On Sept. 23, more than 100 regional leaders gathered at Redmond City Hall as part of a Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) meeting to discuss ways to partner and improve the market for transit-oriented development in the region.
During the meeting, King County Executive Dow Constantine addressed the room. According to the PSRC blog, he addressed how far the region has come in the 19 years since Sound Transit was initially approved in 1996 — pointing out the transformation of neighborhoods into a more vibrant mix of housing, activities and job centers.
Constantine also highlighted the importance of continuing the work with his new Regional Transit Oriented Development Initiative, which will seek to expand affordable housing opportunities in station areas.
On Monday, Constantine’s office launched an initiative to create 700 units of workforce housing around transit centers.
According to the county website, those 700 units would be “created in mixed-use, mixed-income communities built around transit centers.”
“Light rail has the power to transform communities,” Constantine said on the website. “With this vision we can be deliberate about creating vibrant, walkable, economically diverse neighborhoods around new and existing stations.”
For more information about Constantine’s initiative, visit tinyurl.com/otkna4r.
In addition to Constantine, last week’s meeting featured a number of other speakers, including Don Billen, high capacity transit project development director for Sound Transit.
Billen spoke about how Sound Transit considers the land-use effects of their projects when it comes to planning and design. He also discussed how local jurisdictions can partner with Sound Transit during project development as well as the new analytical tools Sound Transit is developing to look more closely at transit-oriented development early in project development.
“Transit-oriented development (TOD) is a land-development pattern that integrates transit and land use by promoting transit ridership while supporting community land-use and development visions,” Billen said. “TOD typically consists of public and private development projects that create dense, pedestrian-oriented environments with a mix of land uses and activities at and around transit facilities.”
He added that the design, configuration and mix of buildings and activities around a transit facility — as well as the location and design of the transit facility — has many benefits and should encourage people to use transit and foster a healthy, livable environment.
“With the region rapidly growing, TOD brings more of the region’s residents within easy walking distance of its services and increases ridership,” Billen said. “It reduces car travel, improves quality of life and helps the region realize its vision for land use, transportation and development. It increases the tax base and supports local economic and community development.”
Alan Hart, founding principal of Via Architecture in Seattle, also attended last week’s event.
He participated in a panel discussion about TOD.
Hart said TOD is important because a lot of money and energy is invested into planning and building rapid transit and with coordinated regional land use and transportation plan, “we can connect the dots more efficiently and more strategically.”
“Coordinated land use and transportation and development — which is essentially what TOD is — optimizes that transportation investment and in turn creates walkable, livable, sustainable communities that (raise) the potential to provide housing and transportation choices for the majority of people,” he said.
