Rooted in the theories of urban entrepreneurialism, this dissertation employs a political economy framework as a means of analyzing urban governance and economic development in the contemporary US city. This case study of Orlando adds to our understanding of how entrepreneurial narratives are being applied to transportation infrastructure projects in pursuit of local economic development. The empirical case study explores the relationship between planning narratives, urban governance and economic development in the establishment of the SunRail commuter rail system in central Florida. I present the political history of economic development and the role of local boosters in shaping the sociospatial distribution of urban infrastructure and public investment in Central Florida. Utilizing a qualitative research methodology, the case study is based on a series of extended interviews with transportation planners, urban policymakers and community leaders in the Orlando area. The empirical data was complemented with official documents and archival records concerning the planning of transit-oriented developments along the SunRail system. This research presents the current efforts of Central Florida boosters to apply governance approaches to reshape the urban form and to direct the ensuing flows of capital investment through the restructuring of the region’s transportation infrastructure and employing planning narratives that draw heavily on creating amenity growth strategies. Local boosters expect that by providing dense development corridors through the region, including transit-oriented development centers, the city will have met the pre-conditions for attracting private capital investment. Specifically, local leaders are seeking to attract investment by the type of firms that will provide high-wage jobs to the region to balance the glut of low-wage service sectors jobs found in the region’s theme park industry. In the case of Central Florida, early private investment in SunRail adjacent property has come from local firms that tend to have a high level of local fixity and existing investments in the Orlando market.

Many researchers in planning have demonstrated the connection between land-use planning and transport planning. Mainly to describe how urban development can reduce emissions and congestion in cities. That public transport can be used as a tool in urban development is not as researched but is a general idea among planners and researchers. The theoretical approach of Transit-Oriented development has developed the idea of how urban development and transport planning can cooperate in an integrated planning process. This study has evaluated a tramway project conducted in Norrköping during the years 2006-2011 that extended tramway line 2 from Jura through Hageby to Navestad to deepen the knowledge about how public transport and urban development correspond. Transit-Oriented development has been used to evaluate the planning process preceding the tramway extension through a theory-based evaluation. This study uses a project logic to describe the planning strategies of the municipality in the planning process. Quantitative indicators have been used to map the outcome of the planning strategies. The study demonstrates that the planning process integrated the aims of urban development into the planning process of the tramway. Aims of a denser city, a city with mixed land use and active businesses in all parts of the city were included in the tramway project. The evaluation shows that the area along the extended tramway line has become denser with more varied land use and increased population density. The number of jobs in the area has increased mainly because of more jobs within the public sector. The number of jobs within the private sector has decreased in the area.

The intent of this thesis is to explore the design challenges and opportunities presented by the reintroduction of passenger rail to a small economically challenged New England city. Central to my thesis is that the advent of more efficient transportation options is not, in itself, enough: the infrastructure built to support those options must provide users with a comfortable, safe, and welcoming experience. The architecture of the rail station is critical in influencing that behavior and moving our society toward greater energy efficiency. Holyoke is a small mill city in western Massachusetts whose fortunes peaked in the early twentieth century and today struggles with decaying buildings and infrastructure, high unemployment, and significant poverty. The city also has many strengths, including relatively inexpensive hydro-electric power, sturdy adaptable mill buildings, an excellent location, strong neighborhood and civic pride, and a rich history on which to build. The city’s boosters feel that it is ripe for a renaissance already being driven by industry, the creative economy, telecommuters escaping the region’s major cities, and tourism. This research component of this thesis will explore: Current and historical demographic, industrial, and commercial context of the city and its passenger rail service, including usage projections, connections with various parts of the city, and Transit Oriented Design implications The needs of the adjacent Flats neighborhood for basic services and community space; strategies for attracting more consistent use of the station throughout its hours of operation by meeting the neighborhood residents’ needs Potential requirements for a station’s future capacity and adaptability – it will consider strategies for creating a flexible and adaptable building so as to meet the needs of the station and city as it changes over time Precedents that include rail stations and public buildings – it will investigate strategies used by effective public buildings The design component of this thesis incorporates the above research in developing site and program plans with a specific focus on design strategies that address accessibility, wayfinding, relevant services, and creating a welcoming gateway into the residential, industrial, and commercial heart of the city.

