The Synergistic Effects of Transit Oriented Development and Transit Hubs on Accessibility in the San Francisco Bay Area

Recent working paper: 

• Palmateer, Chelsey, Owen, Andrew, and Levinson, D. (2016) The Synergistic Effects of Transit Oriented Development and Transit Hubs on Accessibility in the San Francisco Bay Area (Working Paper).

This paper is a case study of the accessibility impacts of transit projects and nearby development on transit accessibility in a region, which already has significant levels of accessibility via transit. The project under consideration is the San Francisco Transbay Transit Center and the associated planned development. Findings indicate that both portions of the project increase accessibility via transit in the region. However, the contribution from the planned development is far greater. Furthermore, the increase in accessibility from the project as a whole is greater than the sum of the contributions of the individual portions of the project. This indicates that in areas where there is already transit service, the development of land near the transit service can have a greater impact on accessibility levels than the improvement of connections between transit services.