Transit Oriented Development

One thing that the National non-profit the Urban Land Institute and Streetsblog have in common is we both have strong views about Transit Oriented Development.  Another thing we have in common?  We both think the state of transit oriented planning in Los Angeles could really use improvement.

Yesterday, the Center for Transit Oriented Development, the leading national non-profit dealing with T.O.D. issues, released a report full of recommendations for Los Angeles as the local transit system grows in the coming years.  The study looks at 71 existing and under construction station areas in Los Angeles, not the stations that will be built because of Measure R, and provides guidelines and a tool box to help insure that the future projects do a better job of integrating and supporting the existing community.

One of my favorite transportation rhetorical devices has always been the relationship between Transit Oriented Development, or TOD, and its evil brother, Transit Adjacent Development, TAD.  TAD breaks all the rules that make TOD work, but because they can look similar they often get confused.  Unfortunately, TAD can give TOD a bad name.

With all the bleak news about the City of Los Angeles' budget woes, and the ridiculously poor state of the same city's Transit Oriented Development program; the last thing one might expect to hear out of city hall is a fight over how the city spends its "Street Furniture Revenue Fund."  Yesterday, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a veto of Councilman Tony Cardenas' request to use street furniture funds to pay for his office staff, that's exactly what we got.

When the Obama administration announced an ambitious revamp of transit funding rules to, as the Transportation Secretary put it, “take livability into account,” urban planners and transit advocates alike were pleased — but also uncertain. Baltimore’s rail network, with the proposed new Red Line — which could get a boost from the U.S. DOT’s livability … Continued

Yes, says urban planner Neil Payton. From his guest column today on Reconnecting America's blog:

(editor's note: The section with area specific data for Southern California isn't done yet.  When it is, we'll have a post specific to our region.  In the meantime, this statewide article prepared by Matthew Roth in San Francisco is a great read.)

Back in the late 1970s, when Washington's Metrorail system first began operating in Arlington County, Virginia, the future of Arlington and other old, inner suburbs was far from certain. Across the Potomac, the District of Columbia was suffering from depopulation, rapidly rising crime rates, and serious fiscal difficulties.

When people around the country discuss "transit oriented development" they describe tall buildings surrounding a bus or train station that are designed to discourage car commuting.  In its definition of T.O.D., Streetswiki even states: