The guide is intended as a resource for municipal officials looking for innovative strategies to support multi-modal access to their transit station and TOD area. While providing parking options in these areas is important, this guide focuses first on assessing multi-modal access strategies as a whole and placing a priority on pedestrian, bicycle and transit … Continued
These planning guidelines outline a specific infrastructure improvement strategy designed to facilitate easy, safe, and efficient access to the Metro system. They introduce a concept herein referred to as ‘the Pathway’, and provide direction on the layout of transit access networks and components within Metro Rail and fixed route Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station areas.
Public transportation is overall a relatively safe (low crash risk) and secure (low crime risk) mode of transport. Transit travel has about a tenth the traffic casualty (death or injury) rate as automobile travel, and residents of transit-oriented communities have about a fifth the per capita crash casualty rate as in automobile-oriented communities. Transit also … Continued
This report investigates ways that public transportation affects human health, and ways to incorporate these impacts into transport policy and planning decisions. This research indicates that public transit improvements and more transit oriented development can provide large but often overlooked health benefits. People who live or work in communities with high quality public transport tend … Continued
This study uses a specialized tool—a health impact assessment, or HIA—to evaluate the health impacts of transit-oriented development (TOD) in a neighborhood surrounding a soon-to-be-completed light rail station in Houston, Texas. The station we chose for this pilot assessment is the Quitman station, which is located just north of downtown Houston, at the intersection of … Continued
In an effort to bring the American dream of homeownership to more people, our society has enabled and encouraged growth in places where low land costs deliver relatively inexpensive housing but where sprawling, single-use development adds significantly to the cost of carrying out the daily tasks of getting to work or school, running errands and … Continued
With support from the Southern California field office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and in partnership with Move LA, Reconnecting America, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, Enterprise Community Partners presents a popular education curriculum for equitable development in transit-oriented districts with a focus on affordable housing. This innovative curriculum … Continued
This report examines the characteristics, motives, and preferences of companies that have either relocated, opened new offices, or expanded in walkable downtowns between 2010 and 2015. Smart Growth America partnered with global real estate advisors Cushman & Wakefield to identify nearly 500 companies that have made such a move in the past five years. Of … Continued
Unlike rating systems that assess the quality of individual TOD projects, this proposed eTOD Score rating system seeks to measure the capacity for equitable TOD within a given public transit station area. It identifies easily quantifiable and comparable built, social, and transit attributes that reduce driving, encourage higher transit ridership, and promote transit equity and … Continued
This report describes the concept of community cohesion, which refers to the quantity and quality of interactions among people in a community, as indicated by the degree to which residents know and care about their neighbors. It discusses the value of community cohesion and how it is affected by transportation planning decisions. This report describes … Continued