In September of 2007, APTA released a report entitled “Public Transportation Use Substantially Reduces Greenhouse Gases,” confirming what many of us in the transit realm have known – and tried to communicate to potential riders – for quite some time. We at More Riders have been harping upon the effectiveness of leveraging climate change to increase ridership for just as long, and with the remarkable buzz of everything ‘green,’ transit communications can now be put to a much more tangible and popular purpose.
Transit-oriented development, or TOD, is really the pinnacle of the green building craze, but unfortunately no one knows it yet. Transit agencies should be working with cities and developers to see that land bordering train stations is made available and used responsibly. New development provides agencies with both additional, dedicated riders and a great platform from which to promote transit. All transit agencies are inherently environmentally friendly, but demonstrating it through visible construction and a commitment to riders is taking another step towards a positive public image.
The fiscal and civic kickbacks cannot be ignored either. See below.
A January 7 blog post from the Congress for the New Urbanism in regards to TOD in the Twin Cities notes that “it’s no accident that property values along the Twin Cities’ Hiawatha light rail (streetcar) line are rising. And property values are also rising along the Central Corridor streetcar line and the ‘Northstar’ commuter rail line, both of which are still on the drawing board.” When additional riders and increased revenues can be guaranteed prior to development, something is certainly going right.
And when it comes to environmentalism, politics is on the side of transit agencies these days. In Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick recently came out with a transportation funding plan to the tune of roughly $5 billion, part of which would be allocated specifically towards transit-oriented development. (It is an effort to close a predicted future financing gap of $15 billion to $19 billion for infrastructure maintenance alone).
TOD is a forward-looking solution to control of both ridership and public image. Granted it takes a great deal of coordination with both public and private sectors, but with the money to be gained from the increase in property values, it is not a hard sell. In the end, riders will see the importance of transit as a climate change combatant with every new housing development that rises up along the tracks.
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