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Free Resources | Land Use | Articles |
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Why Build Near Transit? Cont… By attracting new development, transit can be a catalyst for revitalizing deteriorating neighborhoods. Several cities in the San Francisco Bay Area have replaced blighted sections of their community with new residential and commercial development close to transit. For example, the City of Richmond transformed a deteriorated park in its downtown, just one block from a BART station, into a retail and residential center. Anchored by a supermarket and drug store, the 78,000 square-foot center includes several neighborhood-serving shops that combine to create 200 new permanent jobs. Memorial Park also features 64 low-income family apartments, 34 townhomes for first-time buyers and a one-acre park.
Housing near transit can provide more accessible transportation, especially for children, the elderly and disabled. Dependence on automobiles in many communities has severely limited the ability of many people -- especially the young and the elderly -- to get around. Development near transit not only allows people without cars to get where they want to go, but provides more pedestrian destinations close by because of its more compact, mixed-use nature. This will become even more important in the years and decades to come as a larger percentage of the U.S. population gets older. This issue has drawn the attention of the American Association of Retired Person (AARP), which in 1994 adopted a policy statement that called for "development of livable communities that meet the life span needs of residents." To create these types of communities the statement discussed the need for "encouraging housing affordability, a greater diversity of housing types, the location of facilities and services within easy walking distance," and "accessibility to mass transit." The social impact of automobile-dependency on the young should also not be overlooked. A study cited by architect Peter Calthorpe found that 10-year old children in automobile-dependent Orange County, California watched four times more television than the same age children in a small Vermont town. The children in the Vermont town spent much more time playing outside, in spite of a less favorable climate. Calthorpe asked: "What is the maturation of children who can't go anywhere on their own till they're 16?"14 Transit-oriented development can also help to provide more housing choices for our changing households. During the past 20 years the composition of the "typical" household in the U.S. has changed dramatically. As pointed out by Calthorpe in his book The Next American Metropolis, "the percentage of singles and single-parent families is increasing, from 29 percent twenty years ago to 38 percent today. Of the approximately 17 million new households formed in the 1980s, 51 percent were occupied by single people and unrelated individuals, 22 percent by single-parent families, and only 27 percent by married couples with or without children. People over 65 made up 23 percent of those total new households. Households with children typically now have two workers. Married couples with children now represent only 26 percent of the households, down from 40 percent a generation ago."15 This change in the "typical" household requires a wider variety of housing types. Single parents might prefer living in courtyard houses or garden apartments or in a co-housing complex, where support is more readily available, than in an isolated suburban single-family house. Similarly, retirees might prefer a one- or two-bedroom townhouse over a large house with an expansive lawn. Compact residential development built near transit can provide a wider range of housing types and allow seniors and children who live there to be less dependent on others for transportation. Conclusion These are only some of the more compelling economic and social benefits of transit-oriented development. But, as the saying goes, "anything worth doing is worth doing well." The next article will discuss how we can make sure that the development that takes place near our transit stops is of the highest quality and contributes to creating more livable communities. Paul Zykofsky is Director of the Center for Livable Communities, an initiative of the Local Government Commission, a non-profit membership organization of local elected officials based in Sacramento. He is the co-author of Building Livable Communities: A Policymaker's Guide to Transit Oriented Development from which this article is adapted. Footnotes
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Housing
near transit can create more affordable places for people to live
in, especially since it gives them the option of not having to own
a car, which, according to the American Automobile Association can
cost as much as $7,405 per year for a car driven 20,000 miles.13
This can be a heavy burden for most people, but especially for low-income
families who may be forced to live in substandard housing to make
ends meet. In some regions it may also force middle-income families
to move to distant suburban locations that are more affordable.
The end result: more money spent on cars and fuel, and more time
wasted in long commutes.
