Comments on: Can Transit-Oriented Development help fix urban sprawl?

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:43:16 +0000

Thanks for the good post! I’m excited to see it happen here in STL!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:13:14 +0000

I think it can work in St Louis. Arlington, Virgina, has won national awards for its transit oriented development. The EPA recently gave the city the first award for excellence in smart growth. Arlington is also an old city, but it has managed to increase walkability. Hopefully we can repeat those successes in St Louis.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:21:13 +0000

As built-up as St. Louis is, there’s a lot of room for urban infill, especially closer in. And in sprawled areas similar to Tyson’s Corner, the trick is to bring in the residential component that has been left out, making accommodations for transit. It’s a question of setting up land use so that it’s not residential here and commercial there, but a blend of the two.

By: Amelie

Amelie — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:15:08 +0000

this is a cool idea but can it really work in St Louis? were already a built up city. Theres not much room for new development like TOD stuff

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:48:24 +0000

I think the issue of relationships between cities, developers and Metro is key here. But let’s leave Metro out of the equation for a moment. What is THE relationship between developers and the Saint Louis region?

Key questions:
- Who is the driving vision behind development in Saint Louis City and County?
- Which developers have a vision beyond strip malls and Wal-Marts?
- Will residential developers stop building isolated housing islands but rather build next to the strength of well established neighborhoods?
- Can residential development in the city thrive with the continuing issues of the school system? Are these two as intertwined as they seem or can residential development occur a renaissance no matter the state of the school system?
- Is now the time for some of the smaller urban organizations to take a larger leadership role where other organizations have been slow to respond?

Something like Tyson’s Corner requires a tremendous amount of long range planning. Cities, neighborhoods, “districts”, need to commit to developing long range plans. Would be cool if someone could collect those plans and post them on a site. Maybe this exists, would love to know.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:33:33 +0000

JimmyZ,

Good point–I hadn’t yet considered the chicken-or-egg problem. It seems that the Tyson’s Corner situation is unique because transit will be heading out that way anyway to provide access to the airport, so developers are taking advantage of stops that will be coming to the area whether it gets more dense or not.

Perhaps the key to successful TOD in St. Louis would be a close working relationship between area TOD developers and Metro. After all, Bi-State was founded decades ago with regional economic development as one of its guiding principles.

By: Jimmy Z

Jimmy Z — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 21:03:23 +0000

TOD is bedeviled by two things, the chicken-or-egg challenge that you need transit for TOD to succeed and you need density for the transit component to succeed (someone needs to go first and take the risk absent the other) and the inertia in too many local planning agencies, where existing required parking ratios do little to encourage density. In THEORY, TOD offers a compelling argument. In reality, there are few new, truly successful, examples, and nearly every one of them is driven by much-higher underlying land values than we find around St. louis, and they’re usually coupled with more congestion and much-longer commutes than we find around here, as well.

Does that mean that TOD can’t work here? No. It’s just going to take someone with the vision and the marketing skills that made New Town St. Charles a success (in a flood plain, behind an industrial park) to do a TOD project in the city, combined with enough consumers who “get it”. That, and enough jobs “at the other end of the line” to make commuting via Metrolink a viable reality – if you’re working in St. Charles County or out the Highway 40/I-64 corridor, you’d gain very little by embracing TOD . . .

(www.railvolution.com is also another great resource on the topic.)