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I'm standing in one of the most famous
transit-oriented developments in the United States.
This is Orenco Station in the Portland metropolitan area.
Transit-oriented developments, or TODs,
are high quality, mixed-use developments near transit.
Now, what makes Orenco Station so special?
First of all,
it's one of the earliest modern examples
of a US community purposely designed as a TOD,
particularly a TOD along a modern light rail system.
The city of Hillsboro where Orenco Station
is located had begun assembling parcels
for a housing development in the 1980s
and Oregon Metro, the regional planning agency,
identified the site as a location for a station
along its new west side light rail line.
The station was built in 1998 and the first phase
of the project was built around this same time.
It's also quite well known
because it's not only a TOD, but it's a New Urbanist TOD.
One designed according to the principles
of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
It features walkable streets
meant to foster social interactions,
a turn of the last century design palette
with front porches on houses
and a mix of land uses including retail and services.
So did it live up to expectations?
Is this a neighborhood full of transit riders?
Well, it's complicated.
Initial studies showed that transit ridership
for commuting was higher than the national average
but pretty much the same as the rest of the Portland area.
People moved to Orenco Station more for the upscale,
walkable character than the direct transit access.
But the community is quite close
to a large Intel office park.
Many residents are Intel employees
and you can't get there on light rail.
Orenco Station has also grown considerably
since those first studies were conducted.
And most of the new development has been
multi-family housing or mixed-use development.
Some as dense as six stories like the stuff behind me.
That's not bad.
A more recent study found
that Orenco Station generates half the car trips
expected of a typical suburb
and requires about half the parking spaces.
A walkable neighborhood with dense development
and a variety of viable non-car options.
It's easy to see why this became a popular case study
especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Since Orenco Station became the early poster child
for transit-oriented development,
cities across the United States have encouraged TODs
near transit stations to reduce car trips
and increase transit trips.
Doing so can reduce carbon emissions
and region-wide traffic. Some pretty laudable goals.
But do all TODs achieve this goal?
And could you achieve these goals
with a simple park and ride station?
And could you achieve them without transit at all?
We'll answer those provocative questions
after the bike bell.
(bike bell rings)
Orenco Station is a great pioneering example
of transit-oriented development
but it's not the only model out there.
In fact, on the other side of the country
in Northern Virginia,
TODs are an order of magnitude more dense and impressive.
The Washington DC Metro Orange Line extends
from Northern Virginia
throughout the District and into Maryland.
While the regional planners were planning this route
they purposely upzoned parcels within a half mile,
or walking distance, to these new metro stations.
They called it the "bullseye concept."
They knew that there'd be high demand for homes
and offices near transit and they wanted to
encourage development there to reduce traffic in the area.
The plan was a massive success
with 36 million square feet of office space,
6 million square feet of retail and 47,000 housing units
near the seven Arlington County stations.
Arlington County and Orenco Station both prove
that transit-oriented development can work.
But is it always a good idea
or am I just cherry-picking the best examples?
The answer to both those questions is a qualified yes.
I'm showing you some amazing examples
but the principles of TODs are sound.
There are design choices that can maximize
or limit their effectiveness in generating
more transit trips, in reducing car trips.
Not every TOD will have the same success
as Orenco or Arlington.
First of all,
TODs need to ensure people can get to the station quickly.
This is done by building housing,
offices and retail as close to the station as possible.
Arlington is a great example of this.
People typically won't walk more
than a half mile to reach quality transit
so the area directly around the station is critical.
All of those people living close won't be driving
to the station.
They'll be walking or maybe taking a bike.
The built environment needs to be designed to
support active transportation.
This means building a complete sidewalk network
with adequate lighting and amenities.
Ideally, the building should address the street.
Perhaps with storefronts or front doors to homes.
The design of the station area can also have an impact
on the quality of the development.
Stations shouldn't be surrounded
by a mode of parking, but instead,
of a public plaza and to encourage people to walk there.
This space should be the center of the TOD community
and be activated by things like events,
farmers' markets, and outside dining.
The land use mix has to be correct too.
