>Increasing the density of jobs, hospitals, restaurants, homes, schools, and more is key … as density grows mass transit becomes essential
This guy has it all backwards. No developer in his right mind is going to plow billions of dollars into high density housing without existing rail access. The new subway and commuter lines have to be built first, then the high density development becomes viable around it.
Both what you say and what the article says is right.
To the article's point, in urban areas, increased density often happens even when mass transit isn't expanded (which then often leads to ever worsening traffic). So, for urban areas that are organically becoming denser, mass transit becomes ever more important, which was partially the article's point in the section you quoted.
Also, to generously read the article, it seems to be making two related points, but not actually imposing a "one should follow the other" ordering that you read into it. The full paragraph:
> Globally, that is nothing notable—in most urban cores a majority of workers take public transportation for work and daily activities. Increasing the density of jobs, hospitals, restaurants, homes, schools, and more is key to the agglomeration effects that make cities such economic powerhouses, and as density grows mass transit becomes essential since it can far surpass the maximum throughput capacity of even the largest roadways.
It is saying two things: 1) high density is critical to be an economic powerhouse and 2) mass transit becomes even more essential as density increases. That paragraph isn't inherently saying mass transit should follow densification (vs preceding densification). Ideally you build out mass transit in anticipation of densification vs playing catch up.
Anyway, to your point, it's absolutely true that building out mass transit is critical in attracting more high-density development (especially very high-density development), and critical in enabling high density development in places that otherwise might not attract that sort of investment.
Not living in the USA, but I have never heard of the idea of a city drawing transportation lines to an empty area in anticipation of new buildings. Transportation is always reactive in my experience, especially if we're talking about costly things like metro lines or trams. You can't predict what will attract people to some area, so building a line to nowhere and expecting developers to move there because an unused line now exists is a waste of public money.
The reason places like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore have such great public transport is precisely because the rail planners work hand in hand with urban planners. Railway construction is largely financed by property sales (both residential and commercial) and when done well is hugely profitable, as the former richest man in the world, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi of the Seibu Corporation, can attest.
Retroactively building a subway line in an already densely populated area is a hugely expensive exercise, as most recently demonstrated in NYC itself with the 2nd Ave extension.
I think this is pretty commonly known, but the railroads built the US American West. It was a hugely speculative endeavor where railroad companies would buy up worthless land for cheap, hire unfavored immigrants and work them harder than anyone else would work, and then recoup costs by selling the land of the railroad towns.
The ongoing transit expansions in Stockholm were green-lit on condition that the municipalities getting increased transit access would invest in building housing in the vicinity of that transit.
You can definitely predict what will attract people to an area - rapid access to everything that the downtowns of cities provide is one such thing.
My wife and I were going to a graduation party in Maryland and figured we’d stay in a hotel near the end of the metro line and ride into DC to see the National Mall, Union Square, etc.
The Shady Grove end of the red line has a large development of mixed commercial and residential of buildings that are uniformly about 5 stories (I think) tall that was built to go with the transit line, I understand it is like that in Virginia too.
China is famous for building metros before building the rest of the city.
Land near public transport services is generally prime real estate. The only developers who wouldn't jump on this opportunity are the ones that hate money.
At a certain point in time, building new streetcar lines and "streetcar suburbs" along those lines was fairly common in US cities. Often the property developer and the streetcar operator were the same company or ownership:
Most of those have since had the streetcar lines removed or abandoned as cheap cars and gas replaced them, and the incentive for the original developer to maintain them went away.
The lower mainland (just outside Vancouver) has the Millenium Line extension. It was, when planned and built, called a train to nowhere. It doesn't go to nowhere anymore :)
One way to do it is for the transit authority itself to build a large amount of real estate next to or over the new station and lease it out. The costs are front-loaded, though, so a large amount of financing (like selling bonds) will be needed.
It's a chicken egg problem... as usual there is no right solution. China is the largest example of building transit infrastructure first, my understanding is that there are a lot of issues there, but most of them are due to how the effort was structured. On the other hand when housing is built first there is a lot of demand for transit infrastructure, but it becomes extremely hard and expensive as seen in every metro area in USA.
In East Asia the problem is that the developments are so good, and nearly always get done with support for infrastructure that there are so many cronies in the government or with insider knowledge that can make bank off the outcome. Leads to some serious issues.
I highly, highly doubt it would be harder for those problems to happen here. In fact I think if it ever happened, it would be a huge corrupt mess.
> This guy has it all backwards. No developer in his right mind is going to plow billions of dollars into high density housing without existing rail access.
this is the default option? build a big complex with a courtyard, then surround it with a parking lot or dedicate 1/4 of the building to a garage.
I'm interested to see what happens with the new potomac yards wmata stop. I appreciate they are trying to expand rail in anticipation of growth, but it looks kinda dumb right now. it's a good 15 minute walk through parking lots to get to the nearest store or apartment building. you would never use that stop if you could afford a car. to be fair, the station just opened. it could look very different in 5-10 years. if they waited for it to densify first, people might be complaining about how much more expensive the station was.
If this is true, then why has almost the entire US worked to make it illegal to build high density housing? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered if nobody was trying to build it?
This guy has it all backwards. No developer in his right mind is going to plow billions of dollars into high density housing without existing rail access. The new subway and commuter lines have to be built first, then the high density development becomes viable around it.