In rapidly urbanizing and motorizing cities of the world, massive investments are being made in high-capacity transit systems to fend off worsening traffic congestion. Most investments have been guided by engineering principles, focused on improving mobility but failing to capitalize on opportunities to reshape the growth of cities in more sustainable urban formats.  Cervero in this lecture argues that transit stations can become viable hubs of compact, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly development, however a number of prerequisites are essential for this occur, such as distinguishing roles of stations as logistical versus place-making nodes.

A mixed-methods approach is used to underscore these points, focusing on case experiences. Statistical relationships between urban densities, vehicle-kilometers per capita, and public-transport ridership per person are examined for cities worldwide using intrametropolitan data from Seoul and intermetropolitan data from UITP and other sources.  Experiences in Seoul, Portland, Bogotá and Ahmedabad are explored.

Cervero argues that a fundamental change in conceptualizing large-scale transportation investments is needed that frames them as both mobility-enhancing and  city-shaping opportunities, providing a backbone for guiding growth in a more compact, mixed-use and sustainable urban format. Case experiences provide valuable policy insights in this regard:

1. Often, long-range strategic planning and urban development objectives are usurped by near-term engineering and cost-minimization objectives, resulting in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and metro lines being routed and stations sited in areas with minimal development potential.

2. Transit-oriented redevelopment requires the public sector to share development risks through pro-active policies such as helping with land assemblage, financial and tax incentives, targeted supportive infrastructure investments, and regulatory reforms that incentivize compact, mixed-use development.

3. Auto-restraint policies are often need to be introduced in parallel with Transit Oriented Development (TOD) to off-set the hidden subsidies that promote automobility.

4. TOD presents tremendous value-capture opportunities that generate revenues needed not only to fund high-quality transit investments but also the station-area armature and related improvements. However, Cervero states there must be the institutional capacity and political will to capitalize on land-price benefits.