COUNTERING SPRAWL WITH TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

An increased reliance on the automobile is seen as the cause for traffic congestion, despite the heavy investment in roads and other subsidies of automobile use. Development patterns, referred to as sprawl, combined with inefficient and unviable public transit continue to reinforce the dependency on automobile. The article examines the need to promote integration between transportation and development which appears to be driving the growing interest in transit-oriented development (TOD). Although effective TOD can indeed foster more efficient land use patterns and create more balanced transportation choices with the automobile existing side by side with an efficient public transit system, few projects that are identified as transit-oriented yield the benefits expected. The article argues that most existing definitions of TOD do not provide the planners and developers the guidelines needed to create a truly meaningful TOD. Three challenges are identified that need to and can be overcome to make TOD work: forge agreement on a functional definition of TOD; articulate quantifiable goals and measurable performance standards that drive all aspects of design and implementation of any given projects; and explicitly consider the impact of different choices and tradeoffs on the outcome of any given project.