Transit-Oriented Development and Cleveland's Future
CUDC Quarterly, 2:2 - Spring, 2002

Transit-oriented development was one of the "Five Big Ideas" for Cleveland discussed in the last issue of the Quarterly. Given this issue's focus on streets and transit, it seemed worthwhile to look more closely at the topic, so we invited members of Cleveland's Committee for Transit-Oriented Design [cTOD] to take a stab at it. Ryan McKenzie, Ryan Prince and Vince Reddy obliged with the following discussion of TOD's significance to the Cleveland area. -ed.

What is TOD? Elimination of the private automobile is not a goal of transit-oriented design, but its taming certainly is. Transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods allow people to choose among various modes 

of transportation, and this requires a different approach to the use of land. Since the compact and efficient land-use patterns that are supportive of transit also result in quality environments, transit-oriented communities are also attractive to people who may not be regular transit users.

Among the defining characteristics of TOD are good access, on foot, to fast, frequent transit service (usually, but not necessarily, with a rail component); housing options ranging from multi-family condos and rentals to single-family homes; a variety of goods and services in a proximate arrangement, often in a mixed-use setting; safe, pleasant and universal access to those goods and services for pedestrians, bicyclists and people with disabilities; and genuine public space that is accessible and inviting. Some experts suggest that a successful "transit village" could extend roughly a quarter mile in all directions from a transit node, or a distance that can be covered in about five minutes on foot .

Does TOD exist in Northeast Ohio? The TOD concept was not part of the conversation until recently, but many of Northeast Ohio's older communities were organized around transit, especially those developed in the streetcar era. Indeed, a map of historic streetcar routes points the way toward potential transit-oriented development opportunities today. Transit-oriented corridors along Euclid, Lorain and Detroit Avenues, East 105th Street and Broadway, to name a few, boast attractive multi-story buildings that once mixed shopping, services and a range of housing choices within a short walk of streetcar stops.

Today, there is probably no district in greater Cleveland that could be held up as the transit-oriented ideal, but many places in our region have important characteristics of TOD. Shaker Square, which was built in the 1920s around a still-viable rail connection to downtown Cleveland, is the most obvious among our imperfect examples, but there are others. The Terminal Tower complex, which groups large amounts of retail, office and other uses around the RTA's main downtown rail station, is one, and Ohio City is another, in spite of its awkward rail connection. Other still-vibrant older districts, such as Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights and Highland Square in Akron have limited transit access at present, but have retained many characteristics of transit-friendly neighborhoods.

The presence of transit in itself doesn't ensure quality urban design and the successful community development that follows. In this regard, Cleveland=s rail system presents two strikingly different models. RTA's Green and Blue lines are, for the most part, carefully integrated into the neighborhoods they serve, and are thus more amenable to pedestrian-oriented development around their stations. The Red Line, on the other hand, was built mostly in an existing freight railroad right-of-way, and its stations are often not within a convenient walk of anywhere. Because of this, the Red Line is more suited to park-and-ride (or kiss-and-ride) arrangements around its stations, though there are certainly some Red Line stations where TOD is being or could be fostered.

Why is TOD a good idea? With its emphasis on dense, walkable neighborhoods, TOD can help revitalize older neighborhoods, reduce automobile dependency, preserve farmland and countryside, and improve access to economic and educational opportunities for everyone. By playing a role in the resuscitation of street life and the public realm, TOD can also contribute to bridging the gaps among disparate social and economic groups, ending the cycle of abandonment that has gutted many older communities in this region.

Many of our older neighborhoods, some still vibrant, some less so, are ideally suited to redevelopment using TOD principles. As a result of decades of spiraling decline, Cleveland has almost inexhaustible opportunities for infill development. It also helps that Cleveland has an existing rail system and neighborhoods that are already pedestrian-friendly in some ways, and, given all the room to maneuver, redevelopment need not result in wholesale displacement of current residents, as it sometimes has in other places (or as it did in Cleveland in the urban renewal era).

TOD is radically different from current auto-oriented development patterns, but it doesn't actually propose radical changes to the daily lives of most people. Residents of transit-oriented neighborhoods are not necessarily carless, though ideally they could do without cars if they chose to. TOD allows us to redeploy the automobile into a more efficient role. Since TOD supports innovative enterprises like carsharing--in which individuals or families would have access to automobiles on an as-needed, maintenance-free basis--people can reduce their transportation expenses without losing access to the unique advantages of the private automobile. When the average cost of owning a car hovers around $8,000 per year, reducing the number of cars per household certainly makes sense.

