From coast to coast, TOD is the hot acronym in urban design.
Transit-oriented development builds on a foundation consisting of walkability and sustainability. It eschews cars in favor of trains and buses.
It marks a return to a former way of living, before cars became the dominant means of transportation and newly poured cement highways led families out of cities and into suburbs.
Automobiles literally changed the face of the New York City metropolitan region. Today”™s TOD is the antithesis of the highways, parkways, bridges and tunnels created at the hand of master planner Robert Moses.
The American Dream of owning a home in the suburbs is seeing a tidal change.
Demographics are changing with more people leaning toward urban living, said John Nolon, a professor at Pace Law School in White Plains and a proponent of transit-oriented development.
“Suburban living is changing. The focus is returning to urban living and providing livable and walkable communities,” Nolon said. “Transit-oriented development is a core of that.”
Boost for the tax base
To help achieve the goal of TOD is where Metro-North Railroad steps in.
Plagued by a daunting $800 million budget deficit, but looking to the future, Metro-North is leveraging its surface parking lots at its stations to attract development via land deals with the appropriate communities.
The railroad, working with the municipal governments, wants to turn the parking lots into viable, money-making and tax-producing entities such as housing and retail.
“The TOD pipeline is chock-full,” said Randall J. Fleischer, senior director of business development, facilities and marketing with Metro-North. Municipalities up and down the Hudson, Harlem and New Haven train lines have expressed interest in TODs.
“Progression (of the projects) is dictated by local leadership, residents and the economy.”
In an attempt to bring cohesion to a fragmented business district, Harrison Mayor/Supervisor Joan Walsh welcomes the proposal set for the 3.5 acres of parking lots owned by the railroad.
Walsh calls the proposed site, “Main Main,” as in prime real estate.
The plan calls for 122,00 square feet of residential space and 45,000 square feet of retail to be built in two phases. Also included is a 596-spot parking garage that would be hidden behind the retail and residential buildings that would front Halstead Avenue.
“It will be a gigantic plus for the tax base,” Walsh said.
Nolon agreed, saying there was a hidden plus.
“More people who are returning to cities don”™t have children, so there is no burden on the schools.”
In return for building the garage, which will include municipal parking in addition to commuter, the railroad will deed the land to Harrison, Walsh said.
Long time coming
Costs to draft zoning regulations and design guidelines for the TOD in Harrison as well as to prepare an RFP is being paid in part by $50,000 from a state Environmental Protection Fund Smart Growth grant.
The city of Poughkeepsie received a $40,000 grant to undertake market research and an economic analysis for TOD scenarios for land near its train station.
Mount Vernon received a $35,000 grant to allow it to do a market analysis to “determine the full economic potential of the creation and expansion mixed-use” of a TOD “with a focus on attracting new businesses near existing transit facilities.”
In Harrison, the requests for proposals (RFPs) are expected to go out in November or December. With the test borings already done, Walsh said “We”™ve tried to anticipate every eventuality and include it into the RFP.”
Declining to disclose their names, the mayor said there are nine developers interested in the project. Barring any delays, Walsh said, “I would hope to break ground by spring or summer of 2012.”
Harrison has been trying to get someone to develop the property for 35 years. Past proposals have included a hotel as well as apartment buildings.
Donald Cecil agreed it has been a long time coming.
“I think it”™s very positive. It will upgrade the quality of the area,” said Cecil, who is a board member with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and chairman of the Westchester County Board of Transportation.
Metropolitan American
Another positive aspect of TODs, Nolon said, is reducing pollution.
“The global perspective has to be taken into consideration. Do we want to reduce dependence on foreign oil? Worry about mitigating climate change? Then you need to get people out of cars,” he said.
“We need to watch Albany and Washington for climate action plans. No longer can we afford being dependent on a fossil-fuel society.”
In May, Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution released a report called The State of Metropolitan American. In part, it faulted lawmakers for flaws in federal policies that have “enabled the sort of energy-intensive, distended growth patterns familiar to most metropolitan areas.”
The report stated: “Reauthorization of the federal transportation law should reward and direct greater alignment between housing and transportation planning at the state and local levels; condition federal affordable housing and transit funds on the coordinated use of both.”
While Westchester County and the eastern side of the Hudson River may be rail-centric, Nolon points out buses are also an important aspect of transit-oriented development.
Albany and Schenectady are connected via a rail line that carries Amtrak trains and does not afford true commuter stops. But, Nolon said, “It has a strong bus rapid transit (BRT) system that connects the tri-cities of Albany, Troy and Schenectady.”
Buses could be an integral part of the proposed Tappan Zee Bridge/I-287 Corridor Project and they in turn would be supplemented by trains, according to Metro-North”™s Fleischer.
For example, someone in Ossining could take the train to Tarrytown and then board a bus to cross the Tappan Zee and go to the Palisades Center mall in Rockland.
While there has been some initial opposition to the TODs, Nolon points out that there has always been opposition to change in the status quo.
“The two things Americans hate are density and sprawl. Change is an absolute necessity. It all has to be mediated by common sense.”
