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Transit Oriented Development (TOD)

This page is organized into three sections: understanding TOD, the benefits of TOD, and TOD resources.

Download TRU’s basic TOD PowerPoint Presentation (large ppt)

Understanding TOD

What is TOD?

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) is a community planning and design approach to achieve development that reaps environmental, social, and economic benefits for the individual, municipality, and community.

TOD is defined by 4 characteristics.

    1. Mixed Use:  A mix of land-uses typically (but not limited to) commercial, office, and residential spaces.
    2. Walkable:  Pedestrian accessibility is emphasized in building and infrastructure design. 
    3. Compact:  Increased density of people living, working, shopping, and recreating in close proximity. 
    4. Near Transit:  Development is close to a public transportation stop or station.

Why TOD in the greater Detroit area?

TRU and a coalition of non-profit groups working under the name Michigan’s Golden Spike believe that TOD is the key to improving local and regional transit.  TOD helps to increase population densities that are required to gain Federal and State funding for new transit options.  Research shows that the dense population centers created by TOD make transit economically viable.  In addition, TOD is a way to shift the policy debate over mass transit.  In the new economy mobility is critical to keep and attract jobs and residents.  Successful examples of TOD around the country show that improved mass transit is an important economic redevelopment tool.  TOD provides the type of places that are attractive to young professionals by offering vibrant urban living across a region.  The world’s  largest demographic group, Baby Boomers and independent yet less mobile elderly, demand the accessibility to transit, shopping, and entertainment that TOD provides.  

Sounds great.  But we don’t have the transit yet.

Regional transit is currently an oxymoron in Southeast Michigan, but don’t be alarmed.  A regional commuter rail system from Detroit to Ann Arbor is being planned.  Rapid transit options are being determined in Detroit.  Planning for such major projects takes time and is not easily aided or influenced during the technical part of the process.  TOD works best and offers the most benefits when it occurs near local and regional transit.  However, TOD is a process that can be implemented before or after a new rail line or other transit system is up and running.  There are already many places in and around Detroit that are mixed use, walkable, and compact destinations.  Even if, in the worst case scenario, new transit takes years to start in the region TOD style places will help revitalize our cities. 

 Benefits of TOD

This section is classified into the following categories for benefits: environmental, social, and economic.

 
Environmental Benefits
 
  •         TODs can reduce rates of greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 to 3.7 tons per year for each household.

 

  •         Cervero and Radisch (1995) found that residents in a pedestrian friendly community walked, bicycled, or rode transit for 49% of work trips and 15% of their non-work trips, 18- and 11-percentage points more than residents of a comparable automobile oriented community.   

 

  •         A study found that in metropolitan areas with TOD households near transit stops own an average of 0.9 cars, compared to an average of 1.6 cars in the metro regions as a whole. Also, only 54% of residents living in TOD’s commute by car, compared to 83% in the regions as a whole.

Social Benefits

Safety Benefits 

  •         Lower per capita traffic death rates with rail transit than automobile.

Affordability

  •         The results also show that transit zones today offer lower-income residents important opportunities for affordable housing. First, neighborhoods near transit contain much more rental housing than average neighborhoods in the same region, 65 percent versus 39 percent overall. Second, the median gross rent in transit zones, at $591 per month, is also lower than the average rent, $657, in these regions.

Sense of Community

  •         In the popular book about American culture Bowling Alone, author Robert Putnam estimates that for every 10% decrease in driving time there is a 10% increase in civic participation. 

Public Health

  •          A national study found that people living in compact settings were 10% less likely to be obese than those living in low-density neighborhoods.

Economic Benefits

Individuals

  •         In the Detroit area working families or households making between $20,000 and $50,000 annually spend more money on transportation than housing. With 31% of their income going to transportation costs and 24% going to housing.
·        Bailey (2007) estimates that households in Transit-Oriented Developments drive 45% less than residents of automobile-dependent neighborhoods, saving an average of 512 gallons of fuel and $1,400 in fuel expenses annually.
 
·        Average annual cost to service a new family of four (police, fire, highway, schools and sewer).
§         Compact suburban Shelby County, KY = $88.27
§         Sprawling Pendleton County, KY = $1,222.39
 
·        Location Efficient Mortgages are available in areas where significant transportation funding is taking place. This allows borrowers to get a larger loan than they would be typically qualified for. For more information see http://www.nrdc.org
 
Municipality 
 
·        Building high-density developments reduces infrastructure costs by 47 percent. 
           
·        As Gerry Carlino has shown, the concentration effect is significant: for every doubling of employment density, the number of patents per capita increase, on average, by 20 to 30 percent. 
 
·        Published research indicates that doubling urban population density produces approximately 6% increase in productivity.
 
·        Jones Lang LaSalle in Property Futures found that 77 percent of New Economy companies rated access to mass transit as an extremely important factor in selecting corporate locations.
 
