TOD Reading List

The Returning City: Historic Preservation and Transit in the Age of Civic Renewal
By Dan Costello with Robert Mendelsohn, Anne Canby, and Joseph Bender (2003)

Produced by the National Trust for Historic Preservation with support from the Federal Transit Administration, The Returning City demonstrates how transit and historic preservation act in complementary ways to invigorate urban and suburban neighborhoods. In case studies from around the country, the authors offer detailed accounts of transit-oriented developments that have been spurred by, and serve to reinforce, historic preservation efforts and transit investments. The study concludes that public-private collaboration, community involvement, creative and flexible financing, and parking strategies that are both pragmatic and context-sensitive, are among the keys to achieving development that respects a community’s historic assets and encourages the use of transit.

Getting to Smart Growth II: 100 More Policies for Implementation
By Smart Growth Network and ICMA (2003)

This manual for Smart Growth implementation offers 10 policy recommendations for each of 10 Smart Growth goals. To achieve one of those goals — providing a variety of transportation choices — the guidebook suggests a number of strategies, including the creation of car-share programs, the transformation of park-and-ride lots in multi-use facilities, comprehensive bike programs, and providing transit riders with customized travel information. In addition to proposing public sector actions, the manual also points to private-sector opportunities that correspond with Smart Growth goals. Intermingled with suggested policies are “Practice Tips” and “Finance Tips” that offer lessons learned from actual projects.

Parking Spaces/Community Places: Finding the Balance through Smart Growth Solutions
By U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2006)

Parking Spaces/Community Places, a report from EPA’s Development, Community and Environment Division, provides a summary of the financial and environmental costs of parking, describes the dubious criteria on which most parking requirements are based, and offers a list of alternative parking strategies that support TOD and other Smart Growth efforts. The list of alternative strategies includes those that reduce the over-supply of parking (e.g. transit zoning overlays, shared parking and in-lieu parking fees), and those that manage parking demand (e.g. car sharing, improvements to transit, better pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and employee cash-out programs). The report also contains case studies that show alternative parking strategies in action, such as the elimination of minimum parking requirements in Portland, OR, and the use of shared parking facilities in Wilton Manors, FL.

High Cost of Free Parking (2005)
By Donald C. Shoup
(APA Planners Press)

In this innovative book, UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup challenges traditional parking methodologies and strategies. Free parking, Shoup argues, has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. The concept of “free” parking distorts transportation choices, results in bad urban design, hurts our economy, and damages the environment. Shoup proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking, namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking.

Transit-Oriented Development: Developing a Strategy to Measure Success (2005)
By John L. Renne and Jan S. Wells
(Research Results Digest 294, National Cooperative Highway Research Program)

This digest offers a strategy to systematically evaluate the potential success of transit-oriented development. Renne and Wells identify and evaluate various indicators of the impacts of transit-oriented development, and single out 10 indicators, based on a national survey of transportation professionals working in the field, that can be used to monitor and measure those impacts.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit (2004)
A Report by Reconnecting America and The Center for Transit-Oriented Development

This report studies the demand for housing near America's existing rapid transit systems and finds that demand for such housing will likely double (to 14.6 million households) by 2025. Whether or not this potential demand for higher-density transit-oriented living can be met depends on the ability of the market to provide attractive and affordable options and the public sector's ability to accommodate and encourage such development.
 

The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development (2004)
Edited by Hank Dittmar and Gloria Ohland
(Island Press)

In this book, the demographic trends that favor increasing demand for TOD are outlined, as are the key issues of design, supportive public policy, and finance that often determine TOD's fate. The later chapters provide critical case studies that point out successes and failures of the "first generation" of TOD while suggesting the lessons that can be taken forward.
 

Transit-Oriented Development in the United States: Experiences, Challenges, and Prospects (2004)
A Report by the Transit Cooperative Research Program of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.

This comprehensive analysis of TOD practice examines its impacts, benefits, and barriers, as well as the public policies, implementation tools, and financing mechanisms that developers and public officials have found to be most useful. The report also provides detailed case studies of TOD in 10 parts of the country, from New Jersey to San Francisco.

Planning for Transit-Friendly Land Use: A Handbook for New Jersey Communities (1994)
NJ TRANSIT

This is still an invaluable tool even after 10 years in circulation! The Handbook is designed to assist elected and appointed planning officials, planning and zoning boards, technical staff and the general community in creating an environment around a transit stop that is a safe, clean, vibrant and active place.

Voorhees Transportation Center's Transit-Oriented Development Website

The TOD web site maintained by the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University contains several articles on the resurgence of interest in TOD planning in the United States. The web site's main feature, an evaluation of New Jersey's Transit Village Initiative, provides a literature review of TOD, public opinion surveys, and a review of factors that facilitate or obstruct TOD implementation. Demographic and economic data for the program's participating municipalities are also provided.