We have a great example of that in the Boston area. Assembly Square in Somerville used to be a Ford assembly factory. The orange line goes right through it, but didn't stop there. After the Ford plant closed, it redeveloped as strip malls surrounded by huge parking lots.
In 2014, the MBTA opened an orange line station in Assembly Square. Since then (and party in anticipation of it), the area has been sprouting housing, offices, and ground floor street facing retail. In this case, building the transit was cheap since it was already there. But the existence of the orange line stop induced massive changes.
Downsview Station in Toronto (referred to as a white elephant) is another great example. So much is density is currently planned around the station. If the they plan the network effectively it can become a major hub. They need to extend Sheppard line West to Downsview view and Finch East. Then you will get 4 lines connected at one major hub. The potential is there.
My bus line runs once an hour at peak times. If I miss the bus I can get to home or work quicker by walking half an hour than waiting for the next bus, so I almost never wait for the next bus. But if it ran twice as often I probably would mostly wait for the next bus even though I still could walk home just as fast. (I live up a very steep hill ). But if there were three buses, or more, an hour I can't think of any circumstances under which I wouldn't wait for the next bus. In short, if there was a more regular bus service I would use it more regularly too, but since there isn't I don't.
what do you think of the idea of giving a "transit score" to all land in an urban area (thinking of montreal), and just having housing regulations based on the transit score (i.e. no height limits for all land with a perfect transit score such as right on a major metro intersection)
you could also imagine parking maximums near transit, but not necessary.
it just seems that although the current metro system is well used (because there are a lot of things you might want to do in places with good transit scores), it is so far from being optimally used!
while reducing restrictions on housing development, it seems a city can just control what percent of its population lives in walking/biking distance of their transit system (without adding more transit) far more than we currently see.
similarly, there are many places where there is a major transit hub near a major attraction (for instance a farmer's market), but walking from the transit hub to the attraction is a pain in the legs. (the same could be said for bike/bike-share/e-bikes), and I have the intuition that making these areas nicer to walk has to affect ridership. do you think that is true, and if so, would the increased ridership pay for the redevelopment costs?
Mostly a very good point, but I'm not sure about the London example specifically - in general infrastructure investments are a poor way to revitalize economically depressed areas iirc.
We have a great example of that in the Boston area. Assembly Square in Somerville used to be a Ford assembly factory. The orange line goes right through it, but didn't stop there. After the Ford plant closed, it redeveloped as strip malls surrounded by huge parking lots.
In 2014, the MBTA opened an orange line station in Assembly Square. Since then (and party in anticipation of it), the area has been sprouting housing, offices, and ground floor street facing retail. In this case, building the transit was cheap since it was already there. But the existence of the orange line stop induced massive changes.
Yeah, the change of a concrete platform and some vertical access suddenly made massive densification attractive!
Downsview Station in Toronto (referred to as a white elephant) is another great example. So much is density is currently planned around the station. If the they plan the network effectively it can become a major hub. They need to extend Sheppard line West to Downsview view and Finch East. Then you will get 4 lines connected at one major hub. The potential is there.
Yep, it already has a ton of service, more development and service will only create a virtuous cycle.
My bus line runs once an hour at peak times. If I miss the bus I can get to home or work quicker by walking half an hour than waiting for the next bus, so I almost never wait for the next bus. But if it ran twice as often I probably would mostly wait for the next bus even though I still could walk home just as fast. (I live up a very steep hill ). But if there were three buses, or more, an hour I can't think of any circumstances under which I wouldn't wait for the next bus. In short, if there was a more regular bus service I would use it more regularly too, but since there isn't I don't.
I think it's unintuitive that a seemingly minor increase in service on your route would lead to such a dramatic increase in your use
what do you think of the idea of giving a "transit score" to all land in an urban area (thinking of montreal), and just having housing regulations based on the transit score (i.e. no height limits for all land with a perfect transit score such as right on a major metro intersection)
you could also imagine parking maximums near transit, but not necessary.
it just seems that although the current metro system is well used (because there are a lot of things you might want to do in places with good transit scores), it is so far from being optimally used!
while reducing restrictions on housing development, it seems a city can just control what percent of its population lives in walking/biking distance of their transit system (without adding more transit) far more than we currently see.
similarly, there are many places where there is a major transit hub near a major attraction (for instance a farmer's market), but walking from the transit hub to the attraction is a pain in the legs. (the same could be said for bike/bike-share/e-bikes), and I have the intuition that making these areas nicer to walk has to affect ridership. do you think that is true, and if so, would the increased ridership pay for the redevelopment costs?
Mostly a very good point, but I'm not sure about the London example specifically - in general infrastructure investments are a poor way to revitalize economically depressed areas iirc.