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There are many examples of transit-friendly planning all over the world, including New Jersey. Many of these communities are "pre-war" communities that were developed during a time when transit-friendly planning was the norm. Many of the older towns along New Jersey Transit's commuter rail lines are examples of transit-friendly planning that data back to when it was the dominant growth pattern. Places like Ridgewood, Cranford, Summit, Bound Brook, Rahway, Spring Lake, Metuchen, Collingswood, Haddonfield, and Hammonton are good examples of suburban towns whose train stations are prominently placed in their downtown areas. In all of these towns, homes and businesses are within easy walking distance of the train station and are linked to the station by a well-connected grid of streets and sidewalks.
But despite the fact that there are a handful of good examples of transit-friendly planning in New Jersey, there are many other cases where transit-friendly planning could work, but has not been implemented. Traffic and sprawl development are huge problems in our state; transit-friendly planning is one of the many ways to effectively reduce these problems.
Morristown
Morristown, population 18,544 (2000 U.S. Census), is the county seat of Morris County, in the eastern part of the county along Interstate 287.
Morristown is one of the older communities in New Jersey that lost a lot of its population in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, thanks to sprawl. However, in recent years, the town has experienced a new wave of growth - during the 1990s, it gained more new residents than in any decade since the 1930s. Morristown is an important employment center, and its employment swells considerably during the day - the town has 3.5 times as many jobs as employed residents, one of the highest such ratios in the state. With over 30,000 jobs located within 3 square miles, it has the highest job density (11,000 jobs per square mile) of any municipality in the state.
Morristown is a stop on New Jersey Transit's Morristown Line, one of the Morris & Essex lines. It is served by Midtown Direct, NJ Transit's new one-seat ride service from the Morris & Essex lines into midtown Manhattan. The launch of Midtown Direct has spurred significant ridership growth on the M&E lines, which is reviving interest in the neighborhoods around the rail stations on those lines.
Morristown's transit-friendly planning project involves the construction of a new multi-use complex on the site of an existing NJ Transit parking lot adjacent to the train station. NJ Transit owns the land, but Morristown controls the zoning on the site. NJ Transit had recently converted an underutilized lot into a 300-space park-and-ride lot to accommodate demand for station-area parking induced by Midtown Direct. But as demand for the new transit service continued to swell, NJ Transit became increasingly aware that Morristown was becoming such a hot real estate market that they should consider a more extensive use of the site. NJ Transit began entertaining proposals from developers for a mixed-use complex on the site that would incorporate a residential component above a 700-space decked parking facility. However, the zoning in the area did not permit housing, so NJ Transit sought out a zoning variance. As a result, NJ Transit and the town of Morristown worked together to create and pass a new ordinance that allowed residential areas to be built in the train station area.
Morristown's response to the NJ Transit proposal resulted in the creation of a new "transit village" zone. The description of the zone includes some of the sample language in NJ Transit's publication, Planning for Transit Friendly Land Use, but also contains additional language developed by Morristown to customize the zone to its own particular needs. The transit village zone currently includes the NJ Transit property and a few other properties near the station, and Morristown is considering expanding the area encompassed by the zone.
Morristown has made some other transit-friendly development decisions (independent of NJ Transit) as well. In the mid 1990s, developers decided that the area could support new multifamily housing. They began submitting proposals for multifamily housing, both inside and outside of places where the existing zoning permitted it. As a result, Morristown undertook a total re-examination of its zoning to determine where densities could be increased. Their general approach is to encourage additional multifamily housing in the "core" area downtown - within walking distance of the train station - while protecting the outer ring of single-family homes, where no change is desired. The creation of new residential units within walking distance of the train station will produce a regional benefit in the form of reduced traffic; for every person who can walk to transit for their trip to work, there is one fewer car on the road.
The New Jersey Department of Transportation has designated Morristown as a Transit Village, in recognition of its transit-friendly development potential.
For more information on Morristown's transit-friendly planning efforts, contact Ken Nelson, of the Nelson Consulting Group, at 973-875-8685.
Morristown's Transit Village Zoning Ordinance
(Coming soon!)
South Orange
The Township of South Orange Village is a municipality of about 17,000 in south-central Essex County, west of Newark and the Garden State Parkway, south of Orange and I-280, and north of Maplewood and Interstate 78.
South Orange has a station stop on NJ Transit's Morris & Essex lines and is served by Midtown Direct service. The town's population peaked in 1970 and declined through that decade, but has been in gradual recovery since the early 1980s and its population is now almost to its 1970 level. Its property values have been decreasing in recent years as well, with average residential value down 10.5 percent from 1990 to 1998 as compared to a median municipal increase (over all 566 of New Jersey's municipalities) of 5.0 percent and a cumulative inflation rate of 21 percent over the same period.
South Orange is a per-war commuter-rail suburb, experiencing its most rapid growth in the 1940s, before the age of the Interstate Highway System. Its train station was the catalyst for the first wave of suburban growth, and today the train station is once again at the center of a revival brought on by the advent of the Midtown Direct service in 1997, NJ Transit's one-seat ride service to midtown Manhattan. Midtown Direct has revived real estate interest in South Orange, especially the area around the train station, and is expected to attract commuters to South Orange who are looking for a small-town atmosphere with easy and quick access to Manhattan and Newark. Already, in marked contrast to the 10.5 percent decline in housing values between 1990 and 1998, average residential value posted a single-year gain of 12.5 percent from 1998 to 1999, the most recent year of data available. Evidence suggests that the rebound has continued apace.
