Rail transit unlikely to stimulate urban redevelopment
A quick glance to either side of the rail-transit platform at East 79th Street on Cleveland’s Blue Line belies one of the more novel claims of modern-day rail transit advocates: rail transit stimulates economic development.Despite the fact Cleveland’s rail system is one of the oldest in the nation, vacant land surrounds the station. Grass and a clump of mature trees separate the station from a several older, wood-frame two-story houses — hardly the high-density, mixed use development advocates claim will come with new rail stations. The waiting area is vandalized by graffiti, the loading station is not well maintained, and weeds are overtaking both sides of the platform.
Nevertheless, trains have captured the imagination of Ohio transit planners. Multimillion dollar proposals to create new rail systems in Cincinnati and Columbus, and extend the existing system in Cleveland, are on the front burner for city and regional officials. Combined, Ohio’s transit and transportation planning agencies want to spend almost $2 billion for these systems.[1]
At first blush, the idea seems plausible: Ohio’s metropolitan areas are adding thousands of people and new jobs, clogging existing highways. Rail transit could mitigate this congestion by clustering people and jobs near transit stations, and using frequent service and high-capacity trains to transport them.
Portland, Oregon is the most heralded nationwide example of effective rail transit. Urban and transportation planners are using the concepts behind "transit-oriented development," or TOD, to reshape the city.[2] By insuring frequent and on-time service, rail transit supposedly competes with the automobile and fosters higher density, mixed-use land development.
The relationship between rail investment and economic development, however, is not nearly as direct as rail advocates claim. In fact, development along both transit lines has not occurred spontaneously: most
projects require steep public subsidies and benefit from streamlined review processes.[3] The City of Portland has even been relegated to granting 10-year tax abatements for any new development within walking distance of a rail station.[4]
Along the West Side line, a TOD called The Round at Beaverton sits half-built and deteriorating, mired in legal issues and the bankruptcy of its principal developer. The Round is benefiting from tens of millions of dollars in city subsidies despite its location in one of the fastest growing areas of the Portland region. Weak demand nevertheless fails to sufficiently compensate private investors for the project’s high costs. Meanwhile, a study of Portland’s 15-year old East Side line found virtually no impact on land-use.[5] More importantly, traffic on the adjacent I-84 has risen 70 percent.[6]
Even if rail-transit stimulated development around station areas without subsidy, the regional impact would be minimal. A quick look at Ohio’s proposals shows why.
Transit planners have determined that, on average, people will walk only about one-quarter of a mile to a transit station. This means that planned rail projects will impact barely 1% of the land area in Cleveland’s urbanized area and 2% in the Columbus and Cincinnati areas.[7] Thus, 98% or more of the region’s population will be beyond reach of the rail stations.
Rail’s problems are compounded by the fact most proposals are designed around a "hub-and-spoke" transit concept that focuses transit on the downtown. Downtown represents less than 10% of regional employment in each of Ohio’s major metropolitan areas, and their share of regional employment is falling. In Columbus, trips to the downtown make up just 14.8% of all work trips, but the share is not expected to change significantly.[8]
Unfortunately for rail advocates, designing rail systems to serve the now more numerous suburb-to-suburb commutes doesn’t make sense either. Suburban residential and employment centers simply do not have the densities required to support rail in any meaningful sense (e.g., congestion reduction or cost effectiveness).
Thus, no new rail system can be expected to make a perceivable difference in traffic congestion in Ohio, regardless of the billions that are spent. In the Cincinnati area, projected highway-based transit alternatives consistently outperformed projected light rail alternatives for reducing congestion.[9] Even if the Columbus area’s transit-expansion plan were fully implemented, public transit’s share of daily trips on a regional level would increase from about 1% now to 1.5%.[10]
Policymakers and elected officials should not pin their hopes for solving Ohio’s redevelopment and congestion problems on a nineteenth-century transportation technology. While mass transit can provide mobility for people without access to automobiles and for commuters to downtown areas, rail systems are not suitable to the transportation needs of the twenty-first-century city. Cities would be much better served by improving existing road and bus networks and by paying more attention to their local business climate than priming local transit pumps to stimulate broad-based redevelopment.
Notes
Regional Impact of Rail Transit Stations
Size of Number Area
Region of Rail Impacted % of Region
(sq. miles) Stations (sq. miles) Region
Cincinnati 512 51 12.5 2.4%
Cleveland 636 30 7.5 1.2%
Columbus 345 24 6.0 1.7%
Source: Regions are urbanized areas as defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census from Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database. Cleveland transit stops based on existing stations. Columbus transit stops based on four planned first tier commuter-rail corridors outlined in Burgess and Nipple, et al. Vision 2020: Transportation for a Great Community (Columbus: COTA/Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, February 1999), figures 20-24. Cincinnati Transit stops based light rail line planned for Burgess and Nipple et al. I-71 Transportation Corridor Study (Cincinnati: Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, August 1998), table 5.1
[1] For a review and critical appraisal, see If You Build It, Will They Ride? The Potential of Rail Transit in Ohio’s Major Cities (Columbus, Ohio: The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, October, 1999).
[2] For a comprehensive review of the philosophy and design principles underlying this trend, see Michael Bernick and Robert Cervero, Transit Villages in the 21st Century (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997).
[3] Similar imbalances are evident along the Dallas transit corridors. Most of the new development is along the city’s north line, extending into the city’s vibrant suburban areas. Investment around the south line transit stations, in contrast, appears to be languishing. Indeed, much of the new development in the city’s downtown is also occurring away from existing rail transit lines.
[4] Portland City Code, Section 3.103. See also Kenneth J. Deuker and Martha J. Bianco, "Light Rail Impacts in Portland: The First Ten Years," Transportation Research Record, forthcoming, http://www.upa.pdx.edu/CUS/PUBS/PDFs/DP98-9.pdf.
[5] Deuker and Bianco, "Light Rail Impacts in Portland."
[6] Calculated from Oregon Department of Transportation traffic counts and available at http://www.publicpurpose.com. From 1987 to 1994, traffic rose 24%. See Deuker and Bianco, "Light Rail Impacts in Portland."
[7] A rule of thumb in transit policy is that a transit station has its maximum impact within a quarter mile of a transit stop. This is the industry standard and is used by both Portland and Dallas. See Bernard L. Weinstein and Terry L. Clower, "The Initial Economic Impacts of the DART LRT System," April 1999, unpublished paper.
[8] The number of work trips to the Central Business District, however, is expected to increase by 52 percent. This, however, appears inconsistent with estimates that the region’s population and jobs will continue to decentralize through the year 2020. While Columbus’s downtown residential population is expected to increase by 2,000 people, this represents less than 1% of the city’s population.
[9] Burgess and Nipple et al. I-71 Transportation Corridor Study (Cincinnati: Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, August 1998), Table 3.7. See also the discussion in If You Build It, Will They Ride? pp. 17-21.
[10] Burgess and Nipple, et al. Vision 2020: Transportation for a Great Community (Columbus: COTA/Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, February 1999), p. 44.
Samuel R. Staley is a Senior Fellow at The Buckeye Institute. Wendell Cox is Principal of Wendell Cox Consultancy (www.publicpurpose.com), an international consulting firm specializing in transportation policy based in Belleview, Illinois.
