Dave McCarthy is a candidate for Common Council in District E and serves on the Norwalk Planning and Zoning Commission as secretary.
NORWALK, Conn. "Transit-oriented development," or TOD, is the cornerstone of sustainable development activities in the 21st century. TOD stands in sharp contrast to auto-oriented development, or what has become the basic model of suburban development since World War II. In that model, a family lives close to a highway and has two cars, at least one of which is used to travel daily to work in a central business district. Traffic, pollution and infrastructure needs follow.
TOD is part of the principles of intelligent urbanism, or PIU. Intelligent urbanism covers a range of principles, including environmental concerns, historical preservation and appropriate use of technology in building materials. One of the most important principles in the PIU is conviviality. Conviviality covers a place for the individual, for friendship and social interaction; for the household, for the neighborhood; and for the community at large. So, no matter what we do, we never lose sight of the importance of the neighborhoods that make our communities great.
TOD is a little closer to the streets and a lot more specific that PIU. Where PIU doesn't look to minimize the use of the automobile, I think it is safe to say that TOD does. TOD looks to connect people that live within a certain walkable distance from a transit hub (Metro-North or even the Pulse Point in our case) to their jobs via that hub.
TOD in its perfect form would have a high density mixed use living environment within that distance let's call it a half-mile. As we move away from that node, the density decreases. Of course, we don't live on a featureless plain, so our surroundings would influence the design of our model city. We also live in a developed area, so the development we see occurring is more of a single spot in an already developed area.
If you were living 100 years ago and you thought about railroads and water, you thought about industry. Factories were almost exclusively built a short distance from one or both of these resources. Flash forward to now and railroads and water mean housing. People like to live near the water and they also like proximity to the trains for commuting.
So, take a factory that may have been built a while ago. The industry has gone away, but the building remains, vacant and a target for vandals, with large open areas that were once used for storage. It may even have unremediated environmental issues that need to be attended to. SWRPA's Economic Development Committee has proposed making this sort of site the primary focus for economic development in southwestern Connecticut. By tapping into funds available for Brownfield remediation and then planning for a mixed-use facility (and potentially adding more residences in close proximity) we can create an urban garden that will support a number of different uses.
First, we can create housing for those who need it, adding to the stock of affordable housing by building to the appropriate density. Second, we can attract people who will potentially not own cars, or at least not rely on cars as their primary mode of transport, and instead use the train to get to work. We can, if we keep the mix of uses correct, create a place where people can live and work. Small shops, offices and other non-residential uses are appropriate for this type of development and create an aura that can tie in well to the rest of the community.
The idea is that some may live, work or both in the same place, while others may live there, but use one or more forms of responsible public transport options to commute to work. Development along West Avenue should fall into this scenario; in the long run a truly mixed-use development will offer potential for all of these uses and commuters should be able to take advantage of bus transport to the Sono train station.
It's unrealistic to think that we can eliminate our reliance on automobiles overnight. In the long run, breaking the cycle is the only way. If we can enculturate the young when they are at the point of having their first apartment and more than likely able to commute via train, we can get people to think of other alternatives than cars and that is a good thing. The fact that we can bring vibrancy back to our urban areas is just the icing on the cake.
Any thoughts on transit-oriented development?
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