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The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities
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Transit was once an intrinsic part of our communities. Until the late 1950s and early 1960s, trolley lines, train stations, bus stops and other transit facilities provided both connections and friendly settings that knit communities together, spurred economic development and enhanced community life. Once the automobile took over, much of this transit presence, along with the synergy it created, disappeared. Now, communities are beginning to realize what they missed and are building new transit facilities as well as refurbishing long-neglected ones. They're finding that this new transit-infusion can help restore community livability if the programs are designed and managed in response to local needs.
This handbook, the first to describe how transit facilities and services can be catalysts for improving community livability, is offered by PPS and the Transportation Research Board's Transit Cooperative Research Program. The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities includes not only guidelines, but also case studies of successful transit programs throughout the U.S.
For example, in Woodbridge, New Jersey, a dimly lit tunnel in the side of a railroad viaduct, overgrown with weeds, has been transformed into a welcoming place with an attractive new entrance and activities, comfortable new amenities and physical changes that have strengthened the station's integration with the city's downtown.
In California, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI) has been carrying out demonstration projects around transit facilities that that have evolved from community-based plans in eight transit-dependent neighborhoods. The result has been a series of neighborhood enhancing improvements around bus stops and their vicinities, including information kiosks, new landscaping, lighting, banners, as well as plans for local events, an art park and a community training program in maintenance. The handbook also demonstrates how partnerships between transit agencies and the communities they serve strengthen the potential for success.
The Role of Transit in Creating Livable Metropolitan Communities is out of print and available as a free PDF from the publisher's website.
