| Denver becomes fertile ground
for TOD
|
The Denver region stepped to
the forefront of TOD and Smart Growth last November
when local voters endorsed FasTracks,
a decade-long transit development program. By
passing a referendum to dedicate local sales tax
revenues toward the $4.7 billion endeavor, voters
set in motion one of the most ambitious transit
expansion plans undertaken by an American metropolitan
area in recent decades. By 2016, FasTracks calls
for the construction of 119 miles of new light
and commuter rail lines, 21,000 park-and-ride
spaces, 18 miles of bus rapid transit, and an
expansion of regular bus services.
The FasTracks referendum was
approved by almost 60 percent of voters supported
by a wide-ranging coalition of 30 urban and suburban
mayors. In addition, FasTracks and TOD fit into
the Denver Regional Council of Government’s
MetroVision 2030 plan, which calls for the creation
of dozens of distinct urban centers throughout
the region to accommodate future growth in a way
that lessens the impact of growth on the region’s
environment and infrastructure. As seen elsewhere
in America, a strong public sector commitment
to transit and TOD is often the most crucial piece
of the TOD puzzle. |
Downtown Denver Transit Map
(click to enlarge)
Source: www.rtd-denver.com
|
Besides altering daily travel patterns
in the Denver region, FasTracks is expected to transform
regional development patterns — which will influence
travel habits well into the future. A report, completed
in October 2004 by Denver’s Livable Communities
Support Center and the Environment Colorado Research
and Policy Center, found that 51 of the 57 transit stations
on the drawing boards have strong TOD potential, with
18 stations having developable areas in excess of 10
acres. The former Stapleton Airport site is the largest
such site with more than 10 square miles.
Denver’s light rail system, which
began service in 1994, carries over 30,000 riders per
day and has spawned successful TODs, such as Englewood
City Center with over 400 housing units, as well as
office and retail space. Despite strong growth in traditional
urban neighborhoods in Denver during the 1990s and early
2000s, most of the region’s growth has come in
the form of auto-oriented suburban development. According
to a Brookings Institution report on Denver’s
growth trends, nearly 50 percent of commutes in Denver
today are made from suburb-to-suburb, a travel pattern
that is often difficult for transit to serve. The highway
congestion that results from such commuting has contributed
to Denver’s poor rankings in the Texas Transportation
Institute’s 2005 Urban Mobility Study: although
it is the 19th largest metro area, it ranks 13th in
hours of delay per traveler and 9th in overall travel
time.
The sheer scope of FasTracks promises
to change how the region develops by strongly influencing
future decisions regarding the location of residential
and commercial development. By establishing a truly
regional network of high-speed transit connections,
FasTracks will lay the framework for a regional network
of interdependent and interactive TODs, with the area’s
largest TOD — downtown Denver — as its anchor.
This potential for region-wide TOD goes well beyond
the public’s current perception of TOD as a novelty
and elevates it to the status and the critical mass
necessary to accomplish smart growth objectives.
For more information:
Rail~Volution conference attracts hundreds
to Salt Lake City
|
In early September, planners,
practitioners and transit scholars flocked to
Utah to discuss and debate the role of land use
and transit in creating livable communities. Rail~Volution
2005 provided more than 50 discussion and
hands-on workshops, 11 mobile workshops and three
symposia that addressed nearly every aspect of
building livable communities with transit. For
the first time, Rail~Volution included a special
focus on transit-oriented development with its
National TOD Marketplace which afforded participants
the ability to set up TOD-related product displays,
while engaging in networking opportunities and
roundtable discussions.
Mobile workshops provided hands-on,
real-world learning opportunities about livability
issues in the Salt Lake area. Some of the workshops
offered included an exploration of Park City,
Utah and its pedestrian-oriented main street and
Olympic Park, as well as a visit to several former
brownfield sites that have been transformed by
public-private partnerships into successful transit-oriented
developments (TODs).
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Light Rail, Salt Lake City, UT
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The conference featured several special
programs: “Straight Talk about New Starts”
focused on helping communities learn how to overcome
the challenges of bringing rail transit and bus rapid
transit to their neighborhoods. “The High Cost
of Free Parking: Implications for Cities and Transit”
was led by UCLA urban planning professor Donald Shoup,
the country's foremost analyst of parking and author
of the highly-acclaimed book The High Cost of Free
Parking (Planners Press, 2005). And, “New
Urbanism 101” included cutting-edge presentations
from several longtime members of the Congress for the
New Urbanism (CNU) on how New Urbanist principles can
help create more livable communities around transit.
The inspiring closing keynote address
was given by Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of
Bogotá, Columbia (1998–2000) who explained
how his administration spearheaded significant improvements
to the city center by instituting a successful bus system,
creating parks and bicycle paths, planting trees, promoting
public spaces, and restricting the use of private automobiles
in the city.
The Rail~Volution Conference began
in 1989 as a locally-based event in Portland, Oregon,
but developed into a national conference in 1995. Next
year’s conference, “Rail~Volution 2006,”
is planned for Chicago.
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