Transit and Transit-Oriented Development: The Sweet Spot for Jobs

[M II A II R II K]

Transit and Transit-Oriented Development: The Sweet Spot for Jobs


09/05/2012

By Greg LeRoy

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-leroy/transit-and-transitorient_b_1858703.html


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There is now a raft of evidence that transit, transit-oriented development (TOD), and smart growth policies that give people more choice about how to get around are also proven winners for creating the most new jobs.

- Until the Recovery Act and its best-ever system for reporting job creation at recovery.gov, we couldn't compare construction jobs, highways versus transit. But two analyses of the Act's apples-to-apples jobs data found that building transit systems created 31 to 84 percent more jobs per $1 billion than did building highways. Similarly, federal highway data reveals that spending road money to "fix it first" -- or maintaining and improving existing roads, including "complete streets" for pedestrians and cyclists -- produces more work-hours than do sprawling new roads. That's because money is not used to buy land or engineer new rights of way.

- Transportation spending stimulates private investment upon land made more valuable. Transit-oriented development in half-mile radii around stations creates thousands of construction jobs as higher land values drive greater density, labor-intensive rehabilitation and mixed uses. Again, all development is not equal. When buildings are taller and more complex, private construction industry data clearly shows higher job creation per $1 million spent. That is true for both commercial structures and for condominiums and townhomes versus detached single-family homes.

- Normal, Ill., has a downtown resurgence thanks to the construction of a new Amtrak and bus-transit station equipped to handle High-Speed Rail now under construction from Chicago to St. Louis. The station has triggered a boom in private-sector construction of new office space, hotels, condominiums, and apartments valued at over $200 million. Indeed, long-term data on metro areas with and without growth management plans finds that those with plans experience substantially better growth in construction jobs. The best example here is Portland, Ore., where an Urban Growth Boundary in place since the late 1970s has spurred the labor-intensive revitalization of downtown and the former warehouse Pearl District.

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[Rainforest]

Yes.

But, the local context must be taken into account. We cannot assume that improved transit, no matter where it is built, will automatically cause higher density.

Normal, Ill. has a population of about 53,000. The combined population of the Bloomington - Normal metropolitan area is about 130,000. Obviously, if you build a transit hub in the city that previously did not have any decent transit at all, you can expect density growing near that transit hub.

The same will not necessarily happen in a much larger city with an established primary density hub, when you add a smaller hub or a new line far from the primary hub. The new area might just not be competitive against the former.

 

[Markster]

- Normal, Ill., has a downtown resurgence thanks to the construction of a new Amtrak and bus-transit station equipped to handle High-Speed Rail now under construction from Chicago to St. Louis.

I always get a laugh out of that one. 110mph as "High Speed"...

 

[Hipster Duck]

Forgetting Normal, IL for a second, the GTA has a bad habit of building employment away from transit and then having transit catch up with employment nodes years later. Of course, because those employment nodes were built around the automobile, transit is at a bit of a disadvantage when it does its catching up.

Also unfortunate is the fact that suburban places where we have built rapid transit to have struggled to add employment. Scarborough town centre is one example, as is Sheppard East, North York Centre more recently and, I would argue, places like MCC.

Sometimes it amazes me that we have the level of suburban transit ridership that we do, but that's attributable to our decent, relatively frequent if unsexy local bus service on suburban arterials that dump masses of people onto the subway backbone. It certainly has nothing to do with our suburbs' integration of employment centres and transit planning which, frankly, is atrocious.

 

[Rainforest]

^ North York Centre is not "struggling"; it is the second largest node in GTA. Obviously, far behind downtown, but well ahead of anything else.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

In the context of employment growth, Hipster is certainly right. In fact, it's hard to think of ANY so called suburban node in admist of densification that has added any significant high quality employment. Certainly not MCC, NYCC, Islington, SCC, and it is questionable whether those in the outer 905 belt will either.

AoD

 

[rbt]

^ North York Centre is not "struggling"; it is the second largest node in GTA. Obviously, far behind downtown, but well ahead of anything else.

Estimates for todays employment levels were created when Sheppard was being pitched; North York is a little shy of 50% of that number.

Certainly struggling compared to expectations 20 years ago. Many of the currently empty parking lots were expected to have office towers by now.

 

[Rainforest]

OK, the expectations for NYCC were overly optimistic, and the estimates could have been deliberately skewed in order to support the case for Sheppard subway.

But it does not mean NYCC is struggling in absolute terms. The Sheppard / Yonge station is not only one of the busiest outside the core; it is one of a few that attracts a significant amount of counter-flow traffic. The amount of jobs in the NYCC area is much greater than around SCC, Islington, or Yonge / Eglinton.

I am less familiar with MCC, but it seems to be doing reasonably well, taking into account that it has bus connections only.

Regarding the emerging nodes in the 905 belt, notably Vaughan Centre and Richmond Hill Centre, I agree that their potential is hard to predict and it might turn out to be below expectations; let's wait and see.

 

[EnviroTO]

I always get a laugh out of that one. 110mph as "High Speed"...

I know what you are saying, and it doesn't meet even the USDOT's definition of high-speed rail (125mph), but it is the fastest thing on land operating between Chicago and St.Louis. The total distance is only 300 miles so they may get a fair number of riders at that speed.

 

[Dan416]

Neither MCC nor SCC have a subway. NYC does, but it hasn't met expectations either. Really what has killed our suburban nodes is places like the Airport and Meadowvale (at least for MCC). Not sure where the office in the north and east has gone.