Transit-Oriented Development

Maximizing the Region's Investment in Transit
Metro is committed to promoting public/private partnerships that enhance the regional quality of life, increase employment opportunities, bring revenue to the transit system, add amenities for passengers, and help increase Metro ridership. Transit-oriented development is a powerful mechanism for achieving these economic development goals.

What is Transit-Oriented Development, or TOD?
Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a planning approach that rethinks how we plan, fund, and build our communities in a manner that combines sustainable community planning practices, constructive development partnerships, and intelligent transportation solutions. TOD planning strategies include regional policy and investment decisions that attract homes, businesses, and community amenities to high-quality, multi-modal transit centers.  The goal is to surround transit facilities with vibrant, carefully designed neighborhoods where people can live, work, shop, and enjoy entertainment, all within a safe and pleasant walk to transit. TOD offers convenient access to desirable locations by a variety of mobility options including transit; this accessibility provides a higher quality of life than transportation solutions that focus only on the movement of motorized vehicles.

Common Traits of TOD
Transit-oriented development is a highly flexible term that can describe many different types of neighborhood character, street plans, and building types. TOD in higher-density, more developed areas, such as Downtown St. Louis and the Central West End, may mean taller apartment and condo buildings with retail or office space on the lower floors. In more suburban areas, TOD may be rowhouses or single-family homes on smaller lots, located closer together and clustered around the transit station and a small retail/office hub or community center.  Whatever the community’s desired building scale and development densities, all types of TOD share a few basic, universal traits:

• The transit station should be at the heart of the community, not in its back yard.  Development should be centered around the transit station, with the most active uses and highest densities closest to the station, stepping down in density away from the station.
• The neighborhood must be walkable and economically vibrant.  Most of life’s needs – housing, retail, and services, perhaps office space and employment – should be available within walking distance (quarter- to half-mile) of the transit station.
• Those uses might be mixed within the same buildings or left in separate buildings, but every TOD neighborhood should contain a good, livable mix of uses.
• Buildings should be directly connected to the street.  Front yards, open spaces, and other active uses may be located between a building and the street, but parking should be located in shared garages or lots within, behind, or to the side of buildings, so that pedestrians never have to walk through parking to access housing or stores.  This is true even for single-story retail strips near suburban stations.
• The pedestrian experience is key.  Plans and projects should emphasize short blocks, active building fronts, and pedestrian amenities while minimizing barriers to walkability, such as a high number of curb cuts, drive-throughs, surface parking lots, blank building walls, long blocks, and a high number of vacant store fronts.
• Development projects within a TOD area should give the neighborhood a unique identity and sense of “place.”  Building types and heights should vary, and architecture should attempt to strike a balance between harmony and innovation.
• Finally, developers of retail and office space should seek to integrate small businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups whenever financially feasible.  A dynamic mix of uses, including both unique small businesses and recognized “anchor” brands, will be key to fostering economic vibrancy and establishing a sense of “place.”

Potential Benefits of TOD
If planned and implemented correctly, TOD offers major benefits to community residents, developers, the local economy, and the transit system:

• Fosters healthier, more sustainable communities by encouraging walking, transit use, and bicycling.
• Better connects people and jobs, particularly for those who cannot afford to own a car or choose not to drive. These improved connections also provide employers access to the largest possible pool of potential employees.
• Expands the range of housing options and retail types, which helps attract new residents and businesses from outside the region.
• Generates new jobs, increased spending, tax revenues, and other economic spillover effects.  It can also be used to encourage and support small business and entrepreneurial development.
• Helps stabilize neighborhoods through affordable housing initiatives and new business development, particularly places that have experienced disinvestment and depopulation over the last few decades.
• Offers a higher return on investment for developers and financial institutions, as it usually provides more residential units or retail square footage per acre for sale or rent.
• Increases property values due to proximity to transit, high-quality retail, and new community investments.
• Lowers household costs, in both time and money, for traveling between home, work, shopping, and other activities. Household income not spent on gas, parking, and car payments can be saved or redirected to spending at local businesses.
• Expands freedom of choice in travel; makes it easier to be an occasional rider, or to choose transit over reliance on the automobile.
• Increases transit ridership, which lowers the operating cost per passenger while also providing revenue to improve and expand the transit system.
• Helps the transit system maximize service efficiencies, by locating greater concentrations of housing and riders closer to major transit hubs.
• Helps reduce traffic congestion on major roads, freeing up capacity for freight and truck travel.

TOD Planning and Regional Sustainability in St. Louis
To a large degree, TOD planning in the St. Louis region is being conducted under a broader regional sustainability planning effort with which Metro is directly involved. As a regional economic development and transportation authority with a bi-state area of concern, Metro clearly has a role to play in any effort to more closely coordinate transportation and development decisions in our region. Our agency is currently pleased to be one of 11 consortium partners working through East-West Gateway Council of Governments on the St. Louis Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant. The grant is helping to foster unprecedented collaboration throughout the region as many counties, cities, and governmental agencies work together to address the environmental, land use, and transportation issues that keep St. Louis communities from being as healthy, vibrant, and economically successful as they could be. The end result will be the Regional Plan for Sustainable Development (RPSD), a set of powerful tools county and municipal decision-makers can use to encourage growth, manage it more productively, and help make the region more competitive. Learn more about the RPSD planning process, including upcoming community meetings about TOD.

TOD Best Practices Guide
For the past year, Metro has been actively working on background research, fieldwork, and developing educational materials for the TOD planning process.  To date, Metro has used that research to produce a TOD Best Practices Guide that offers a fairly comprehensive but general understanding of TOD, the benefits it offers communities, and a range of potential tools for planning and implementation.  This guide, along with Metro's Station Area Profiles and other work products, are intended to provide a foundation for technical consultant work and community planning. 

MetroLink Station Area Profiles
As part of its contribution to the broader regional sustainability effort, Metro staff members have compiled detailed Station Area Profiles drawing together helpful information about the transit function and usage of each station, as well as the current demographics, land use patterns, zoning, and development context of the surrounding neighborhoods.  Moving forward, Bi-State Development Agency/Metro will also seek opportunities to use its own real estate and other tools to catalyze actual development projects, hopefully providing successful local models of TOD.

Related: Regional Great Streets
East-West Gateway's Great Streets initiative is designed to trigger economic and social benefits for communities by centering them around interesting, lively, and attractive streets that serve all modes of transportation.