Can We Surround Ourselves With Access?
(Post 3 of 4 for Transit-Oriented Development)
Happy Sunday! We have a few announcements this week. Project Planning Green will now be providing transcribed versions of our podcast along with our blog posts so everyone can read them! But especially for those who cannot listen to the podcasts themselves. Also starting from next month, we will be doing two blogs a month that will coincide with our podcast episodes instead of the existing four blogs a month. This will help us streamline the process of publications since our team has full-time jobs and do not get paid for our work at Project Planning Green (we’re just passionate about the topic!). Of course, if you would like to support us, we do have a Patreon set up where you can make recurring donations as small as three dollars ($3) a month to support us. Just check out the Support Us button on the top right of our webpage! We look forward to engaging with you and to provide digestible urban planning information going forward!
Moving onto our topic of the week, we will be continuing on the discussion of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), we will look into some of the existing costs and benefits of TOD that we have data for so far.
The implementation of TOD has been shown to have the following benefits:
- Improved competitiveness for the city- TOD can sometimes double job density around transit stations and studies have shown that doubling job density can increase economic productivity by 5 to 10%.
- High-density developments around transit stations help the transit system stay financially viable while providing transportation to large numbers of people.
- Expanded mobility choices that reduce dependence on the automobile and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Reduced household transportation costs.
- Close proximity to transit stations increase access to TOD neighborhoods and increases real estate values around those neighborhoods
- Increased value around transit stations which means increased revenue for additional transit and other public services.
Sounds too good to be true? To help illustrate the potential benefits of TOD on major metropolitan cities, four out of five of United States’ metropolitan regions with extensive rail transit systems achieved growth and development within their transit zone– within one half-mile of their rail stations- between the years of 2000 and 2010.
While the general consensus of TOD is positive, one of the biggest complaints about TOD is the gentrification issue. Gentrification effects make housing costs unaffordable and can destroy the existing culture of the original neighborhoods.
While the increased real estate value in TOD areas may increase property values and accelerate gentrification, transportation costs for TOD neighborhoods were strongly associated with decreased household transportation spending. The reduced transportation spending can offset some of the increase in real estate values. Furthermore, the increase in value around TOD centers points to the increased housing demand around TOD centers while the supply has not kept up. One of the potential solutions for this would be increased housing development to provide additional supply to meet the rising demand.
Aside from increased development, governments can definitely do more to help neighborhoods by enforcing affordable housing developments, creating affordable housing policies, and using other tools that will serve people of all income levels. If this effort is successful, people of all income levels will have access to the same job opportunities and services which would be a significant accomplishment in the history of urban planning.
This completes our blog post for this week. Look for our blog and podcast next week, on 10/27 where we will provide a small recap for the introduction of transit-oriented development and go on to conclude the topic for October.
See you next week!
Project Planning Green
Resources:
- John L. Renne, Tara Tolford, Shima Hamidi & Reid Ewing (2016) The Cost and Affordability Paradox of Transit-Oriented Development: A Comparison of Housing and Transportation Costs Across Transit-Oriented Development, Hybrid and TransitAdjacent Development Station Typologies, Housing Policy Debate, 26:4-5, 819-834, DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2016.1193038. Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2016.1193038
- Transit-Oriented Development In The Chicago Region- Efficient And Resilient Communities For The 21st Century: https://www.cnt.org/sites/default/files/publications/CNT_TODInChicagoRegion.pdf
- Transforming The UrbanSpace through Transit-Oriented Development: The 3V Approach- The World Bank: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/transport/publication/transforming-the-urban-space-through-transit-oriented-development-the-3v-approach
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