·         Arlington County’s (VA) Rosslyn-Ballston TOD corridor has been credited with generating 32.8% of the County’s real-estate tax revenue, even though it makes up just 7.6% of the County’s land area.
 
·        In 2000, 40% of the county’s (Arlington, VA) housing units and 65% of jobs were within Metrorail station areas.
 
Transit Ridership
 
·        TOD helps generate cost-effective riders for the transit system: 45 percent of workers in transit zones walk, bike or take transit to work, compared to just 14 percent of workers in regions with transit, and three-fourths of households living near transit own one auto or less.
 
·        Doubling of density is associated with nearly a 60% increase in transit boarding.
 
·        Transit ridership rates at mixed-use suburban employment centers are on average 5% to 10% higher than they are at single-use employment centers (i.e., offices only).   
 
·        Grid-like street patterns and pedestrian-friendly designs have been associated with transit-usage levels that are as much as 20% higher than usage levels at typical suburban subdivision designs.
 
·        In California a report showed that TOD improves the efficiency and effectiveness of our transit service investments by increasing the use of transit near stations by 20 to 40 percent.
 
Developers
 
·        Compact mixed-use developments near transit stations can increase rents by 20 % over comparable nearby apartments.
 
·        Land costs in major metropolitan areas have risen, but as land costs have climbed, developers have sought ways to build greater ‘supportable values’ through higher-density and mixed-use development. They have also sought to build out their projects more quickly by diversifying uses, which hastens absorption and reduces carrying costs on the undeveloped land.
 
·        Housing value premiums for cities with TOD are as follows (this accounts for housing located within a ½ or ¼ mile of a transit station, data is from 1993-2002)
 
o       6.4% in Philadelphia
o        6.7% in Boston
o       10.6% in Portland
o        17% in San Diego
o        20% in Chicago
o        24% in Dallas
o       45% in Santa Clara County
 
·        At Dallas’s Mockingbird Station, TOD residential rents were going for $1.60 per square foot per month in mid-2003; other comparable nearby properties not served by transit were getting $1.30, or 20% less.
 
·        The average percent change in land values from 1994 to 1998 for retail and office properties near DART stops was 37% and 14%,respectively; for “control” parcels, the average changes were 7.1% and 3.7%,respectively.
 
·        At the City Center TOD in Englewood, Colorado, Class A office space is leasing at a premium: gross annual lease rates of $21 to $25 per square footin mid-2002 compared with $13.50 to$17 per square foot for Class A space elsewhere in the city. The office space has 100% occupancy rate compared to 90% for the Denver metropolitan area. In addition annual rents for stores averaged $18 to $20 per square foot in 2002 versus $8 to $14 per square foot for the city of Englewood.

TOD Resources

Victoria Transport Policy Institute

  • http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm45.htm
    • A good starting point for TOD research. VTPI covers a great deal of transportation and land-use topics. Each page will give you a summary of the most current and best research on the given subject. In order to find research on a specific aspect of TOD look up the bibliography at the bottom of the web page. 

Light Rail Now

  • www.lightrailnow.org
    • Complete list and links to places that have light rail or any rail transit in the U.S. and around the world. A good place to start for case study or comparison research.

Reconnecting America

  • http://www.reconnectingamerica.org/
    • Best site to find out latest on TOD happenings around U.S. Run through the Center for TOD this website gives the latest research and trends concerning TOD. They are considered the leaders in TOD in the U.S. and Director Shelly Poticha has testified before Congress about the benefits of TOD.  Get ideas for presentations and download their reports. A small library of TOD images is available.   

Smart Growth

Congress for New Urbanism

  • http://www.newurbanism.org/centerfortod.html
    • The Center for TOD offers the latest on TOD happenings, ideas, and trends. They do a lot of original research and the principles of New Urbanism are closely aligned with TOD. 

Transit-oriented Development

The Brookings Institute

  • http://www.brook.edu/
    • Check out the Economic Studies Programs for info about trends for downtowns.   The Metropolitan Studies also provide some reports about trends in development and demographics. Look into the Cities and Suburbs to find out about real estate development trends.

Texas Transportation Institute through Texas A&M University System

  • http://tti.tamu.edu/
    • These are the people responsible for quantifying all the benefits of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). Check out their reports and information about different types of transit. If you need some economic benefits numbers for TOD check here.

CEO’s for Cities

  • http://www.ceosforcities.org
    • Check out their reports and publications for some good statistics on demographic and development trends in cities. Great place to find the latest on what other cities are doing to attract and retain the best and the brightest.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center

  • Image Library:  http://www.pedbikeimages.org/index.cfm
    • Any image you can imagine of people walking and biking. Also pedestrian and bike friendly streets, sidewalks, and buildings. You can even look for a certain demographic group walking or biking. 

Urban Land Institute

  • http://www.uli.org
    • Find out what developers want from cities in order to do TOD. Reports about the benefits of density, transit, and TOD. Great case study section that requires a membership. ULI is the most prominent group for developers.