Which of these West Coast Cities/Metro Areas will have the best TOD by 2030? (better, Los Angeles)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Agreed, for all its density, LA is much too car-oriented, by every measure.
Its policy isn't helpful, making growth difficult and requiring suburban levels of parking (which I gather might change at long last).
That's where Seattle excels. You can build less parking and often no parking in new buildings. And growth is much easier due to state policies that require counties and cities to accommodate it. Most do it specifically by encouraging TOD growth so they can avoid changing SFR areas, though some are starting to upzone those too.
LA builds more TOD than Seattle. But Seattle builds far more apartments and offices per capita. (Core cities, metros, whatever) If you want to see the variation I can pull up Friday's real-time numbers for each.
But the kicker is this is "best TOD," not most TOD.
Hands down it's the Sacramento-Fresno strip that'll become most TOD by 2030. There is massive development + connectivity in various cities in that stretch.
I went with LA because they've had to come from behind the farthest. Before rapid transit in the 1980s, LA was a huge, sprawling freeway-oriented mess. Now, 30-odd years later, the transformation is stunning: downtown is suddenly tighter, walkable, and more vertical; mixed-use development is springing up near rail stations (including several Metrolink commuter rail stations (along the 400-mile network) -- but LA still has a long way to go even though it is achieving great things.
Other cities on the list: esp SF and Seattle, were already less sprawling and more transit-friendly, to begin with. Part of it, of course, is because these 2 cities are geographically land-locked, unlike LA, which sprawls over a wide swath of unbroken land.
Wilshire Blvd corridor might cover a population the size of Seattle but I’ve walked a few miles of Wilshire Blvd on a nice day and can count the number of pedestrians on the sidewalks with my fingers. I think the culture on transit, cycling and walking are just so different between Seattle and LA.
Seattle level density with good transit, good walking infrastructure and walkable stores make for a great quality of life.
So you walked for miles along a street that is the core artery of 15-40,000 ppsm tracts for 16 miles and saw fewer than 10 people walking around?
I guess we'll just have to take your word on that one.
Riding on transit is probably more pleasurable in Seattle, but the "culture on transit" in central Los Angeles varies between standing room only on buses and the Expo line being so full you can't even board. L.A.'s partially complete subway already has nearly double the ridership of Seattle Link despite being a smaller system.
I went with LA because they've had to come from behind the farthest. Before rapid transit in the 1980s, LA was a huge, sprawling freeway-oriented mess. Now, 30-odd years later, the transformation is stunning: downtown is suddenly tighter, walkable, and more vertical; mixed-use development is springing up near rail stations (including several Metrolink commuter rail stations (along the 400-mile network) -- but LA still has a long way to go even though it is achieving great things.
Other cities on the list: esp SF and Seattle, were already less sprawling and more transit-friendly, to begin with. Part of it, of course, is because these 2 cities are geographically land-locked, unlike LA, which sprawls over a wide swath of unbroken land.
This is a myth.
While Los Angeles was in the process of building out a next generation light rail/subway (after already having been a world mass transit leader in earlier generations), Seattle was still debating on whether to even have any kind of interurban rail system well into the 2000's.
That's one of the few non-Downtown stations in the system without significant TOD. Also, while no one would claim Rainier Beach (literally on the very edge of Seattle city boundary) is urban, I wouldn't call this super sprawled out generic suburbia (1 block from the station):
Man, Portland is often underrated, and this thread is Exhibit A. It definitely deserves more votes. They do a nice job of creating livable, human-scale TOD. It might not be as prevalent as it should be, but there's still a pretty good amount.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
