Boosting Transit-Oriented Development in Lake County
By: Andy Davis
Transit-Oriented Development to be the Backbone of Lake County
Transit-Oriented Development, often abbreviated as “TOD“, is defined as “a type of urban development that maximizes the amount of residential, business, and leisure space within walking distance of public transport. It promotes a symbiotic relationship between dense, compact urban form and public transport use. In doing so, TOD aims to increase public transport ridership by reducing the use of private cars and by promoting sustainable urban growth.”
In essence, TOD is about using land around transit stops in an efficient manner that makes the station more useful, both as a point of origin and point of destination. The Greater Cleveland area has a passion for building stations and then surrounding them with parking lots, which are known as “Park-n-Rides“. Park-n-rides are ubiquitous to American public transit; they go hand-in-hand. However, successful transit authorities, such as Chicago, NYC, Boston, and even Portland (OR) have seen their transit ridership increase with developments around rapid transit lines. Slowly, as a country, we are re-learning that developments around rapid transit maintain community infrastructure, increase land values, and promote visibility to consumers for businesses.
Think about it: When you’re driving down the street, you’re completely focused on the road and the surrounding automobiles in order to get to your destination safely. (Yes, we know that a many Lake County drivers do not oblige to that rule.) However, you’re not looking out the window at the businesses and destinations that you pass by. That’s an area where transit and TOD excel in, compared to car dependency. TOD increases the visibility to customers for businesses, due to the fact that transit riders are typically walking/biking to a station, which allows for more visibility by more potential customers.
However, transit-oriented development isn’t just about placing businesses and living spaces in a strategical manner. It’s also about creating more destinations in an area. TOD can be parks, schools, libraries, and other amenities that a typical citizen might frequent. TOD is about taking otherwise-vacant land, and using that land as a canvas to create a center of community, commerce, and comfortability.
Rebuilding Our Downtowns
In Lake County, there are plenty of examples of dense developments (Painesville, Willoughby, Fairport, etc.). However, these areas are not supplemented by rapid transit, which is transit that runs in a high-capacity and low-headway manner, making for it to be more efficient than typical transit. This lack of supplementation by transit means that these areas, such as Downtown Willoughby shown to the right, are left to depend on parking spaces for commerce. For example, Downtown Willoughby loses 15-20% of its main downtown area to parking, as highlighted in the red on the map. That’s no coincidence, as the only transit that DTW sees is Laketran Bus #2 and #6, which run between 5 AM and 9 PM at 40/60 minute intervals. If frequency were to be increased with TOD also increasing, these parking lots could turn DTW into much more of a destination than it already is.
Looking into an optimistic lens, it’s noted that these empty, flat lots leave a blank canvas for future developments, where the sky is the limit. Building on top of parking lots leads to cheaper, faster, and easier timelines for construction, which is amazing news for a possible new wave of transit-oriented development across the county. Also, new buildings strengthen the fabric of dense areas, where streets can be lined with businesses, parks, and housing instead of leaving room for parking lots. This allows for people to live, play, and exist downtown, instead of continuously sprawling father apart from each other.
How Can We Fix This?
As mentioned above, Lake County is filled with areas that can be considered to be “blank canvases“ to developers. Empty lots and industrial areas fill our downtowns at the moment. However, despite 50+ years of development bein g handicapped by parking minimums and car dependency, the fixes are very simple, as they have been implemented before. Governments should find ways to keep and improve transit funding in a sustainable way. Then, our citizens, Laketran, and Lake County for Public Transit should urge our municipalities to study and implement transit-oriented development into city masterplans, and continue to hold governments accountable so they get built. With that, we must make sure that promises of improved transit is kept (better frequencies, rapid transit ideas, etc.). With all of these ideas coming together, a strong and resilient community will be built, and then strengthened.
Why Lake County Should Support this Proposal
We can look at an example of how transit improvements positively impact development by examining a local case study: the HealthLine in Cleveland. The HealthLine, for those unfamiliar, is a Bus Rapid Transit line that runs along Euclid Avenue, from Public Square to the Stokes-Windermere Rapid Station, and connects Downtown Cleveland to the Cleveland Clinic/University Hospital Campus, as well as the rest of University Circle. Built in 2008 at the cost of $200 million, it has seen a $9.5 BILLION return on investment, in the form of developments along Euclid Avenue. So, for every dollar invested into the HealthLine’s construction, the city of Cleveland saw a return of $190, in the forms of developments, construction, jobs, etc.
Obviously, Lake County would not see quite the same returns as a downtown corridor, but the returns would still be plentiful. Improvements on public transit are a capital investment that always benefits the community, and that investment benefits the community much more when paired with transit-oriented developments. Think about your experiences with areas like Crocker Park, Legacy Village, and Pinecrest. They’re beautiful developments to shop, eat, and even live in. That type of development is possible in your very hometown in some way, shape, or form. So, why not advocate to make that possibility, a reality?
