The current debates surrounding transit-oriented development and communities in our region are not new–and carry lessons from across the world.
Recent studies show that the avid discussion over Mayor McGinn’s suspension of parking enforcement around South Seattle’s light rail stations should be seen contextually, as our local growing pains in moving from transit “nodes” to livable “places” served by transit.
Timely local efforts have catalogued best practices, resources and visions, most notably the Futurewise “Transit Oriented Communities: A Blueprint for Washington State” advocated by Sara Nikolic in her recent op-ed piece and the University of Washington/Quality Growth Alliance “From Barriers to Solutions and Best Practices: Urban Centers and TOD in Washington” (the “Barriers Report”) discussed before in this column and in Scott Gutierrez’ October 27, 2009 article in seattlepi.com.
The Barriers Report provides examples and discussion of transit-oriented development principles, and casts parking as among a diverse range of issues, such as the design of the street-network, competing visions of how a center should function, accessibility, transportation-demand management, and zoning regulations.
In fact, relevant literature often cites the three “D’s”–density, diversity, and design–as all necessary for creating great places and minimizing automobile use, and salient portions of the Barriers Report, summarized below, include the observation that identical parking solutions need not occur at all transit stations within a synergistic transit system.
The role of transit in linking individual places with the broader region means that development around light rail stations performs a dual function as both a “node” within the regional transit system and a “place” in its own right. “Place” refers to the neighborhood function of residences, businesses, entertainment destinations and other synergistic uses that combine to make station areas vibrant, pleasant, livable places. “Node” refers to the role of stations as an access point for commuters arriving and departing by train, bus, car, bicycle, and foot.
This dual role as a “place” and “node” requires accommodation of housing, employment, retail, trains, buses, cars, bicycles and people in close proximity with one another. The interaction and synergy among various uses and users gives transit-oriented communities their location efficiency; however, in reality, the balance between place and node is difficult to achieve. As illustrated by the recent South Seattle debate, stakeholders with varying objectives sometimes disagree on how transit-oriented developments and communities should function.
New Urbanists and their political allies suggest mass transit stations should serve as hubs for residential and employment populations. The New Urbanist model envisions the best use of land around transit stations for accommodating as many residents, jobs and other synergistic uses as possible, while maintaining or improving livability. However, political interests often compete for the area around a transit hub to accommodate a large amount of parking, viewing the transit station as an access “node” to employment centers across the region.
This tension played out along Seattle’s Link light rail alignment, with many people displeased by the lack of parking at stations, and reflected in the recent mayoral move to relax parking enforcement. In other regions, a common complaint is most transit agencies have little interest in stations as anything but “nodes” and parking centers because they want to maximize ridership from park and ride facilities. Sound Transit and the City of Seattle intentionally avoided accommodation of large quantities of parking at stations because they wanted to encourage stations to develop as “places” – synergistic communities of people, jobs, retail and other amenities. Tukwila Station is the lone exception, where a 600-space parking lot surrounds the station site to serve park-and-ride users.
Increasingly, projects built around up-and-coming transit “nodes”, like Dallas’s Mockingbird Station, Portland’s Pearl District, and Metropolitan Chicago’s Arlington Heights, are targeted at individuals, households and businesses seeking locations that are vibrant and interesting; these “places” usually have an assortment of restaurants, entertainment venues, art shops, cultural offerings, public plazas, and civic spaces.
While transit-oriented projects must balance the multiple functions of “node” and “place”, the value of the system as a whole is enhanced with some degree of specialization at each station can avoid a “one size fits all” approach. Accordingly, a park and ride station functioning primarily as a “node” can help reduce pressure for other, place-oriented stations to function primarily as “nodes”.
Auto access through Seattle’s Westlake Center via Pine Street was a notable local example of the tension between “place” and “node”. Auto-oriented, commercial retail interests prevailed and today Pine is open to traffic. Virtually all European cities have imposed some degree of control over the entry of cars into historic centers, improving their function as great “places”. Minneapolis, Boston, Portland, and Denver have similarly banned traffic from portions of their downtowns. Turning downtown streets over to shoppers and pedestrians has generally proven effective to increase downtown retail sales and commercial property values.
In summary, successful urban transit models which we hope to emulate–such as those of Stockholm and Munich–contain built environments that make riding trains and buses more convenient and generally more pleasant than driving a car. While this goal can be facilitated by efficient land use planning which is carefully integrated with transit services, such careful integration is particularly challenging in the United States given the prevalence of free or reduced cost parking “nodes” and subsidized auto travel.
In Seattle, we are on the learning curve on how to win the “node wars”, and how best to create a balance in favor of a transit-oriented “place.”