Projects to expand the passenger rail network in the United States will connect major metropolitan areas over long distances, travelling through smaller communities along the way. Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a concept for planning around stations to support transit and allow the development of dense, mixed use, walkable places. TOD literature focuses largely on developing around transit in metropolitan areas. Guidance for small towns and cities in rural areas is lacking. This thesis compares best planning practices from TOD literature to the planning practices of small cities located in rural areas of New England where new passenger rail service or a new station has been developed in the last fifteen years. The research focuses on planning efforts in the area within a half mile of the station. Two indicators, property values and ridership, were also used to determine if the service has impacted the area surrounding the station. The goal of the research is to determine how planning for rural stations differs from planning for TOD in metropolitan areas. Findings show that many of the best planning practices from the literature were applied in the small cities, though there were a few important differences. The station was included as part of broader development plans, rather than acting as a central focus of the plan. Additionally, it was found that stations should incorporate multiple uses to create activity throughout the day since train service is less frequent than in an urban setting.

Land value capture (LVC) has been used to capitalize on the symbiotic relationship between rapid transit and its potential land value uplift (LVU) benefits for more than a century. For the public sector in particular, the rationale to engage in LVC to recapture the ‘unearned increment’ is strong. While interest in LVC has wavered over this time, planners and policymakers in Ontario and around the world are increasingly looking to value capture as a potential solution for raising more revenue to fund the construction and operation of rapid transit projects. However, significant theoretical, conceptual, and practical gaps remain in our knowledge of LVU and LVC that prevent the wider adoption of value capture as a strategy. First, a fundamental flaw in applications of LVC is that the value increment caused by rapid transit must to some degree be known a priori to set benchmark levels and ensure LVC tools capture the actual changes in land values caused by the project. Yet despite a rich history of research into the LVU benefits of rapid transit in cities around the world, a method for arriving at more empirical predictions of future LVU beyond simple approximation remains elusive. This leads to a second issue. Previous research into the LVU effects of rapid transit has produced a body of work that exhibits significant heterogeneity in results. Such diversity in research outcomes is due to a singular focus on expectations of LVU from rapid transit accessibility, which has led previous research to ignore the potential for additional land value impacts from sorting into different bundles of transit-oriented development (TOD) based on individual preferences. As such, the results of previous studies consider the value placed on a bundle of transit and TOD characteristics. This context-dependency makes them unsuitable for extensions to estimate the potential for LVC in future transit corridors. To overcome these issues, the present dissertation develops a value planning framework for rapid transit. This is accomplished through five objectives. First, Chapter 2 establishes a theoretical framework for understanding the LVU effects of rapid transit accessibility and TOD. Second, Chapter 3 develops a typology of station area TOD to reduce the complexity of station area heterogeneity and control for such contextual factors in further research. Third, Chapter 4 applies the TOD typology to unbundle the LVU effects of existing rapid transit in the City of Toronto. Fourth, Chapter 5 develops the value planning framework to better conceptualize the drivers of LVU benefits and capturable revenues, the policy interventions to maximize them, and the beginnings of a model to utilize unbundled estimates of LVU in other study areas to derive context-sensitive predictions of LVU in future transit station areas. Finally, Chapter 6 conducts a theoretical application of the value planning framework to the case of a light rail transit line in Hamilton, Ontario, to demonstrate a rationale for engaging in value planning to promote value capture. In accomplishing these objectives, the present dissertation makes a number of contributions to research and practice. However, it also raises a number of questions for future research. Nevertheless, this work presents a significant first step towards realizing research on rapid transit’s LVU effects that is more theoretically comprehensive and practical for better informing LVC planning and policy around the world. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in downtown areas is a distinct form of new development, creating walkable districts and 24-hour neighborhoods. A new streetcar on Loyola Avenue in the New Orleans Central Business District was planned to encourage new development in the area. By analyzing the current land uses and values, projections of future change predict over $500 million in added value. For this development to become a successful TOD, policies must encourage uses that generate ridership and increase walkability. Although the Loyola corridor has many historic attributes of a transit-oriented downtown, it currently lacks neighborhood identity. The new development associated with the Loyola streetcar has the potential to become a downtown TOD.

