Best Practices

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 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.

I. INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

The Great Communities Collaborative (GCC) brings together residents and local organizations to participate in community planning processes across the Bay Area to create a region of vibrant neighborhoods with affordable housing, shops, jobs and services near transit. The GCC is a unique cooperative relationship between four Bay Area nonprofit organizations - Greenbelt Alliance, TransForm, Urban Habitat, the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, and the national nonprofit Reconnecting America. The East Bay Community Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation are also part of the collaborative. In 2006, members of the GCC met with the Bay Area Local Initiatives Support Corporation (Bay Area LISC) and the San Francisco Foundation to craft a strategy for property acquisition in support of equitable TOD. These conversations were rooted in the recognition that the ability to control land and land use is often critical to ensuring that affordable housing, open space, and community facilities are not left out, but rather go hand-in-hand with private market development.