuts in short distance flights. These flights of 100-400 miles, which are becoming money losers for the airlines, can be well served by passenger rail and express bus service, if airports become travelports for these services.

Rail Stations: At the Heart of America's Communities

Wed, 21 Mar 2001 15:10:11 -0500

With our new century just starting, this is a good time for communities across the country to reflect on where we are and where we want to be. How do we make our cities places that improve the quality of life? How do we make them places where people interact, share ideas and build a future together?

Where we live is one of the primary elements that defines who we are. Upon meeting, after names are exchanged, the next question usually asked is “Where do you live?” And what best represents where we live? As much as I love our community’s new regional mall, it doesn’t define Meridian. The interstate highways surely don’t. Even our neighborhoods, while they play a role, don’t define the entire community because each neighborhood is a little different –a mini-community. There’s only one place that truly represents an entire community—downtown.

Economic Impact of Station Revitalization

Wed, 21 Mar 2001 14:51:20 -0500

Urban renewal and city center development for communities of all sizes have become urgent priorities throughout the country, as the disadvantages of suburban sprawl become more and more apparent. ... Revitalized stations and multimodal transportation centers can serve as critcal anchors for urban redevelopment efforts, because a key potential benefit of an urban center location is its accessibility for regional employment and business exchanges.

Guidebook on Train Station Revitalization

Wed, 18 Mar 1998 21:33:53 -0500

A practical manual on how to preserve railroad stations and transform them into centers of multimodal transportation, commerce, and economic development.