What will the Southwest LRT look like? Met Council proposes new guidelines for transitways

From Dave Van Hattum, TLC

As the region makes visible progress in building new transitways—Hiawatha, Central Corridor, beginning preliminary engineering on Southwest, plus Bus Rapid Transit along Cedar Avenue—the Metropolitan Council with a host of collaborators, has proposed new Guidelines to achieve consistency in the location and design of future transitways. Coordinating the design of transit lines, stations, support facilities, fare collection, information technology, and branding are important tasks for metro area transit planners. And have a huge impact on the way individuals, cities, developers, and businesses will interact with the transit lines once they open.

Transitways, by the Council’s definition, include light rail transit (LRT), highway bus rapid transit (BRT)-- both station-to-station and express service--commuter rail, and arterial BRT. For those curious about the engineering details of new transitways, the Guidelines offer a mother lode of detail. One of the interesting outcomes of the guidelines is the adoption of color names for each of the regional transitways.

The new Guidelines are timely and important because transitway planning and implementation in our region is complex.  Unlike many regions that have one transit provider that does planning, engineering, construction, and operations, our region has at least ten responsible agencies including the Met Council, Metro Transit, suburban transit providers, MnDOT, the Counties Transit Improvement Board (CTIB), metro-area counties, and many individual cities.

The region’s Corridors  of Opportunity initiative, spearheaded by  public agencies, philanthropic foundations, and public and non-profit housing agencies, is highly involved in shaping real estate and land development adjacent to transitways.

TLC comments on the draft Guidelines

In a comment letter submitted on November 18, 2011, TLC offered suggestions to the Met Council that we believe would improve the effectiveness of the Guidelines in achieving policy goals. These suggestions address land-use planning, transit-oriented planning, parking, and bicycle and pedestrians connections.

Coordination with Corridors of Opportunity

One shortcoming of the proposed Guidelines is the lack of clarity regarding how broadly they should be applied.  They don’t, for example, set or recommend goals, strategies and opportunities for new transit-oriented-development. They don’t articulate a much needed template for community involvement on key decisions related to the design of the transitway and adjacent development.

With the Met Council, philanthropic organizations, and several other public sector agencies working to shape land development adjacent to transitways through the Corridors of Opportunity initiative, the guidelines should be expanded to call for vibrant place-making and economic development surrounding the new station areas.

TLC encourages a holistic look at how transitways, and more specifically rail and BRT station areas, can spur new compact in-fill development and create a seamless array of travel options other than driving. 

Transit-Oriented-Development (TOD)

On this topic, the proposed Guidelines reference the Council’s on-line Guide to Transit-Oriented-Development. The 2005 Guide is useful but in dire need of a  rewrite to better assist local communities who could benefit from new development. A revised TOD Guide (which is on the Council’s 2012 work plan) should include explicit TOD goals, greater specificity about tools and collaborative strategies to achieve these goals, explicit procedures for advancing affordable housing, and annual reporting on TOD outcomes. While an obvious goal of TOD is the reduction of car travel, the Met Council has not collected any data on increased use of transit, biking and walking (and decreased  choice of driving alone).

The City of Saint Paul and Denver Regional Transportation District have good examples of TOD Strategy and Guides.

Car Parking

How parking is designed at transitway stations is critical to the long-term success of the corridor (i.e. ridership) and adjacent development. Parking needs to be designed to anticipate increasing density in land use. TLC recommends far stronger language in the Guidelines regarding the amount and priority of parking in proximity to transit stations. We reject the assumption that “surface lots are generally preferred for cost reasons” and the hesitancy to articulate a clear vision in which car parking is reduced over time. DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) TOD Policy does an excellent job of promoting shared parking, structured parking, and reducing the oversupply of parking.  

Pedestrian and Bicycle Connections

The Guidelines do a good job of identifying the importance of high-quality, safe and convenient pedestrian and bicycle connections. We recommend, however, being more explicit about where funding for these connections will come from. CTIB, for example, has the authority to spend 1.25% of revenues raised by the ¼ cent regional transit sales tax on bike/pedestrian connections but to date has yet to allocate meaningful funding for this purpose.

Overall, the proposed Guidelines are a good first step, but should be strengthened before formally adopted. Once complete, they will be a useful tool to guide public investment in transit infrastructure while encouraging private-sector investment to revitalize the areas around future stations.

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Comments

[Eric]

I wish we were able to have some express tracks pass some stations. This would really speed up service for people riding from far end points. Just think what kind of system New York or Chicago would have if they had built just double track lines 100 years ago.