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It Takes a (Transit) Village

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 January 2006, 15:00 CST

By Roberts, Russell

You know you're in trouble when people start writing nostalgic, misty-eyed odes about you. It means you're a fading memory ... a vital force that used to be but is now old and spent. That's how trains knew that they were in trouble.

After all, has anything in the last thirty or forty years been written about with such dewy sentiment as the train? Poets, songwriters, and novelists have all waxed fondly about the train, about lying in bed as a child and hearing the tram whistle blow in the distance and lamenting that they don't hear that sound anymore. Trains have been romanticized, memorialized, and idolized. But the common theme running through all this is past tense as if the train belongs to a distant time, and a distant place, that is rapidly fading in our memory.

But don't write the train off just yet - and transit villages are the reason why.

Nightmare on Main Street

Does this sound familiar? You get in your car to drive three miles to the store. On the way you encounter three traffic lights, numerous autos pulling out in front of you from other businesses, road construction that has closed one lane of the highway, and another car that rode so close behind you he/she might have been in your back seat. By the time you return home your quick trip to the store has taken 90 minutes, and made you feel like shaving all the hair off your dog and drinking 25 beers.

Welcome to suburban sprawl. More and more shopping centers, housing developments and cars on formerly benign green spaces have produced a perpetual nightmare on the highways, in which the only time that you make good time in the car is three A.M.. It's exactly that scenario that has led to the rise of the transit village.

As traffic jams reach epic proportions across America, planners and developers are looking to combine built-up neighborhoods with new train systems to create a better form of community that has become known as the transit village. It has become apparent to everyone from community planners to residents that just building more highways is not going to make the suburban sprawl problem go away. So the whole problem of transportation has been re-thought. And in the re-thinking, an old idea - the train - has become new again.

Typically, transit villages are well-populated urban communities that are served by transit and train systems. According to the book Transit Villages In the 21st Century, the transit village combines the disciplines of urban design, transportation, and market economics. As the book states: "It is partly about creating a built form that encourages people to ride transit more often. However, equally important, it embraces goals related to neighborhood cohesion, social diversity, conservation, public safety, and community revitalization."

The book states several criteria that should be followed when planning a transit village:

1. It extends approximately a quarter mile from a transit station, a distance that can be covered in about 5 minutes by foot.

2. The village centerpiece is the transit station itself and the civic and public spaces that surround it.

3. The transit station connects village residents and workers to the rest of the region, providing convenient and ready access to downtown, major activity centers.

4. The surrounding public spaces or open grounds serve as a community gathering spot, a site for special events, and a place for celebrations.

Transit villages are being rapidly embraced all across America. According to the website www.transitvillages.org., properties that are within a five or ten minute walk to a train stop are selling for up to 25% more than comparable properties further away. The website further states that transit villages save people's health by reducing the stress and strain that the typical nightmare trip on the roadways causes. Furthermore, transit villages result in less use of a car, so they save people money in a myriad of ways, such as lower maintenance and insurance costs, not to mention stops at the gas station.

Jersey Non-Drive

It should come as no surprise that in densely populated, traffic choked New Jersey, home of such wonderful highway innovations as the hideous traffic circle, that transit villages are a hot commodity.

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and New Jersey Transit have developed the Transit Village Initiative to encourage transit- oriented development (TOD). Other state agencies involved include the departments of environmental protection and community affairs, and the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority.

A transit village is a town that has been recognized by the state because it has met the objectives spelled out in the initiative. The transit village designation is awarded to communities that have taken aggressive steps to revitalize the quarter-to-half-mile radius around a transit station.

Each year, the state budgets $1 million for communities selected for the transit village program. The program focuses on projects that encourage mixed-use development near passenger transportation facilities, such as bike paths, sidewalks, streetscapes and signs. Since 1999, 17 New Jersey communities have been designated as transit villages. They are: Pleasantville, Morristown, Rutherford, South Amboy, South Orange, Riverside, Rahway, Metuchen, Belmar, Bloomfield, Bound Brook, Collingswood, Cranford, Matawan, Journal Square/Jersey City, New Brunswick, and Netcong Borough. In 2005, Journal Square/Jersey City and New Brunswick each received a $100,000 grant to support their planning efforts.

According to NJDOT, there are 13 criteria that a potential transit village must meet. Among the most important are:

A strong residential component with a wide variety of housing choices within walking distance of transit.

A commitment to implement regulatory measures, such as a redevelopment plan, zoning ordinance, etc., that support compact, transit-supportive, mixed use development.

An understanding that the transit station is the focal point of the community.

A desire to emphasize amenities that minimize automobile use by maximizing the appeal of transit.

While the number of transit villages in the state is multiplying like two rabbits in a dark closet, NJDOT spokesperson Timothy Greeley said there are no plans at present to limit the program.

"I know of no concrete reason why we would put a limit on the number," he said. "Since we only have 17 right now and we are able to give them the customer service they need, the program can continue to grow." He noted that, for practical reasons, the department would not want to have so many transit villages that its resources were spread too thin, but there are no signs of that happening. "The department is still accepting applications for dedication in 2006," he pointed out.

NJDOT is plainly committed to mass transit, and by extension the transit village concept, as a way of helping New Jersey out of its current traffic mess. When most people think of mass transit in New Jersey, they tend to think of the highlycongested northeastern portions of the state. However, Greeley noted that there is even a plan afoot to reinstitute passenger rail service on the abandoned right of way of the Lackawanna Cutoff in the lesscrowded northwestern portion of the state. Using the train to help manage New Jersey traffic seems to be a growing thing. Can a state dotted with transit villages be far behind?

Copyright Mercer County Chamber of Commerce Dec 01, 2005

Source: Mercer Business

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