CNT releases TOD Study

[spuwho]

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), an urban sustainability think tank has released their study on TOD development in the Chicago area.


http://www.cnt.org/news/media/Regional-TOD-Analysis-FINAL-small.pdf

An interesting study in sustainability and planning around specific transit services throughout the Chicago area. It also discusses about how transportation costs rose faster than incomes, how to remove impediments to TOD in local communities, mentions private investment and how new housing development in TOD eligible spaces could not keep up with overall growth. They showed that transit zones lost more jobs faster than the region did overall.

The research in this study, with lots of breadth and sources, does come up with some unusual conclusions at times. While they declare that government agencies should have a larger role in promoting TOD, they don't spend nearly enough time studying how the same agencies discourage TOD through their tax codes, anti-business policies or in most cases, just plain politics.

Nothing in the study talks about how to incentivize or create policies for the private sector to invest in TOD other than providing grants for car pooling or auto sharing services.  The study's inability to identify and classify non-governmental means to fostering TOD is a clear oversight by the tank.  But the way they classify transit zones and measure their transit capabilities is fresh and easily could be transplanted in doing an TOD awareness study in the greater Jax area.