Transit Oriented Development

When cities and towns in the U.S. were forming before the spread of automobility, development occurred in patterns consistent with transit travel, primarily rail. After rail transit's long hiatus, a few new systems came into being without supportive land-use.

As an idea, Transit Oriented Development called attention to that deficiency, and attempts to remedy it.

In this website we look at examples from elsewhere, and follow the course of station site development in Sonoma and Marin Counties. For a discussion of what is and isn't Transit Oriented Development, click here.

TOD in the Bay Area

Among the better efforts toward TOD are some at Caltrain stations on the Peninsula south of San Francisco. Two of the earlier ones are in Mountain View in Santa Clara County: the Mountain View station in downtown Mountain View, and The Crossings, adjacent to the San Antonio station.

San Mateo County has two more recent TOD developments: Franklin Street, in Redwood City near the Redwood City station, and the Hacienda Pacific development in San Carlos near the San Carlos station.

None of these would be considered complete TODs, but they have some exemplary elements.

Unfortunately, of these four stations, the new (Spring 2004) Caltrain express trains will serve only the Mountain View station. This will mean an overall diminution of service at the San Antonio station.

TOD for SMART

We will try to document how Transit Oriented Development at each station along the SMART line. Not much has happened yet, but kudos to those cities and developers that can think ahead and plan for the SMART opportunity.

Click on station

12/11/04