This study draws on census data and geographic information systems (GIS) to investigate the relationship between light rail transit (LRT) infrastructure development and gentrification in Portland, Oregon. While recent research using comprehensive measures of neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) supports a potentially causal link between transit development and gentrification, research into the effects of transit on property values alone tends to dominate the discourse. This study therefore seeks to build on previous research to develop an index measure of neighborhood SES and SES change based on measures of education, occupation, and income, using census data from 1980-2010. This multifaceted measure of neighborhood SES is analyzed in relation to LRT access using correlation, OLS regression, and GIS hot spot and choropleth mapping. Findings: Throughout the study period, low SES neighborhoods largely disappeared from the City of Portland, while low-income households were gradually priced out. Simultaneously, the easternmost suburb of Gresham became more highly concentrated in low SES neighborhoods. No definitive relationship between LRT and SES is found along the Eastside Blue or Westside Blue Lines, but strong evidence is found supporting a positive effect of Yellow Line MAX development on the rapid gentrification of North Portland from 2000-2010. Regressions run on neighborhoods along the Yellow Line indicate that SES change was greatest for those that began the decade with large Black populations, low rents, and close proximity to stations. Findings are discussed through the theoretical framework of the urban growth machine, which suggests the differential relationship between LRT and neighborhood SES relates to the distinct values of different parts of the region for the pursuit of general growth goals.

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

Transportation finance has been historically dominated by assessing taxes to transportation users and taxes on the general public. Innovative financing mechanisms such as tax increment financing, special assessment districts, and others represent value capture techniques that tax property owners to pay for transportation costs. Value capture techniques provide supplemental funds to support capital construction costs but are not substitutes for existing dedicated and traditional tax revenue methods. The major findings of Texas practice indicate that tax increment financing for transit does not significantly contribute towards the transit infrastructure. Instead tax increment funds finance the improvement of public infrastructure surrounding transit stations and stops and can be labeled transit-supportive investments. / text

With the uncertainty of future energy supplies and the impacts of global warming, rapid transit is becoming increasingly important as part of the transportation mix in North American cities. The conventional choice for rapid transit alignments are off-street corridors such as rail and highway right-of-ways. More recently, cities are locating rapid transit projects along arterial street right-of-ways, to influence more transit-supportive development rather than low-density, single use environments common throughout North America. Promoting transit alignments that provide the best opportunity for this type of development, known as development-oriented transit, is essential for influencing a change in urban transportation habits and building more resilient cities. This research analyzes the benefits of these alignments by studying the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project and Red Line in Cleveland, and the Central Corridor and Hiawatha Line in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Visiting these cities and interviewing professionals associated with the projects revealed the benefits of on-street rapid transit by comparing ridership, development potential, placemaking, travel time and safety of both on-street and off-street rapid transit. On-street rapid transit provides the best opportunity for a long-term vision for city building through the creation of dense, mixed-use transit-oriented corridors where people can live, work, recreate, access services and shop. Results and potential implications were presented to professionals in Winnipeg associated with the Southwest Rapid Transit Corridor (SWRTC). The goal was to understand the implications of the findings for the SWRTC and if on-street rapid transit would work along Pembina Highway. Respondents disagreed that an on-street solution was appropriate, which revealed contradictions between the findings from key informant interviews and literature reviewed versus focus group responses. The SWRTC is designed as a flexible route network system that will allow mixed traffic buses to pick up riders in their neighbourhoods and use the dedicated busway to bypass north-south traffic congestion. This plan is focused on minimizing travel time for a suburban to downtown commute, rather than development potential. This research has found that rapid transit alignments should be focused on transit supportive development and providing direct access to places people need to go on a daily basis. On-street rapid transit provides the best opportunity to do so.