There is a realization that a substantial market exists for a new form of walkable, mixed use urban development around new rail stations and transit stops.  Changing demographics are leading to a need for a diversification of real estate projects, and the type of development known variously as transit villages or transit oriented development (TOD) is beginning to receive serious attention in real estate markets around the nation.  These transit oriented developments have the potential to provide residents with improved quality of life and reduced household transportation expenses while providing the region with stable mixed-income neighborhoods that reduce environmental impacts and provide real alternatives to traffic congestion.

The ATR Institute works with a team that includes the Great American Station Foundation, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (Chicago), and Strategic Economics (San Francisco/Berkeley).  The goal of the TOD Project is to meet the market demand for walkable transit oriented communities around rail stations and transit stops in a way that delivers on the equity and environmental promises of this kind of development.  

The first step was bring transit oriented development to scale,  document the state of the practice at the present time, and analyze the barriers that have prevented full realization of the transit oriented development opportunity.  The second part of the learning process was to assemble two-day TOD workshop sessions to key regions across the United States to gain an in-depth understanding of the problems faced by practitioners on the ground.  

After completion of the first two phases, the team will develop a manual on Best Practices in Transit Oriented Development.  This handbook will include case studies on successful developments in different scale and settings, including urban, suburban, and commuter towns, and market rate and subsidized products.

Transit Oriented Development:  Moving from Rhetoric to Reality (pdf) 
      by Dena Belzer and Gerald Autler of Strategic Economics.  A discussion
      paper prepared for the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and 
      Metropolitan Policy and the Great American Station Foundation.  June 2002

Hank Dittmar, President and CEO of the Great American Station Foundation, recently announced the debut of the Web site of the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) initiative, a collaborative project led by the Great American Station Foundation, with the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the ATR Institute, Strategic Economics, the Congress for the New Urbanism, and Smart Growth America.  The project is intended to bring transit oriented development to scale nationally as an accepted form of development, while capturing the equity, environmental, and quality of life benefits for families and communities.  It seeks to ensure that transit oriented development is mixed income development and that TOD communities remain so for the long run.  The Web site will be used to disseminate best practices, case studies, tools and techniques, and other resources to TOD practitioners in the not for profit and for profit development community, in state and local government, and in the transit industry.  The Web site is located at: http://www.reconnectingamerica.org