Take the T Out of TOD and What’s Left?

The latest issue of the University of California Transportation Center’s Access magazine has an article that asks, “Does Transit-Oriented Development Need the Transit?” Noting that previous studies found that people who live in TODs are less likely to own cars, the authors dare to ask if the observed changes in travel behavior had anything to do with having rail transit near the TOD.

Since you are reading this here, the answer, of course, is “no.” Instead, the biggest influence on travel behavior is the presence or absence of parking. (The paper didn’t mention the self-selection issue, which is that differences in travel behavior are largely accounted for by the fact that people who don’t want to drive are more likely to live in TODs than people who do.)

In any case, whatever benefits may come from TODs, the authors conclude, “may not depend much on rail access.” That’s good news, the authors claim, because rail lines are expensive to build, so the benefits of TODs could be attained without that expense.

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The real question is why promote TODs in the first place. With or without rail, TODs have only a tiny effect on travel behavior, and if we want to reduce environmental costs, making cars that are more fuel-efficient is a lot more cost effective. While some people like living in TODs, developers can build for that market without prescriptive zoning or tax-increment financing or other subsidies. Most Americans simply do not aspire to live high-density, mixed-use developments and, in fact, consider that to be an odd lifestyle.

Moreover, there’s a hidden cost to TODs. It’s one thing to say that walkable, mixed-use communities allow people access to the things they need without driving. But if this only works when planners use parking limits to impede travel, they are effectively reducing people’s mobility. In turn, that reduction means they are reducing people’s access to economic resources such as jobs, low-cost consumer goods, and other services.

Metro, Portland’s regional planning agency, has a goal of increasing the share of households living in multifamily housing from 35 percent in 1990 to 59 percent in 2040, a goal they are working towards by subsidizing TODs while restricting new single-family home construction. This is supposed to reduce driving, but Metro’s own data found that the only factor that significantly reduced driving was parking limits. High-income people can live with the added costs of living in Portland, but low-income people are unduly burdened by these policies. These burdens are not worth the tiny environmental gains from coercing more people to live in multifamily housing.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

9 Responses to Take the T Out of TOD and What’s Left?

  1. msetty says:

    As usual, you fall for any “analysis” that supports your inherent bias against rail transit.

    In the New Jersey cases studied by Chatman and you refer to, all the areas developed at higher densities with lower parking availability because of the presence of the rail stations in the first place. Most of the places he cites were developed long before World War II and the peak of auto influence. This is another case of a UC professor torturing the data when the reality doesn’t fit their bias.

  2. msetty says:

    If Chatman wants to do a useful analysis, do a real apples to apples comparison, e.g, the sort of higher density suburban downtowns he looked at with rail, to those without rail. There are plenty of examples of “non-rail” suburban downtowns in New Jersey and other parts of greater New York City.

  3. bennett says:

    In my observations, often behind the curtain for land use planning proposals, TODs are a way to get a variety of projects through the political process. Some constituencies, leaders and administrators want rail transit. Developers and leaders want to build big new shinny projects. The “T” can be sold to voters as a way to increase mobility (which, as often pointed out on this blog, is usually not the case). This is not the case for every TOD, but it is certainly the M.O here in Texas, particularly DFW.

    The reason rail transit keep failing at the ballot in Austin is because the social advocates (usually in the corner of planners) realize that the proposals are about building new things that don’t really serve existing residents, particularly the residents that are most likely to depend on public transit services. Despite the PR push advocating (non-existent) mobility enhancements, Austin rail plans are about big new development projects. That hasn’t set well with voters.

  4. Frank says:

    One wonders why, if TODs are so magnificent, people who comment here choose not to live in them.

  5. prk166 says:


    The real question is why promote TODs in the first place. With or without rail, TODs have only a tiny effect on travel behavior,
    ” ~antiplanner

    It seems to correlate with invoking eminent domain to take property from some for redevelopment by others.

  6. metrosucks says:

    One wonders why, if TODs are so magnificent, people who comment here choose not to live in them.

    Indeed! Like msetty, who thinks density and rail is fine and dandy for the rest of us, but not For Where His Highness Lives. Density is no good for Napa Valley; msetty says so himself:

    http://napavalleyregister.com/users/profile/msetty/

    But you’ll find that like with essentially 100% of density advocates, they live in exurban or suburban settings while extorting the rest of us to adopt Manhattan style living conditions and prices. And when we ask them why what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander, we either get crickets or lame excuses:

    http://www.planetizen.com/node/24927
    http://www.laweekly.com/news/do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do-2149098

    In the meantime, we get crap like this, more of the same old that created the problem in the first place:

    http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrow-la-and-its-housing-density-problem-20150724-story.html

    Let’s look at the asshole who wrote that bullshit:

    Architect, planner and urban designer Gregory D. Morrow developed a townhouse project in Echo Park, where he served on the neighborhood council. He is a professor at the University of Calgary, in Canada, and a homeowner in Los Angeles.

    So, he’s a homeowner, meaning he doesn’t live in the high density mixed use that he prescribes for the rest of us. Apparently, this little tidbit was added to the end of the article without a hint of irony. The same old hypocrisy all around from smart growth advocates.

  7. MJ says:

    This is another case of a UC professor torturing the data when the reality doesn’t fit their bias.

    What is his bias? What evidence is there of such a bias? How is he “torturing” the data?

  8. metrosucks says:

    How is he “torturing” the data?

    His conclusions don’t agree with msetty’s preconceived notions and delusions.

  9. prk166 says:


    How is he “torturing” the data?
    “~mj


    the areas developed at higher densities with lower parking availability because of the presence of the rail stations in the first place. Most of the places he cites were developed long before World War II and the peak of auto influence. ”
    ~msetty

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