Transit Centers

Background

Beginning in the 19th century, greater thought and planning began to be placed into the design and location of terminus sites for travel by rail, ship, carriage, or other modes of travel. For the better part of a century, civic pride and commercial success resulted in ever larger railway stations, bus depots, and other edifices to modern transportation.

After World War II, however, the growth in popularity of travel by automobile and airplane had an effect on centers for other modes of travel. For much of the latter half of the 20th century, mass transit, while not ignored, was not the focus of most urban developers or transit planners. As the 21st century dawned, however, a new generation began to explore how intermodal transit centers could both support sustainable practices and drive economic development.

Cities and other urban centers represent an accumulation of resources and a concentration of activity. Both of these are represented and supported by the transportation systems present in the area. In many ways, transportation systems offer the most opportunities where the greatest gathering of resources and activities takes place. This, in turn, can cause problems.

Many transportation terminals—such as ports, railway stations, bus depots, and airports—are located within urban areas. As a result, traffic congestion, parking shortages, longer commutes, environmental degradation, health risks, polluting land usage, and logistical delays often occur in or near these places. As policy makers and planners have examined these events, many have determined that automobile dependence is a primary cause of many of these. As a result, ways to diminish reliance on the automobile have been reviewed and considered as one way of reducing these problems.

Automobile travel became popular for a variety of reasons. Some of these are individual, such as convenience and consumer choice. Others, however, have been societal, such as the decision to underprice the cost of automobile travel through subsidies to roads and freeways. Communities that want to decrease their reliance on the automobile may take a variety of steps in that direction, including dissuading drivers through speed bumps or parking restrictions, prohibiting motor vehicles at certain times of the day, or enacting tolls for use of the roads.

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