Transit is in the enviable position of being one of the transportation modes that sustainable development (SD) proponents advocate in the global conversation on achieving sustainable transportation. They argue there can be no sustainable development without sustainable transportation, and they define sustainable transportation strategies as “those that can meet the basic mobility needs of all and be continued into the foreseeable future without harm to human health or deterioration of the local or planetary resource base.” Urban sprawl, global warming, environmental degradation, and isolation of disadvantaged populations all get laid at the door of the automobile in some of the SD rhetoric.

A Complex Issue

We have all come to learn that “transit is an alternative to our over dependence on the automobile.” But we know that belief is inaccurate and too simplistic. As communities have spread out and become more auto-oriented, out of necessity so have their transit systems. The first generation of modern heavy rail systems in the U.S. relies on the automobile as its primary mode of access, including San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). For example, WMATA has more than 50,000 parking spaces.

We must take a fresh and broader look at how we design transit if we are to realize its potential within the context of SD. Some of the questions we need to address are:

• Can we reduce the impact of the automobile on transit without reducing the effectiveness of transit and, along the way, provide a more sustainable product?
• How do we go from “automobile-oriented” transit design to transit-oriented design?

A clue for finding answers to these questions comes from examining the balance achieved in our older systems. The road to a sustainable future may be the past.

Figure 1: Transit or Auto-Oriented Design? Transit facilities can be designed to be TOD friendly without sacrificing transit performance. Both designs incorporate the same transit functions, but one encourages development of a transit village at the station while the other turns its back on the c o m m u n i t y. With development next to the station, the TOD design will generate more transit ridership.

Figure 2: WMATA’s West Hyattsville station in suburban Washington, DC, is an example of where we are working to retrofit a station to be more sustainable. The park-and-ride becomes a town square, natural areas are enhanced, and the surrounding community is integrated into a new transit village.

Learning from the Past

The challenge for the today’s transit system designer is to successfully balance the needs of two masters:

• Accommodating transit requirements of bus transfer facilities and park-and-rides
• Designing a facility that welcomes and reinforces the adjacent community, welcomes pedestrians and accommodates transit-oriented design (TOD).

The template for contemporary transit design—getting the parking, automobile drop-off and bus transfers as close to the platform as possible—can preclude TOD. The result is to preclude connecting the station to the community, discourage walk trips to the station, and forgo the opportunity for TOD or, in other words, develop automobile-oriented transit systems (Figure 1).

We need to start developing transit facilities that are development-friendly without sacrificing transit requirements. Transit stations can be places to come back to, not just places to leave from. Many of the newly refurbished Metra stations in the Chicago area’s older suburban downtowns, such as LaGrange, Arlington Heights and Elmhurst, demonstrate that principle well. (Metra is the Chicago region’s commuter rail operator. It provides service to 150,000 daily riders on a 12-line network spanning 874 km (546 miles) and with 228 stations.) Planners and transit designers can learn much from looking at how these and other older, established commuter rails, have been well integrated into the communities they serve.

The most striking difference between established Metra stations and contemporary transit design is in their approach to commuter parking. Metra’s parking tends to be dispersed in a number of small lots rather than in one huge lot. Arlington Heights commuters have 1,261 spaces spread over six lots, La Grange commuters have 359 spaces in eight lots, and Elmhurst commuters have 932 spaces in more than 15 parking lots.

By offering an interesting environment not dominated by parking, the walk shed from a station can be effectively extended to cover more of the community. Commuters are creatures of habit; if the parking is located away from the station, they will still find it and use it. Dispersing the parking enables the communities and their transit stations to happily coexist with each other.

With careful attention to detail, it is possible to accommodate the automobile, meet all of the transit needs, provide for TOD and still use the station to anchor wonderful, vibrant, people and places (Figure 2).¹

Development-Oriented Transit

There is a series of principles to keep in mind when designing new transit facilities with an eye toward enhancing the opportunity for TOD:

• Is the station located in an area with development potential?
• Are transit facilities designed in a compact, pedestrian-friendly manner?
• Does the design of station facilities allow for direct pedestrian connections to adjacent communities?
• Has the park-and-ride area been designed in a manner that does not separate the station from the community it is intended to serve?
• Has TOD been appropriately incorporated into the transit facility design?

Successful TOD starts with the earliest decisions on the shape and design of the transit system. It is amazing how many new transit lines have been designed in a manner that is hostile to TOD—doing just the opposite of what is suggested above.

Designing Transit with TOD in Mind

Transit agencies have come to realize that decisions on alignment, station locations, and station layouts can have a large impact on the success of a TOD strategy. Communities with multiple LRT lines have learned from their early experiences and with their successive lines started to plan for TOD earlier in the process. San Diego, Sacramento, and San Francisco, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Salt Lake City, Utah are all examples of cities whose interest in TOD manifested itself after their first lines opened for service. Bringing engineers, transit planners, architects and urban planners into the process early enhances the opportunity to meet multiple community objectives, can reduce the impact of the automobile, and help to create communities that are transit-friendly and sustainable.