“Station Area Planning: How To Make Great Transit-Oriented Places” is the second in a series of “TOD 202” guidebooks to promote best practices in transit-oriented development.
The daily commute is a fact of life for 90 million Americans. While some commuters value the “down time” this trip provides them, others experience financial, emotional and physical stress. The societal cost is also significant – the freedom and flexibility provided by the automobile exacts a high price in terms of environmental and climate impacts, infrastructure costs, accidents and injuries, and dependence on foreign oil, and rising gas prices make commuting by car a heavy personal financial burden. Moreover, it has proven to be impossible to reduce traffic congestion by keeping up with the ever-expanding demand for road capacity – the amount of driving, measured in vehicle miles traveled or VMT, has increased three times faster than the U.S. population since 1980, and is expected to increase another 59 percent by 2030, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