South Orange is taking advantage of this newfound focus on its rail station by emphasizing the station as the center of the community and instituting a general program of redevelopment in the station area. The village is well planned and has the capacity to be extremely pedestrian friendly. The goal of the redevelopment plan is to capitalize on the centrally-located train station and the pedestrian-friendly potential of the surrounding area to create a small-town feel and an intimate sense of place.
The initial momentum for the downtown revival came from a local developer who saw the station area's potential and wanted to assume the leases on 6 vacant downtown buildings. The municipal government and the local downtown revitalization organization, Main Street South Orange, also wanted to see the buildings occupied. The buildings were owned by NJ Transit but the leases were controlled by another landlord, who had appeared uninterested in recruiting tenants. So the village, the developer, NJ Transit, and Main Street South Orange teamed up and negotiated an agreement with the landlord to turn over leasing authority to the developer. The village and the downtown organization also assisted the developer in obtaining a low-interest loan through the Essex County Improvement Authority, with the village serving as underwriter.
At first, some residents balked at the village assuming a role of financial responsibility in the developer's loan. But these objections were overcome thanks to the village's public relations efforts that explained what the town could gain from the redevelopment of the area. South Orange thus illustrates the importance of building consensus by keeping the public apprised of redevelopment efforts and the rationale behind them.
Some redevelopment has already taken place, and more is on the way. A new café, bakery, and an outdoors seating area have replaced old retail outlets that had fallen into disrepair. A small urban park located in the down has been converted to a village green with musical sculptures, a fountain, benches, and tables. Another component of the plan includes Converting South Orange Avenue - the main street that runs past the train station - from a four-lane, pedestrian-unfriendly thoroughfare into a less intimidating three-land road with brick crosswalks to calm traffic and improve pedestrian safety. A new gourmet supermarket is opening across the street from the station as well, and a performing arts center is going to be built in a parking lot adjacent to the station. The plan also includes new housing, to be built at sites within easy walking distance from the train station.
Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon is often cited as a success story in integrating transit and land use. Portland's light-rail system, MAX, together with a metropolitan government and an explicitly defined "urban growth boundary" have steered much of the region's new growth to areas served by the transit system, thereby averting the development of thousands of acres of open land. Part of the strategy for accomplishing the redirection of growth was changing land use patterns near MAX to as to make them conducive to transit use.
Portland, Oregon is often cited as a success story in integrating transit and land use. Portland's light-rail system, MAX, together with a metropolitan government and an explicitly defined "urban growth boundary" have steered much of the region's new growth to areas served by the transit system, thereby averting the development of thousands of acres of open land. Part of the strategy for accomplishing the redirection of growth was changing land use patterns near MAX to as to make them conducive to transit use.
Tri-Met, Portland's metropolitan transit agency, provides a history of the MAX system on its web site (www.tri-met.org/reports/dreams98.htm), underscoring the importance of land use being supportive of transit use and the key role played by municipal government. Of particular interested to anybody interested in a transit-friendly development project is the fact that the website gives examples of different kinds of planning and zoning changes that need to take place for a transit-friendly development project to be successful (www.tri-met.org/reports/dreamssmart.htm).
Washington, DC
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), through its Joint Development Program (www.wmata.com/bus2bus/jd/jointdev.htm), has taken a proactive approach to encouraging transit-friendly development around the stations on its Metrorail system. Several of its suburban stations, including Bethesda, Maryland, and the Rosslyn, Court House, Clarendon, Virginia Square, and Ballston stations in Arlington, Virginia, have served as catalysts for new retail, office, and high-density residential projects, as well as streetscape and other civic improvements, in the areas surrounding the stations. These actions have been deliberately planned by WMATA - in each case, WMATA leased (or occasionally sold) to developers land it already owned, once the land had appreciated to a point where developing it made economic sense. In each case WMATA sought developers who wanted to create transit-focused projects.
First, WMATA decides which of its stations are the most logical candidates for development and redevelopment projects, based on local economic and real estate conditions. Then, the agency incorporates those areas into a work plan (www.wmata.com/bus2bus/jd/jdopportunities.htm). Next, it consults the host municipal or county governments to determine any zoning or building restrictions in place around the stations. Then, WMATA solicits proposals from developers for building mixed-use, transit-friendly projects at the station sites; any building restrictions are stated explicitly in the request for proposals. Once a developer is selected which proposal satisfies WMATA's three requirements (the creation of new Metro riders, new real estate revenue, and new local tax revenue), WMATA and the developer bring the project to the host government to apply for any necessary zoning changes and to seek final approval.
Interestingly, WMATA has no development authority that NJ Transit does not have. The main differences are that WMATA generally owns greater acreage around its stations than NJ Transit does, and that WMATA's parent governments do not consider making a profit from development projects to be incompatible with providing a public service. In fact, its joint development projects produce more than $6 million annually in additional funds for the Metro system, and this amount is projected to grow to $15 million by 2003. WMATA is thus empowered to recapture some of the appreciation in land values that results from its improvements in transit infrastructure. It is also able to exercise considerable control over the type of development that takes place around its stations, ensuring a continued market for its service and simultaneously creating regional benefits in the form of reduced traffic congestion and air pollution.