M obility Matters is blocked from the ¼ mile radius by typically a string of suburban or unattractive land uses for a radius of two of three miles. This serves as a strong obstacle to gain new ridership from stronger potential ridership areas.
somewhere else? Will they want to come back? To see if this is true let’s compare two different TOD station locations.
Del Mar Gold Line Station – Pasadena, CA Figure 2: Del Mar Gold Line Station (Pasadena, CA) Figure 1: Irvine Metrolink Station
The Del Mar Station is a TOD site, where housing is actually part of the station site. Residents can literally walk downstairs to the station stop. Also located on the station site is a restaurant, La Grande Orange, and a couple of food court type concessions. Across the street is Pasadena Central Park, which is empty most of the time. On the southern end of the station there is a strip mall that contains a comic book store, bicycle shop, and other restaurants. And to the east is a Houston’s Steakhouse and a gas station. Del Mar Street in Pasadena is labeled a multimodal corridor that gives preference to bicyclists, pedestrians, and vehicles. However, there are too many cars on the road preventing many bicyclists from utilizing the road.
Rather than plan for ¼ to ½ mile radius of a station site for TOD projects, the sites should typically plan for up to a 5 mile radius of the station site. As well, the study area and preliminary studies for station sites should examine a 5-7 mile radius rather than a ¼ mile to ½ mile radius. Figure 1 displays how there is a focus of development within the central vicinity of the transit station, however, instead of connecting the transit station with other development, it is isolated by an orange layer of parks, industrial land, or no development. All of this makes it harder to connect the developed areas to the station site and allow for the station to actually mature into a TOD. As a result the donut TOD archetype strikes again.
Most shockingly, is that the closest coffee shop and McDonalds is four blocks away and requires waiting through two 8-phase intersections. If an individual is able to get walking prioritization and not have to wait for signals, they can reach the coffee shop in 2 minutes. Once at the coffee shop there are no complimentary land uses.
What does all this discussion of ¼ mile radius, ½ mile radius really mean? How does this discussion lead us to understand the meaning of the space? What the value is of the TOD? Quite frankly it doesn’t. Hence, even the TOD projects that have been built have done very little done to measure their own success.
Coffee shops are a good measure of the walkability of an area. Starbucks has intrinsic data measuring the effectiveness of the walk-in coffee versus the drive through coffee shop, and has created many more walk-in coffee stores rather than the drive through coffee shops. By measuring the walking distance and time that exists between the closest coffee shop and station site, we can measure the walkability of the station. While although there are many ideal complimentary land uses that rest along the station site, the station still lacks any meaning as there are not enough people who utilize the station enough to give it any “meaning.” With that, although the Del Mar station holds a lot of potential to
Most likely, the most important measure for any TOD site is walkability. What’s the first thing someone does when they get off transit? Walk. You have to walk to a destination. This requires businesses or events to serve the emerging markets of these destinations. There is also a requirement for adequate landscaping, design, lighting in order for people to feel safe and be encouraged to walk. Developers should ask themselves is there an incentive for people walk there? Can they get what they need by walking easier than driving? Once they are done walking in the area can they easily get
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