Transit-Oriented Development

In cities around the world, stations and their surroundings are increasingly the focus of integrated transport and land use development efforts, whether under the label transit-oriented development as in North America and Australia, or more plainly, as (re)development of and around railway stations and other public transport interchanges as in Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and elsewhere. A combination of heterogeneous interrelated factors converges in determining this upsurge of station-related urban projects.

A first factor triggering station area projects is the new development opportunities provided by transport innovations, such as high-speed railway systems (particularly in Europe and East Asia) or new urban and regional rail-based systems (in most contexts) or bus-based systems (most notably in South America). A second factor is the generalized transfer of distribution and manufacturing activities away from station areas and toward more peripheral urban locations or new dedicated freight interchanges. Space is thus freed up for new activities around stations. A third factor is the privatization or at least the shift toward greater market orientation of transportation and, most notably, railway companies. One consequence of privatization is that transportation infrastructure and service providers are increasingly seeking ways to recapture the accessibility advantage they help to create.

Characteristically, this implies the development of commercial activities within stations and redevelopment of land above or around stations. Many East Asian cities have a long tradition in this respect, but the trend has been expanding in Europe and North America as well. Fourth is a wish to boost the competitive position of cities as places to live, work, and consume through new large-scale urban projects. Many of these projects, typically showing a dense mix of office, retail, leisure, and housing, are located around highly accessible places such as main railway stations. High-speed railway station areas in European cities in particular have been the theaters of many such initiatives in recent years.

Figure 1 Basic Transport and Land Use Correlations: Transit-Oriented Development Pursues a Combination of Transit and Walking and Cycling Environments

Source: Bertolini, Luca, and Frank le Clercq. “Urban development without more mobility by car? Lessons from Amsterdam, a multimodal urban region.” Environment and Planning A 35 (2003): 575–89. Reprinted with permission.

[Page 823]A last but not least factor, and most notably in North America and Australia, is mounting concern about the sustainability of sprawling and car-dependent urbanization patterns. The integrated development of railway networks and land around the nodes of those networks is seen as a way toward a more public transport and nonmotorized modes-oriented, concentrated urbanization pattern. The arguments for this shift are not merely environmental (reduction of pollution, greenhouse emissions, land consumption, etc.); many local governments and citizens also see it as a condition for the development of a much needed mobility alternative for metropolises rapidly approaching total traffic gridlock.