Parks and open space highlighted in the Sun Valley Neighborhood Plan. The area between Mile High Stadium and the Decatur-Federal Station is currently occupied by parking lots (Photo: City and County of Denver)
Planning for TOD is often dependent on the specific location of stations along a transit corridor. This week a few different discussions arose around early planning for rail lines in Seattle while in Denver, development possibilities increased next to an existing station.
In Seattle, the business community is hopeful that a second subway station will be added in South Lake Union—the home of Amazon—five blocks from another planned station to deal with large passenger loads alighting in the fast growing employment district. The second station is expected to see between 7,000 and 9,000 passengers per day on top of 13,000 to 17,000 passengers for the first station.
By building an extra station, the walk shed (or areas that are walkable from transit) increases dramatically as do opportunities for transit access and transit-oriented development along the corridor. A great example of this effect is the change in location of a light rail station during the planning for Denver’s W Line.
After moving the Decatur-Federal Station closer to its current location in Denver, a neighborhood plan was created in 2013 with the assistance of a grant from U.S. HUD and U.S. DOT. Now plans are in the works to redevelop the parking lots south of Sports Authority Field at Mile High that abut the station, creating an opportunity to realize the development envisioned in the neighborhood plan.
TCRP 182: Linking Transit Agencies and Land Use Decision Making is one resource in the TODresources.org library that can provide guidance on tying transit and station locations to land use decisions.
Recent TOD news
Here are a few things that have been happening this week with TOD projects across the country.
- Value capture proposal pits New York governor’s transportation plans against New York City (Politico)
- Berkeley mayor “committed to building housing” on BART station parking lots (Curbed San Francisco)
- General Services Administration to reopen auction for 59 acres of vacant, TOD-zoned land (Colorado Real Estate Journal)
- New light rail line opens in Charlotte, NC (The Architect’s Newspaper)