Transit-Oriented Development

in the News

In a June 30th article entitled “Near the rails but still on the road”, the Los Angeles Times sent reporters out to four transit-oriented developments (TODs) in LA County.  The Times asserts “only a small fraction of residents shunned their cars during morning rush hour,” hence LA’s TODs don’t work. Based on observations stated in the article, we assert that the Times is being overly pessimistic.  We see the success of TOD as half-full, not half-empty.

The article describes Hollywood’s 101-unit Mark apartment building as a place where “several residents…said they had given up their cars” but “about 30 of the 54 cars” pulled out during morning rush hour. This is a building in Los Angeles where less than a third of residents (30 out of at least 101) appear to be commuting by car.This isn’t a travesty, but a great success story.  It’s also worth noting that current planning rules require at least two spaces per unit, hence only 54 cars out of what would be 202 is a dramatic reduction.

The article also describes South Pasadena’s 67-unit Mission Meridian Village as generating 50 to 60 car commute trips each morning. Assuming there is one car per unit (as noted above, this is less than planning rules, and much less than most Southern California households), then the development only reduces car trips by about 10%. Let’s be relieved that there’s 10% less traffic than would have been generated had this development occurred in a non-transit-oriented location.

It should come as no surprise that TOD residents will continue to drive for many trips.  Culture and habits don’t change over night and for more than fifty years, our region’s investments have highly favored car transportation.  Instead of expecting transit oriented development to be a silver bullet solution and quickly proclaiming its failure, the article should have recognized TOD for what it is—one piece of the solution to many of Southern California’s woes – from smog to traffic congestion to climate change.  Livable Places advocates for projects that foster a broader range of mobility options and we’d like to see more discussion about why some TODs work better than others, so we can craft better solutions.

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