The Center for Transit-Oriented Development (CTOD) and the Center for Cities & Schools (CC&S) at the University of California, Berkeley, today released "TOD 205 - Families and Transit-Oriented Development: Creating Complete Communities for All," the seventh in the Federal Transit Administration-sponsored series of reports explaining the best practices of transit-oriented development. This guidebook illustrates why planning for transit-oriented development that serves families is important for creating truly "complete" communities and how such planning can be achieved in conjunction with school stakeholders.
"There's a real change in how communities and developers are thinking about who lives near transit," said Abby Thorne-Lyman, CTOD Director. "TOD projects often cater to young professionals and empty-nesters without young children. But households with children also have an interest in living near transit. However, these families tend to look for a different set of amenities, and access to high-quality education is one of the most important factors they consider - which means that TOD planning has to consider how to align with education."
CTOD and CC&S worked collaboratively to produce this guidebook, which is based on a series of reports CC&S has published over the past two years. The Center for Cities & Schools is an action-oriented policy think tank whose mission is to promote high-quality education as an essential component of urban and metropolitan vitality to create equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities for all (see: citiesandschools.berkeley.edu).
"Our research has found that creating family-friendly communities around transit requires new approaches and partnerships for investment and implementation," said Jeff Vincent, Deputy Director of the Center for Cities & Schools. "Done in tandem with school sites and school districts, TOD planning can support high-quality educational opportunities and the other amenities that matter to families, like parks and libraries, safe streets for walking and biking, and access to grocery stores and daycares."
The first half of the guidebook describes how TOD can support families and why families are an important market segment in developing TOD. The second half of the guidebook delves into seven action-oriented steps that detail how TOD can be planned to attract families and support high-quality education.
The Center for Transit-Oriented Development is the only national nonprofit effort dedicated to providing best practices, research and tools to support equitable market-based transit-oriented development. Other guidebooks in the TOD series can be found on our What Is TOD? page.
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