Accessibility is the most important concept in transportation planning because it describes the ease of travel to opportunities vital for everyday needs. Theoretically, people locate closer to transit corridors if accessibility improves. One desired benefit from light rail is denser land use patterns in the form of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) that captures population growth. In October 1994, the City of Denver, CO, joined the list of American cities that have implemented light rail within the last 33 years. Since then, five corridors have opened there, and planners are retooling their zoning codes to allow TOD near light rail. The hope is to mitigate road-centric policies that enabled sprawl during the second half of the 20th Century. This thesis investigates light rail in the Denver region in the context of accessibility. It asks the following research question: What land use and transportation conditions must exist to encourage the general population to locate near light rail? Five linear regression models test a range of accessibility variables. Evidence suggests that accessibility to jobs and housing near station areas is important for facilitating population growth near light rail. Specifically, land use policy needs to allow residential and non-residential mixed uses near station areas for population growth to occur. It is too early to draw any definitive conclusions for the Denver region. Anecdotal evidence indicates that planners are achieving land use goals of growth, even though many of the region's TOD-supportive policies were recently adopted.

This paper investigates how transit-oriented development can protect and enhance community sustainability. This study explores literature on community capacity, social capital, and neighborhood change to generate a definition of community sustainability appropriate for urban neighborhoods in transition. It then looks at current models proposed in the literature for assessing transit-oriented development (TOD), and finds little of relevance for the concerns of social sustainability. The study then draws sustainability indicators from other social science literature and assesses their usefulness for transit-oriented development. Finally, it develops a set of indicators appropriate for measuring the performance of TOD in protecting or enhancing community sustainability in these neighborhoods. These indicators can be used as a starting point for agencies and local groups to develop outcome-oriented measures of success for the local sustainability of future transit-oriented developments. / text

Transit joint development (TJD) is a specific component of transit-oriented development (TOD) characterized most commonly by a collaborative development relationship between transit agencies and private developers. A spatial evaluation of public and private properties within TOD station areas offers a valuable and unique point of view to examine the association between transit agencies, local government and private developers. The link between transit space including entrances, exits, lobbies, direct connections, multi-modal integration and immediately adjacent private property is essential to the success of TOD. This report offers insight and analysis concerning the spatial interface and access between public and private properties within the station area from a multimodal standpoint in an effort to evaluate the conditions that promote optimal pedestrian connectivity in harmony with the presence of the automobile and other motorized forms of transportation. Within this report a station area spatial interface - access typology is introduced, which captures the various interfaces between public and private properties at transit station areas from a multimodal perspective. The Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) rail system was the model for this typology To better understand the spatial relationship between these principal TOD players, an evaluation of the factors that affect the physical composition of TOD - TJD station areas is also conducted. These factors include site limitations and opportunities, financial arrangements, and land use regulatory policy. / text

This paper seeks to determine how the elements of true Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) can successfully be implemented in a suburban setting. The author establishes firm criteria for creating successful TOD. These criteria are then used to evaluate both TOD and neighborhood plans for case study sites in the Austin, TX metropolitan area. The paper completes this evaluation by pointing out synergies, discrepancies and offering recommendations for improvement, based on the case studies. / text

The area surrounding Capital Metro’s Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) MetroRail Station was designated a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) zone and a plan was published in 2009. However, to date there has been very little development, and the development that has occurred is significantly different from what is called for by the plan. This report examines some of the difficulties of implementing TOD in Austin and the factors that could contribute to successful TOD projects. A market analysis of the MLK Station Area explores the economic feasibility of developing land there to its highest and best use. It concludes that the general dearth of TOD in Austin and lack of dense, mixed-use development in the MLK neighborhood make the kind of development called for in the MLK Station Area Plan excessively risky for developers. However, a more conventional multifamily development would be feasible, and increased station-area density could contribute to the success of future TOD. / text

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / This paper discusses the theory of transit oriented development and attempts to create an effectually structured set of best practices through the study and modification of the documentation that currently exist. To identify the core elements or “principles” that go into constructing a transit oriented development plan. To do this a [deconstructive] qualitative survey of more than 30 projects or municipal planning documents that self-identified as transit oriented was conducted. The result was six goals that were deemed essential to the creation of “good” transit oriented development. The six goals were then combined with empirical research from academic and practicing professionals in the field to form recommendations for new best practices.

The work summarized in this book was undertaken for a course at the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. The course was entitled Theory and Methods of Urban Design and it covered the fundamentals of urban design by inviting students to apply theory to neighbourhood design. The course surveyed major historical and contemporary trends in urban design theory and practice, and introduced contemporary theories on the future forces affecting the development and functioning of urban regions. Students discussed cities at multiple scales and applied their evolving understanding to neighbourhood scale development in the Marine Drive Station Area in Marpole, Vancouver. This book presents the weekly progression of designs with summaries of the design interventions and critiques. The final outcome represents weeks of deliberation, discussion, and incremental growth towards a neighbourhood that is responsive to the anticipated challenges of climate change, peak oil, increased and aging population, and the need for complete healthy walkable communities.

Thesis (M. S.)--Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Mike Meyer; Committee Member: Adjo Amekudzi; Committee Member: Laurie Garrow. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.