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Livable Places Calls for Transit-oriented Development
Along the MTA Blue Line
The 22-mile long Metro Blue Line stretches between downtown Los Angeles
and Long Beach offering significant opportunities to create livable communities
around transit-oriented developments (TODs). TODs integrate housing with
offices, stores and restaurants around transit stations providing desperately
needed new housing and giving residents practical alternatives to driving
their cars – an essential step to both reducing smog-causing auto
emissions and coping with clogged freeways.
Despite the low densities around the Blue Line – ridership has
exceeded expectations. Like the rest of Southern California, quality affordable
housing is in short supply. Building housing near light rail can help
address both our housing and transportation ills and invigorate some of
the declining neighborhoods.
In September 2002, Livable Places released a report entitled “A
Closer Look at the Blue Line: Building Communities Around Transit.”
The report offers an overview of development along the Blue Line, case
studies of three different station areas and recommendations for encouraging
TODs. Among the recommendations are:
- Identifying parcels near transit stations with development potential
- Rezoning areas around transit for development that incorporates affordable
housing in compact, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use projects
- Using community redevelopment powers to assemble land for TODs
- Coordinating public investments such as schools, parks and libraries
around transit stations
- Marketing and publicizing the development potential of station areas
- Advocating for changes in state law to eliminate incentives for sales-tax
generating commercial development to the detriment of housing development
Download and
read the full report [PDF, 5.35MB]
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