This was originally going to be a comment in response to a comment Erica from Capital Metro made to Two Quick Hits. I’ve reproduced her comment in full here.
Four comments on your two quick hits!
1. I’m new to all of this, so fact check it, but I think Polikov’s involvement dealt with the Crystal Falls development, which is not in the Leander TOD district and is not part of the TOD being developed around Capital Metro’s Leander Station. Leander is not on hold or abandoned, it is on track. http://www.capmetroblog.blogspot.com
2. Crestview: the developers have told us that the presence of MetroRail there made the opportunity attractive and desirable…doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t have been developed on its own, without the rail line there, but maybe not as quickly.
3. Tri-Rail ridership has doubled since 2005. Last year ridership was over 4m, so the “nobody rides it” argument is wearing thin. Anyhow, one of our TOD staff tells me that Tri-Rail has 2 TOD projects underway: Deerfield Beach Station and Boca Raton Station.
4. Development takes time; Mueller planning started in 1997. Groundbreaking for the big box stuff on the frontage road happened in 2006, Dell & the first housing in 2007. It’s a tad early to declare that the Red Line TOD is a failure.
Erica, I can’t agree with any of those points. In order:
- Under no circumstance ought you declare this a TOD – not a single spade of dirt has been turned. A lesson which should have been learned from Tri-Rail, which declared a dozen or more TODs that never materialized.
The Leander plans are rather underwhelming, too. A development that requires that its residents cross at an unprotected crosswalk across a busy highway to get to the transit service is NOT “oriented towards transit”.
Update: In comments on CM’s blog entry about the TOD, it becomes clear that the blog author was throwing in the crosswalk as an afterthought; it doesn’t appear to be related to this particular supposed TOD project at all. However, the thinking that a ‘crosswalk’ is somehow a bicycle/pedestrian feature which we ought to be impressed by is kind of illustrative here. - Yes, Crestview would have developed just fine – the developers may have gotten a bit of a pass through the neighborhood gauntlet because of the transit, but that’s exactly what I said.
- Tri-Rail: Yes, it doubled, when gas went to $4.00 a gallon. Your own ridership figures skyrocketed too. More trains are also running now. The TOD projects that are ‘underway’ are, uh, NOT. “Boca Raton station” is a strip mall of retail that fronts the major arterial roadway and a bunch of parking; the train station is off and to the back. I saw absolutely nothing in Deerfield to indicate that anything’s being built.
- Mueller is a special case. The Triangle got done much more quickly; we’d see spades of dirt being turned by now on TODs on the Red Line if, indeed, it were capable of generating any TOD.
Some requirements to call something a TOD, from the VTPI; full list here:
- The transit-oriented development lies within a five-minute walk of the transit stop, or about a quarter-mile from stop to edge. For major stations offering access to frequent high-speed service this catchment area may be extended to the measure of a 10-minute walk.
- A balanced mix of uses generates 24-hour ridership. There are places to work, to live, to learn, to relax and to shop for daily needs.”
- Transit service is fast, frequent, reliable, and comfortable, with a headway of 15 minutes or less.
- Roadway space is allocated and traffic signals timed primarily for the convenience of walkers and cyclists.
Note that the Red Line, even if it operates every 15 minutes, is only part of their trip. The shuttle service on the downtown/UT end of the trip will never be fast, comfortable, or reliable. We can already tell, in other words, that the development in Leander won’t be real TOD – it’s already on track to fail at least four of the metrics even if they do everything right with their buildings.
Tri-Rail has been running for almost 20 years now. There’s still precisely zero square feet of TOD. Not surprising when you read what you need to answer the question “Is it really TOD?”. Light rail can do it. Heavy urban rail can do it. Commuter rail can’t and never will. They may use TOD as an excuse to upzone to what the market was already clamoring for, as demonstrated by Crestview (vs. the Triangle), or they may actually be trying to get it done, but it ain’t gonna happen – people aren’t going to pay a financial premium to live next to a train that doesn’t go anywhere worth going without transfers.
(In case you’re wondering, the CAMPO TWG streetcar/light-rail plan could produce TOD, especially on East Riverside, by the way, because people would be able to board a train operating at high frequencies in reserved guideway that would go straight downtown, to the Capitol, or to UT, without requiring transfers. People will pay more than they would otherwise be willing to pay if they’re provided with a reliable time-certain trip straight to work or school, i.e., that doesn’t ask them to get off a train and onto a bus, or even off a train and onto another train)
