Exploring the ability of balance between land use and transportation infrastructure to explain success of transit-oriented development projects in suburban Washington D.C.

Suburban transit-oriented development is understudied in the American context and is more difficult to develop than urban projects due to a heavier reliance on vehicle trips and community preference for lower density infrastructure. (Mathur & Ferrell, 2009) Models are one tool that developers and policy makers use to understand the historical and contemporary context of a site and how best to improve it. (Jacobson & Forsyth, 2008) This research aims to test assessing the balance between transportation infrastructure and land use as an explanatory and predictive tool for developing and evaluating suburban transit-oriented development projects. This relationship was tested by putting 9 suburban Washington D.C. metro stations through a Dutch model that employs 6 different overall factors of TOD success: active transport, public transit network, car and road infrastructure, design of land use, density of population, and diversity of land use, which are grouped into the larger categories of transportation and land use. The model is intended to test the balance between these factors with more balanced models indicating higher levels of success. The model results were evaluated for each station and compared to the context of other TOD models for these stations and a Belgian use case of the Dutch model that also evaluated suburban metro stations. Additionally, two industry professionals were consulted for specific context on how development decisions about these stations are made. The study found that the Dutch model mostly accurately captures the conditions of the 9 case study stations. The closer stations to D.C. were the most balanced, and their dense populations and high access to transit were reflected in the models. None of the nodes were perfectly balanced, which is reflective of the stations’ continued need for development and improvement. However, the model results leave out an important context of how the stations were intentionally developed differently based on their functions as part of a larger corridor. Imbalance isn’t always an indicator of failure, but rather could suggest success depending on the intended purpose of the node. The results suggest potential for the overall relationship between transportation and land use to be important in evaluating TOD, but that balance might not be the most crucial outcome for every station. Rather, evaluating the 6 prongs that make up the model individually and developing a more nuanced model that can capture corridor level planning could be even more valuable for planners.