Transit oriented development (TOD) is a planning and design practice that creates compact, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented communities located around new or existing public transit stations. Over the past decade or so, there has been tremendous growth in demand and need for housing near transit.

A variety of different groups—transit and smart growth advocates, community-based developers, business leaders, planners, and more—have embraced TOD as a powerful strategy for smart growth, urban revitalization, and creating access and opportunity for low-income residents.

Read about PolicyLink TOD projects with Action for Regional Equity and in the Rainier Valley in Seattle. In addition, in the San Francisco Bay Area, PolicyLink is working with the Association of Bay Area Governments to assist planning efforts by community groups and city governments in three cities to develop policies to enable transit oriented development without displacement.

TOD Resources

Building the Line to Equity: Six Steps for Achieving Equitable Transit Oriented Development in Massachusetts

Transit Oriented Development Tool

Development without Displacement

Many of the most important issues of social and economic equity in the coming decade will concern the ways that neighborhoods, cities, and regions are built, and the financing of construction, rehabilitation, and operating costs. Equitable public investment requires finding ways to create healthy communities by guiding local policies that influence these types of development.  Transit stations or corridors will create many new opportunities for compact development, with pressure to raise rents and property values.  These new communities need to protect the housing and businesses of existing residents as they grow, and to include a mix of incomes and uses.

Development without Displacement, a program conceived by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) through a grant from Caltrans, hopes to increase awareness of costs of gentrification and displacement, while highlighting equitable policies that jurisdictions can use to capture the benefits of growth.

The Transit Oriented Development tool in the Equitable Development Toolkit was completed in 2008 with support from this grant, and has been used as the basis for technical assistance to community groups and local governments.  Sample equitable development strategies include securing permanent affordable housing near transit stations with inclusionary housing requirements, linking transportation and land use planning to the creation of a sustainable business climate, attracting merchants for commercial needs identified in workshops, improving access and safety around transit stations for pedestrians and bicyclists, and creating a visual identity that celebrates the cultures and interests of people who live in the communities.

In the ABAG “Development without Displacement” project, three city governments are partnered with community organizations on strategies for guiding development in transit-focused neighborhoods.  They receive technical assistance from the  Center for Community Innovation of the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Policylink. 

Richmond -- working with congregations to create new affordable housing, and to explore options for land trusts;

San Francisco -- assisting small businesses and preserving cultural character in the Mission District, which is home to two BART stations;

Oakland -- engaging the Lake Merritt community on strategies to prevent displacement as part of their BART Station Area Plan.