Some land uses like warehouses are not a great match
for TODs as job density is low.
But not every station has to have
a complete neighborhood mix.
Some TODs can be focused on office uses
while others can be more residential in character.
But residential TODs need to be
on the same line as the office TODs
so people can go to and from work easily via transit.
Sometimes the success of a TOD comes
down to transit route choice.
One example is broadening a transit line along
a major highway.
Transit running in the median essentially means
that all the best sites for a TOD
are taken up by lanes of traffic.
And the next best land, distance-wise,
is up against the highway.
Running a line along one side of a highway is better,
but not by much.
You end up with a 180 degree station where all the TOD has
to be on the same side of the highway because a walk
under the highway to get to the station really
kills any advantage of TODs.
This is why the green line in Portland doesn't have
many TOD projects,
but instead has resorted to building park and ride lots.
But wait! Are park and ride lots bad.
They allow commuters from far flung suburbs to
take transit to their final destination.
These facilities can reduce vehicle miles traveled
and confer some of the same traffic
and environmental benefits as having people live
near the station in the first place.
Is it better to simply put up some parking lots
near a station, particularly in areas not conducive to TODs?
At least one study has shown that adding 100 parking spaces
will generate more transit ridership
than adding 100 housing units.
And park and ride is an overall better use of floor space
if ridership is the goal.
Why are we even talking about TODs then?
Video over, right?
Well, ridership isn't the only metric that matters here.
In some cases,
the transit agency owns the land that the TOD is built on
and it would make more money developing it
into housing or offices than a park and ride.
Those funds are often used to pay
for the transit line or future transit lines.
And many cities are experiencing a housing shortage.
So building more units is better for the city as a whole.
Another issue with park and rides is
that parking is often free or extremely inexpensive.
If parking isn't priced according to the market value
for the land and the demand for the spaces,
the park and ride amounts to a significant subsidy
provided to drivers.
Often directly from a transit agency.
And free parking can often fill up early
at park and rides, often before 7:00 AM.
Thus, they aren't even available or useful to a large number
of drivers.
And when parking is available, nobody needs it.
Park and rides also detract from the walkable environment
that a good TOD fosters and such development
in the United States is scarce.
It's a missed opportunity to put a parking garage
in a place where cities could actually encourage
dense development.
The reality is that park and rides have a specific role to
play in transportation infrastructure.
Some marginal land near a transit station may be
a perfect spot for a park and ride.
And a park and ride facility may be a good interim
land use.
Until development pressures make selling the land
to a real estate developer a lucrative proposition.
So, TODs are great, and park and rides are okay.
But what if cities could achieve their greenhouse
gas reduction targets
and reduce traffic congestion without having to
spend all that money to build new rail lines?
One study of Transit New Jersey found
that lower auto use and ownership in TOD areas is not
because people have access to rail transit and use it more,
but because housing is at a higher density
and there are fewer available parking spaces.
These areas also have better bus service that connects
to rail stations and the bus service is more important
than the rail line when it comes
to why people use their car less.
What does this mean?
This isn't an argument against rail transit.
Rail transit provides backbone transportation services
in dense regions and it's incredibly necessary to have them.
But, cities shouldn't just consider dense development
near rail stations, but everywhere else as well.
Cities should identify other areas where TOD-style
development could occur even if there's no rail station
and zone them in a way to encourage dense development.
These areas should have fewer parking spaces,
more regional employment, smaller housing units,
and solid bus access.
All predictive of less car use, according to the study.
It's not a matter of this or that, but this and that.
Density and walkability near rail transit and elsewhere.
Developments like Orenco Station may not have been
this dense or walkable without metro identifying it
as a town center and anchored by a light rail station.
So in that way,
TODs can help turn a suburban site into something better.
One subject we didn't address yet is the value
of the overall rail transit network.
It's not the most important thing,
as the New Jersey study suggests.
But Portland has a ton of cool rail transit projects,
including Tilikum Crossing,
a bridge that carries all modes except cars.
And the region's even considering a tunnel
under the Willamette River
in downtown Portland to speed up transit there.
I get into this topic in detail in a bonus video over
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