Filling the Financing Gap for Equitable Transit-Oriented Development: Lessons from Atlanta, Denver, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Twin Cities
April 1, 2013
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Foreword
During the past two decades, transit-oriented development (TOD) has emerged as a powerful tool for creating liveable communities near good public transit through the development of dense housing, work places, retail and other community amenities. As demand for liveable communities grows, land values near transit increase, which can sometimes lead to gentrification. Recently, a particular approach to TOD has been gaining greater attention: equitable TOD.
Equitable TOD prioritizes social equity as a key component of TOD implementation. It aims to ensure that all people along a transit corridor, including those who are low income, have the opportunity to reap the benefits of easy access to employment opportunities offering living wages, health clinics, fresh food markets, human services, schools and childcare centers. By developing or preserving affordable housing and encouraging locating jobs near transit, equitable TOD can minimize the burden of housing and transportation…
A Decision-Support Framework For Using Value Capture to Fund Public Transit: Lessons From Project-Specific Analyses
May 8, 2012|Mineta Transportation Institute
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Executive Summary
The federal government, through various transportation acts, such as the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), and, more recently, the Safe, Affordable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), has reinforced the need for integration of land use and transportation and the provision of public transit. Other federal programs, such as the Livable Communities Program and the New Starts Program, have provided additional impetus to public transit. At the state and regional level, the past three decades have seen increased provision of public transit. However, the public transit systems typically require significant operating and capital subsidies—75 percent of transit funding is provided by local and state governments.1 With all levels of government under significant fiscal stress, new transit funding mechanisms are welcome. Value capture (VC) is once…
Transit-Accessible Workforce Housing Opportunities in Atlanta
April 25, 2012
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Abstract
Affordable housing, jobs, and transportation infrastructure are central elements of urban planning that have the potential for great synergies if considered comprehensively. Transit- accessible affordable housing can help alleviate the combined housing and transportation burden that many Atlantans face and provide better accessibility to employment opportunities.
The region’s upcoming Transportation Investment Act (TIA) vote provides an impetus to study these issues and determine how this potential infrastructure investment could influence the supply of mixed-income transit-oriented developments (MITOD) that provide affordable housing and increase connections to jobs.
The two research questions being explored are: What are the current housing and employment characteristics near MARTA rail stations and the proposed transit routes identified in the TIA? Where might opportunities exist to preserve affordable housing and develop MITOD? The analysis utilizes spatial analysis…
Understanding Transit Ridership Demand for a Multi-Destination, Multimodal Transit Network in an American Metropolitan Area: Lessons for Increasing Choice Ridership While Maintaining Transit Dependent Ridership
January 19, 2012|Mineta Transportation Institute
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Executive Summary
INTRODUCTION
There is a growing body of evidence, including earlier Mineta Transportation Institute-sponsored research, showing that multi-destination transit systems are far more effective in attracting passengers and more efficient in use of resources to carry each passenger than central business district (CBD)-focused systems. At the same time, however, evidence is beginning to show that multi-destination transit systems appeal largely to transit-dependent riders (also called captive riders), whose demand for transit service appears to be highly elastic with respect to the shortening of transit travel time between origin and destination. Given the interest in using transit investments to lure people from their automobiles in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce congestion, it is imperative that the appeal of such systems to choice riders (also called discretionary riders) also be understood. However, this issue remains as yet relatively unexplored.
Urban Growth and Decline: The Role of Population Density at the City Core
December 21, 2011|Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
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In recent decades, some cities have seen their urban centers lose population density, as residents spread farther out to suburbs and exurbs. Others have kept populous downtowns even as their environs have grown. Population density in general has economic advantages, so one might wonder whether a loss of density, which may be a symptom of negative economic shocks, could amplify those shocks. This paper looks at four decades of census data and show that growing cities have maintained dense urban centers, while shrinking cities have not. There are reasons to think that loss of population density at the core of the city could be particularly damaging to productivity. If this is the case, there could be productivity gains from policies aimed at reversing that trend.
Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) and Employment
May 11, 2011|Center for Transit-Oriented Development
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Executive Summary
Historically, many regional transit systems were designed in a “hub and spoke” pattern, focusing on moving residents from relatively low-density residential communities to a single high-density employment center – typically the region’s historic central business district (CBD). In general, these systems have worked well for those workers with jobs in central cities. The effectiveness of this kind of system hinges directly on the density of the jobs co-located in close proximity to each other and within a short distance of transit stations.
Although CBDs and downtowns remain important regional employment locations, American cities have experienced significant decentralization over the last 60 years, as job centers have shifted from urban downtowns to suburban communities. This “employment sprawl” has helped to generate much of the traffic congestion experienced across regions today, contributing to over 100 billion dollars in lost time and fuel every…
Walking to the station: The effects of street connectivity on walkability and access to transit
December 25, 2010|Georgia Institute of Technology
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Summary
This thesis analyzes an on-board transit survey conducted by the Atlanta Regional Commission in order to determine how far urban density, mixed land-uses, and street network connectivity are related to different walking behaviors, namely transit walk-mode shares and walking distances to/from stations. The data are drawn from all the stations of Atlanta’s rapid transit network (MARTA).
Allowing for quite a bit of noise in the data, some of the findings confirm for the case of Atlanta what a review of existing literature would lead one to expect: mixed land-use and denser street networks are associated with higher proportion of riders traveling to/from the station “walking” (noise in the data does not allow to fully distinguish with certainty walking as the sole mode of access to/from the station from walking combined with the use of bus services).
The thesis also explores questions that have not been previously covered systematically in the literature. First, does urban…
MARTA Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines
November 11, 2010|MARTA
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This document presents a set of Transit-Oriented Development Guidelines which have been adopted by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Transit-oriented development, or “TOD”, means development that is vibrant, pedestrian-friendly, and genuinely integrated with transit.
Transit Oriented Development and It's Effect on Property Values: An Atlanta Case Study
November 11, 2009|Georgia Institute of Technology Thesis
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Transit-oriented development (TOD) and its effect on property values research has resulted in mixed findings. Some researchers report positive effects on property values while others are negative or inconclusive. Research on cities such as New York City, Boston, Atlanta and San Francisco have focused on the proximity to rail stations and the negative externalities that accompany it by conducting hedonic pricing models. Other studies have focused more specifically on residential or commercial parcels and their property values at different time points of station development.
Preserving Affordability and Access in Livable Communities: Subsidized Housing Opportunities Near Transit and the 50+ Population
September 30, 2009
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Executive Summary
INTRODUCTION
A livable community has affordable and appropriate housing, supportive features and services, and adequate mobility options for people, regardless of age or ability. As communities address the general shortage of affordable housing, preserving affordable housing in transit-oriented developments (TODs) is one of the challenges that communities can address to increase their livability.
TODs are compact, walkable, mixed-use communities that are developed around high-quality public transportation. Residents often prize these places for the advantages created by the proximity to transportation and other amenities. One consequence of this desirability is that it can increase land and property values, exacerbating housing affordability challenges.
As policymakers try to extend the benefits of TODs to affordable housing locations, they must ensure that those benefits are available to people of low and moderate incomes and to those with different mobility…