How can TOD be achieved? Transit-oriented design should be the preferred strategy for urban redevelopment in Northeast Ohio. Transit should be developed in areas where there is the potential ridership to support it, and, in turn, development efforts should be directed to areas where transit resources already exist. The Committee for Transit-Oriented Design hopes to build awareness of the potential of TOD as a community redevelopment strategy.

Local governments have an important role to play in TOD. All too often, officials are asked to spread public money thinly across many projects (street repaving, landscaping, lighting, public art, etc.), never generating enough excitement to create the critical mass that attracts large-scale private development. But when TOD policies establish priorities for neighborhood revitalization plans, officials can spend limited public investment dollars in clearly targeted zones. Revitalization gradually spreads in all directions from these newly desirable places.

Among the contributions local governments can make toward transit-oriented development are supportive zoning that encourages mixing of housing, shops and office space; reduced parking requirements to reflect reduced automobile dependency; and street-design guidelines that de-emphasize traffic speed and volume to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.

Where should TOD take root? After 50 years of sprawl and dispersal, demographic change has encouraged the development community to re-enter urban environments. There is once again demand for true neighborhoods, where shopping and services are closer at hand, and where walking, bicycling and transit are viable ways to meet daily needs. Cleveland State University analysis shows demand for new housing is outstripping supply in Cleveland's urban neighborhoods. Likewise, national studies show that baby boomers are increasingly attracted to townhouses and cluster homes in urban places. TOD policies produce these attractive community settings and housing styles, and can give older neighborhoods a competitive edge in the regional marketplace.

For example, the Cleveland EcoVillage project has created a neighbhorhood identity and increased development interest in the district around the soon-to-be-rebuilt Red Line station near Lorain Avenue and West 65th Street. Ground has just been broken for 20 townhouses, and existing homes in the area are being upgraded.

Though transit-oriented design can certainly add quality and interest to new development in outer suburban areas, TOD is probably most suited to Cleveland and Akron and their inner-circle suburbs. We acknowledge that TOD is but one of many strategies that must be pursued if our region is to return to and improve upon its former greatness, but, as other regions have begun to show, its potential usefulness should not be dismissed. For more information and links to other resources, visit the cTOD website at www.ctod.org.

Betsy Pettit of Building Sciences Corporation designed the new townhouses in the Cleveland Ecovillage, a project of Detroit-Shoreway Community Development and Ecocity Cleveland (www.ecocitycleveland.org).

 

Many new suburban developments, sometimes called "lifestyle centers," are taking on the look of transit-oriented development and other forms of neo-traditional design. The very popular Easton Town Center in Columbus is an example of this model. A shopping center anchored by Nordstrom and Lazarus, Easton simulates an urban neighborhood that evolved to its present form over generations. Many of the stores front on private street-like passageways, where it is often possible to park "on street." Pleasant outdoor gathering spaces are an important element of the lifestyle-center phenomenon, and a mix of uses, including residential and office, is often implied.

Lifestyle centers clearly have appeal. Besides functioning as general-purpose shopping and entertainment centers, they tap into the grand escapism previously restricted, at least on this scale, to places like Disneyland, Times Square or Las Vegas. It is important, however, that a place not be considered transit-oriented simply because it has some of the trappings of TOD.

Easton and places like it showcase tools that can be useful in revitalizing older urban or semi-urban districts (Shaker Square, for example), but their existence is not, in itself, indicative of urban revitalization, and the new suburban lifestyle centers are usually not transit-oriented. They are more likely to shun or de-emphasize transit, though for staffing purposes they usually require at least limited access to it. The centers also lack genuine public space, though their welcoming private gathering places are similar to public space in appearance. They mimic urban patterns that have evolved over time, but they cannot mimic the social and historical complexity of those places. In reality, the suburban lifestyle centers are yet another example of successful greenfield development- a new kind of example. They mimic older urban districts in some ways, but this is little solace to older communities seeking to stem the flow of their vitality to outlying areas.

Greater Cleveland is likely to have versions of Easton in the near future–Crocker Park in Westlake and the Legacy development in Lyndhurst will probably appear soon. While we are not saying that the experience-oriented lifestyle centers of suburbia are bad for our collective health, it is important to understand what they are, and aren’t. –Vince Reddy