Transit-oriented development has quickly become a popular concept among planners, developers, and engineers because it combines mass transit technology, efficient transportation, and high-density development. Politicians and “city boosters” have adopted TOD as a redevelopment strategy, while some communities and activists have fought it because of its effects on the displacement of local residents, the loss of affordable housing in newly developed areas close to transit stations and stops, and the disruption of local business operations.
Like most planning concepts, TOD is neither a savior nor a villain. It is a complex process and strategy that can contribute to more sustainable transportation patterns, decreased emissions, and enhanced regional connectivity, but has also been marred by overly complex development processes, financial and construction challenges, and unrealistic expectations for civic renewal. This book explores TOD as a policy concept and is based in part on an in-depth study conducted at the University of Amsterdam (2012–2014). The goal was to study how TOD has been implemented in a range of international case studies with the intent of spurring a breakthrough in TOD in the Dutch context.
In this chapter, we discuss the characteristics of TOD, the current state of practice in cities around the world, and barriers to its implementation. At the end of the chapter, we present more detail on the study and outline the remaining chapters of this volume.
What Is TOD and Why Do Cities Use It?
While most readers of this volume may have some understanding of transit-oriented development and would like to learn more, we would like to ensure everyone has the same understanding of the term.
TOD includes high-density, mixed-use developments located within close proximity to public transportation infrastructure. The term “transit-oriented development” was coined by Peter Calthorpe and detailed in his seminal volume The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream (1993). The US-based Center for Transit-Oriented Development, a national clearinghouse on the topic, is the result of a collaboration with the Center for Neighbourhood Technology and Strategic Economics and is funded by the US government. The CTOD definition of the concept is:
a type of community development that includes a mixture of housing, office, retail and/or other commercial development and amenities integrated into a walkable neighborhood and located within a half-mile of quality public transportation. (CTOD 2019)
If this sounds familiar, it is because many cities around the world used to be built this way before the advent of the car. Developing pedestrian-oriented, small-scale urban neighborhoods and streets was commonplace until the 1950s, and these places can be experienced in many historic neighborhoods around the world. For this reason, Calthorpe considers himself “a reviver rather than an originator of ideas” (Newman 1991). As a reaction to decades of car-oriented development, the modern vision of TOD began as a rail-based concept with development focused around station areas, with the basic premise that re-orienting urban development toward more dense corridors had the potential to preserve land, decrease car use, curb urban sprawl, and accommodate regional growth.
CTOD (2007) suggests that demographic shifts, and accompanying shifts in housing preferences, are another reason that cities might invest in TOD: the fastest-growing household type is no longer the two-parent, two-child household, which is now just 25 percent of the total number of households in the US and in Canada. More rapid growth in households made up of couples without children, single parents, people living alone, seniors, and immigrants has resulted in a vastly increased demand for public transit; historically, all of these household types have taken public transit at higher rates than the two-parent, two-child household. A national study showed that by 2030, 40 percent of households in the US were looking for high-density housing near transit (CTOD 2007). People living in areas close to TOD have lower car ownership and smaller household sizes (Ewing and Cervero 2010).
TOD has now evolved to include small-scale developments such as walking paths, cycling parking and trails, and public spaces supporting not just high-capacity metropolitan railway use but also local buses, streetcars, and non-motorized travel modes such as walking and cycling (TransLink 2012). TransLink, the transportation authority in Vancouver, Canada, has broadened the term to “transit-oriented communities” to signify that higher densities, mixed use, high-quality urban design and other characteristics need not be attached to large-scale station area developments, but can in fact be integrated at a variety of scales across a region. TOD “has evolved into a regional or ‘network’ approach in Europe, relying on the regional services rather than Light Rail” (Conesa 2018, 120). In some cities and countries, TOD is part of a regional approach to growth management and transportation demand management, which aim to concentrate growth in areas with existing infrastructure, rather than sprawl outward.
Why Do Cities Want to Adopt TOD?
As a concept, TOD has characteristics that appeal to environmentalists, health authorities, economic development agencies, real estate agents, and regional transportation authorities. Schuetz et al. write that “City and county governments (and many voters) see rail transit as the key to reducing congestion, restructuring urban form, creating a livable city, and attracting economic development” (2018, 1673). Indeed, some of the benefits of TOD (CTOD 2019; Cervero 2008) include:
- Decreased driving, parking needs for cars, regional congestion, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions
- Increased transit ridership, transit fare revenue, competition of transit with the car, mobility choices, property values near TOD, and access to jobs
- Walkable communities and compact urban development at densities supporting public transit, walking, and cycling
As low-density, car-oriented regions and countries have adopted TOD principles, they have faced many challenges; case studies on existing TODs often examine their mixed results in achieving the expected benefits. Even TOD in more densely developed countries (e.g., the Netherlands, Hong Kong) have faced challenges in implementation. Successful TOD is widely considered to be dependent upon the five Ds: density, diversity, design, distance to transit, and destination accessibility (Ewing and Cervero 2010). Each of these characteristics influences transit ridership in areas close to TOD.
Density is measured as the variable of interest per unit of area, e.g., population, dwelling units, or employment (Ewing and Cervero 2010). TOD has a lot of potential to concentrate new population and employment growth, but this is more complicated than it sounds, particularly when transit infrastructure is located within a car-oriented, low-density region or one with a limited regional transit network. For example, in Dovey et al.’s (2017) study of six tram corridors in Melbourne, Australia, the authors suggested that if all the sites along the corridors were intensified, up to 45,000 dwelling units could be added. However, only 2500 units have been added so far, as Melbourne continues to sprawl outward. Renne (2017) points out that the US invested billions to build over 4400 passenger rail stations across 39 metropolitan regions by 2010, but only 36 percent achieve a minimum density of 8 units per acre, the minimum requirement to support transit use. He writes that “If every station area achieved a minimum density of 8 units per acre, additional housing could be created for 9 million new Americans” (Renne 2017, 474).
Diversity refers to the number of different land uses in a given area and the degree to which they are represented in land area, floor area, or employment, e.g., using low values for single-use environments. Jobs-to-housing or jobs-to-employment are less frequently used (Ewing and Cervero 2010). Diversity can be difficult to achieve in metropolitan regions that have favored single-use zoni...