Rating the Performance of Station Areas for Effective and Equitable Transit Oriented Development

Abstract

Planners and policymakers working to incentivize high performing transit-oriented development (TOD) that can effectively reduce driving and increase transit utilization often struggle due to the lack of consensus on what factors best predict the performance of TOD. The task is even more difficult for those who want to ensure that the TOD also improves local and regional equity. This research creates a “rating system” that measures the capacity for equitable TOD within a given public transit station area by identifying easily quantifiable and comparable built, social, and transit attributes that reduce driving, encourage higher transit ridership, and promote transit equity and accessibility. eTOD Score was piloted in Massachusetts due to the availability of vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) data for validation. The rating system ranks station areas – half-mile buffers around rail stations and certain bus stops -- on three scales based on ten nationally-available indicators chosen based on their correlation with VMT. The three scales as well as the final combined scores are very strongly inversely correlated with VMT: Transit subscale (R²=.73); Orientation subscale (R²=.67); Development subscale (R²=.77); and composite score (R²=.82). The composite and disaggregated eTOD Scores give an indication of the relative transit supportiveness of a station area along with possibilities for enhancement. By providing a specific definition of high-performing, equitable TOD, this system can be used to catalyze and direct rapid policy change in support of policy and funding initiatives to encourage location of equitable TOD in transit-rich neighborhoods.

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