Transit-Oriented Development: Reshaping the Great American City

AIA Denver, through its Urban Design Committee, explored the concept of Livable Communities through the production of a film on transit-oriented development. The documentary focuses on the benefits that quality design holds for metropolitan Denver communities as their mass transit system expands. The film is focused on three target audiences: neighborhoods, municipalities, and developers. It seeks to educate these viewers to expect and demand excellence in the environments created around anticipated transit stations and integrated development. Through education, it is anticipated that the film will empower communities to reach their full potential.

Back Story

Denver , the Mile High City , faces the prospect of becoming too many miles wide. A steady influx of people challenges the community to grow in sensible, sustainable ways.

A key factor determining the shape of any city is its transportation system and the effect of that system on the use of adjacent land. As an energy-producing state, Colorado is keenly aware of the need for efficiency, conservation, and sustainability in energy use and production. Denver-area citizens demonstrated that awareness in 2004 when they approved funding of FasTracks, a new public transit system with a price tag of $4.7 billion.

Taking the unique opportunity to influence public attitudes and private decisions about what FasTracks could do for this growing city, AIA Denver developed a documentary film called Transit-Oriented Development: Reshaping the Great American City . The film is targeted to three audiences: neighborhoods, municipalities, and developers. It shows how good design is good business, creating special places and yielding a higher return on investment than less thoughtful approaches. It encourages viewers to expect and insist upon excellence in the environments around future transit stops.

The film addresses access to the transportation system, connections, context, density and growth, uses and activities, landscape, and beauty. Through case studies, it identifies challenges and opportunities and makes recommendations useful in the discussion of site-specific projects.

While many cities across the United States are expanding their mass transit systems, there was virtually nothing on film to show, in a visually dynamic way, the effect of design and development decisions along transit lines and at transit stops.

It is widely agreed that t ransit-oriented development (TOD) can enrich active lifestyles, serve the elderly and disabled, increase property values, and bring vibrancy to communities. This style of development improves transportation choices and opens new options for the locations of commerce and housing. By encouraging less dependence on private automobile use, TOD can help improve air quality and public health. It can support safe, attractive, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable communities. It is an antidote to sprawl.

The roots of this documentary took hold in 2004 when AIA Denver led a series of public workshops to establish transit-oriented design criteria. The workshops involved local governments, the Denver Council of Governments, the Rocky Mountain Institute, area universities, the Urban Land Institute, and the Transit Alliance. Two years later, production of the film began with interviews of experts, developers, citizens, and the development of case studies. In consulting with other AIA chapters across the country, the producers discovered that many projects labeled “TOD” are merely transit-related, and fail to take advantage of the full range of opportunities TOD presents. This research helped inform the final documentary.

The complete 90-minute film made its debut at the Urban Land Institute's national convention in 2006, and was shown at the U.S. Green Building Council Conference in Denver later that year and during Architecture Week in 2007.

The film is now available for distribution as the FasTracks design process begins. Citizens can arrange for a showing in their communities and before local governmental and regulatory bodies. The Urban Design Committee has also made itself available to work with local municipalities, developers, and neighborhood groups, and has prepared a unique evaluation system that can be used to objectively critique proposed development. As citizens become informed about the powerful impact of transit systems on their environments, they can help create successful, sustainable, and more livable communities for themselves and future generations.