01129361

Component

In 1996, Port Authority of Allegheny County performed an inventory of development that occurred along the 6.8-mile Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway after the busway opened in 1983. A significant amount of development activity was documented at that time. Since 1996, the scale and scope of development along the East Busway has continued to be very significant, particularly around two busway stations which were also the foci of much of the development in the 1980s and early 1990s. This paper reviews and assesses the recent history of development that has occurred along the now 9.1-mile busway. Constraints to development are identified, including challenging topography, declining population, and policies governing regional development and land-use that previously have not been supportive of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). On the other hand, factors that support corridor development have included the corridor’s existing pedestrian orientation, the excellent transit service, ability of the public and private sectors to coordinate financing, and the corridor’s proximity to the region’s expanding center of medicine and higher education. In addition, the regional planning environment has been more supportive, and there is the increasing prevalence of local-area, neighborhood-oriented planning. Finally, the corridor’s development success is reviewed through a comparison with nationally derived success factors for TOD. Although the development in the East Busway corridor did not come out of a “traditional” TOD planning environment, the characteristics of the development along the busway significantly overlap with a set of TOD success factors derived from a national study.

01120148

09-1542

English

15p

2009

Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting

DVD

Maps (2) ; References (6) ; Tables (2)

Bus lanes; Bus terminals; Bus transit operations; Bus transportation; Financing; Land use; Pedestrians; Public private partnerships; Public transit; Regional development; Regional planning; Transit oriented development

Transportation infrastructure

Allegheny County (Pennsylvania); Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania)

Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2009 Paper #09-1542

TRIS, TRB

Jan 30 2009 5:47PM